the connection to Church Avenue. When further sections of the Sixth Avenue Line opened on December 15, 1940, the F train replaced the E train at the East Broadway station. Station layout This underground, deep-level station has two tracks and one narrow island platform. Located at the southern end of the Rutgers Street Tunnel, it has round deep-bore walls with matte-finish white brick tiling and purple tile border. The station is about deep. The platform contains six large circular piers supporting the Manhattan Bridge, which contain white-brick tiling. The standard I-beam columns are painted blue with alternating ones having black name plates in white lettering. The columns are largely apart, except at two locations where they are apart. To the north of the station, the Sixth Avenue Line continues via the Rutgers Street Tunnel to Manhattan; to the south, it converges with the IND Eighth Avenue Line and ends north of Jay Street. The Sixth Avenue Line tracks continue south as the IND Culver Line. Exit Northern exit The only exit, located at the station's north end, leads to the Rutgers Street tunnel ventilation tower at the intersection of York Street and Jay Street. It has a turnstile bank and long passageway and staircase to the platform. Proposed southern exit There were proposals for a mezzanine at the station's south end, with an unbuilt entrance leading to the intersection of High Street and Jay Street. The lack of an entrance created dangerous conditions. For example, when the northern exit was obscured by smoke during a fire in 2003, several commuters were hospitalized because they were mistakenly diverted to the south end of the platform. In 2016, Delson or Sherman Architects proposed a new accessible entrance at the south end of the York Street station. The MTA started conducting a feasibility study for a new entrance in 2021, following complaints from local residents and politicians who said the single entrance posed a safety hazard. The study found that both options for a new southern entrance would be prohibitively expensive because of the complex infrastructure around the site. A full stair and elevator entrance would cost $420–450 million, while an entrance containing only elevators would cost $230–260 million. In both cases, a new mezzanine would need to be constructed. At the time, the MTA was expected to receive $7 million for station improvements from the developer of a nearby building. Points of