Michael J. Quill Bus Depot (MTA NYC Transit) (New York City, New York)

USA / New Jersey / Weehawken / New York City, New York / Eleventh Avenue, 525
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3-story bus depot completed in 1967 as the headquarters and bus garage for Greyhound Lines. Designed by De Leuw, Cather, and Associates, it reopened in 1998 as the Westside Depot (after having been bought from Greyhound by New York City Transit in 1996). The building depot was renamed after Michael Quill, one of the founders of the Transport workers Union, in 2000.

The expansive structure fills the entire block between 40th & 41st Street, spanning from 11th to 12th Avenue. Like the other MTA bus depots, the facilitiy perform regular maintenance, cleaning, and painting of buses, as well as collection of revenue from bus fareboxes. It has multiple floors, with bus storage on the roof as well. It is known for a unique "drum-like" structure at the northeast corner of the site, which holds the ramps between the levels. Maintenance facilities are located on the 1st and 2nd floors, and the depot stores around 250-350 buses.

Along the very long north and south elevations, the ground floor is clad in light-blue-painted brick, with the upper levels faced in vertically-oriented recessed panels of concrete with beveled edges, grouped into threes; these trios are spaced by vertical strips of brown metal louvers, some with small, square window openings in the upper half. On the south facade, the westernmost concrete panel in each trio has a pair of circular metal vents (near the top and bottom of the panel). Spaced along the ground floor on the north and south elevations are several angled, metal pedestrian doorways framed in white tile. A large, main bus entrance is located near the east end of the south elevation, with the far east end having six almost-full-height bays of blue brick divided by concrete piers; there is short and wide metal louvers at the top, below a concrete parapet. The east end of the north elevation is slightly set-back, and taller than the rest of the facade, with white tiles at the ground floor and white metal panels above. The northeast corner is rounded.

The east facade, to the south of the rounded corner, has four main bays. Three of them are subdivided by narrow concrete piers and beams into large 2-over-4 squares of blue brick, with metal louvers at the top, while the 2nd from south bay is faced in white metal panels with a metal service door and pair of windows at the ground floor, and four windows spaced across the 2nd floor. The ground floor also has two similar windows, one in each of the flanking bays of blue brick.

The west end of the north and south facades have additional vehicle entrances. On the west facade, the ground floor has a low wall of white tiles, open space between the pier above screened by metal grid. The upper levels repeat the vertical concrete panels from the other facades, but without the interspersed metal louvers bays.
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Coordinates:   40°45'37"N   74°0'1"W
This article was last modified 4 years ago