When baseball returns to Yankee Stadium on Friday, two elevators at the neighboring subway station will remain on the disabled list — with their return to action still weeks away, according to the MTA.
Contractors for the transportation authority have been replacing five elevators at 161st Street-Yankee Stadium since late 2024, but the MTA said Thursday that some work remains, even after three new lifts went into service on the eve of the home-opener against the Miami Marlins on Friday.
As he passed an ELEVATOR CLOSED sign and slowly climbed stairs to the southbound No. 4 line platform with the help of a cane, Anthony Jerez said the outage that started in November 2024 has been frustrating for New Yorkers in need of a lift.
The work was supposed to have been completed last December, but MTA officials pinned the delays on significant structural challenges stemming from the age of some elevator components.
“For people like me, it’s a big problem,” said Jerez, 28, who underwent knee surgery after a recent accident. “We have to force ourselves onto the platform or else find some other way to go.”
A project to replace five subway elevators at the station next to Yankee Stadium started in November 2024 and was supposed to have been finished late last year. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
The two remaining out-of-service elevators that will carry riders to and from the elevated platform on the No. 4 line are set to open “in the coming weeks,” according to the MTA.
“It’s been a minute,” said Yvette Alston, 37, who was pushing a baby stroller through the station Thursday. “Actually, it’s been more than a year, it just feels longer.”
A pair of elevators which connect the station mezzanine with the northbound and southbound platforms for the B and D lines were put into service in the nick of time, on Thursday, along with one at street level.
The work is part of the MTA’s efforts to accelerate the installation of elevators at subway stops across the city. The contract for the 161st Street-Yankee Stadium job was awarded in 2022 as part of a public-private partnership that includes accessibility upgrades at 14 subway stations and nine stops on the Long Island Rail Road.
MTA data shows that the subway system in February had an elevator availability rate — which measures how often elevators are available to riders — of 97%, a figure that Janno Lieber, the authority’s chairperson and chief executive, told the City Council last month is “way, way, way higher than it used to be.”
“In 2025, we doubled the MTA’s previous record for elevator replacements and we’re on track for another great year in 2026,” Jamie Torres-Springer, president of MTA Construction and Development, said in a statement Thursday. “These modernized elevators are a major improvement for Yankee fans and Bronx riders, making it easier and more convenient to take the train to the game this season.”
Transit officials told the City Council last month that the MTA has shaved the length of time for elevator replacements from eight months to six months. But advocates for riders with disabilities said all five elevators should have been replaced and put in service in time for the home-opener.
“Timing is everything in baseball and getting these Yankee Stadium station elevators back in time for Opening Day should have been a top priority for the MTA,” said Joe Rappaport, executive director of Brooklyn Center for the Independence of the Disabled, an advocacy organization. “While the MTA has done better in general, they struck out here.”
Cola Capers, 65, lugs a cart out of the 161st Street-Yankee Stadium Thurday, April 2, 2026. Credit: Alex Krales/ THE CITY
Prior to going out of service in November 2024, the reliability of the station’s elevators had dipped as low as 88.1% in August 2022, MTA data shows. That figure had climbed to 98.2% a month before the start of the replacement project.
Riders at the stations said they will be happy to have full accessibility restored.
“I’m out of breath and I have asthma,” Cola Capers, 65, said after taking the station stairs up to 161st Street shortly before one surface-level elevator went back into service. “But maybe I’ll be using the train more now.”
Additional reporting by Kennedy Sessions.
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