The Station Has a New Name: Jamaica Center-York College, the First CUNY Station Name in Queens
The E, J and Z terminal in Jamaica now carries York College's name — the ninth subway station named for a CUNY college, the first in Queens, at a hub 23,000 riders use every weekday.
Riders in Jamaica have a new name to learn, and it is already on the signs. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has renamed the Jamaica Center-Parsons/Archer subway station — the terminal for the E, J and Z lines at Parsons Boulevard and Archer Avenue — to Jamaica Center-York College, for the CUNY campus a short walk away.
The MTA says the new name identifies a major destination at the station, helping students, faculty, staff and visitors find the campus. The connection is not symbolic for most of them: about 80 percent of York College students rely on public transportation, and the station is the central transit hub of southeast Queens — about 23,000 subway riders on an average weekday, with connections to 30 bus routes.
The renaming makes Jamaica Center-York College the ninth station in the subway system to carry a CUNY college's name, and the first in Queens. It marks the college's 60th anniversary, and the station's entrance signage carrying the new name was in place in October.
York College's president, Dr. Claudia Schrader, called the college incredibly proud to mark its 60th anniversary with the renaming, in the MTA's announcement. For the riders who will never set foot on the campus, the change is smaller and simpler: the end of the E train now announces the college at the end of the line — which, for southeast Queens, is where a great many journeys were already going.
