Whatever Happened To?

Four years after eliminating 9 train “skip-stop” service, there are still reminders, making people wistful for the way things once were:

Four years after the line was banished from existence, veteran straphangers and subway novices alike have been puzzled by the re-appearance of the No. 9 sign at the entrance to the 242nd Street Station. Two stops away, at West 231st Street, a small yellow sign hanging above the track — emblazoned with the numbers 1 and 9 — also lends credence to the possibility that two trains still make the 14.7 mile trek from South Ferry to Van Cortlandt Park.

. . .

“Did they bring back the nine?” Frank Petrocelli, 56, wondered aloud as he emerged from the station Sunday. “I always liked the 9. Got me here quicker.”

Alas, New York City Transit squashed any dreams of a resurrection.

“I hope they don’t think the nine is coming back,” Deirdre Parker, spokeswoman for the agency, said of local riders. The downed vinyl covering will be reported to station workers, and the No. 9 emblem covered once again, she said. The same goes for the smaller sign at the 231st Street Station.

When told that the re-emergence of the No. 9 sign was simply a fluke, Mr. Petrocelli grew contemplative.

“Everything gets covered over at one time or another around here,” the construction worker said. “It makes it easy to forget the past.”