Stadium–Armory station


Stadium–Armory is an island-platformed Washington Metro station in the Hill East and Kingman Park neighborhoods of Southeast Washington, D.C., United States. The station was opened on July 1, 1977, and is operated by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. Stadium–Armory serves the Blue, Orange and Silver Lines. It is a transfer station for the Blue/Silver and Orange lines, as this is the last station shared by the three lines before the lines diverge going east and the last underground station for New Carrollton-bound Orange Line trains. East of the station, the trains rise above ground to elevated track above RFK Stadium Lots, cross over the Anacostia River, then onto pocket tracks where the three lines divide with the Orange Line curving onto to northbound Minnesota Avenue and the Blue/Silver Lines continuing along eastbound Benning Road descending underground back into subway mode. Stadium-Armory has entrances on 19th Street at C Street and Independence Avenue.

Location

The Stadium–Armory station serves RFK Stadium, which is the former home of the D.C. United soccer team, the Washington Football Team, and the Washington Nationals, as well as of the second Washington Senators franchise before their relocation to Texas in 1972. The station also serves the D.C. Jail and the D.C. Armory, which is both a popular venue for shows and entertainment and the headquarters of the District of Columbia National Guard. Together with the Potomac Avenue station, Stadium-Armory is one of two Metro stations within walking distance of Congressional Cemetery. Before its closure in 2001, D.C. General Hospital was served by the Stadium–Armory station.

History

The station opened on July 1, 1977. Its opening coincided with the completion of of rail between National Airport and RFK Stadium. Orange Line service to the station began upon the line's opening on November 20, 1978. In 1979, the D.C. Armory requested that the station name be changed to "Starplex", For Stadium Armory Complex, but that request was ignored by the Metro Board. Stadium–Armory would also serve as the eastern terminus of the Blue line from its opening through the opening of its extension to on November 22, 1980.
The station was supposed to be the Silver Line's eastern terminus, but in December 2012, due to safety concerns regarding a pocket track between this station and , Metro officials decided to extend the line into nearby Prince George's County, Maryland to, which is the eastern terminus of the Blue Line. Silver Line service at Stadium-Armory began on July 26, 2014.
With the redevelopment of the former D.C. General Hospital campus into a mixed-use neighborhood called "Hill East", the area around the Stadium–Armory station will be in transition for the first few decades of the twenty-first century. Addtitionally, with the move of D.C. United to a new soccer-specific stadium, Audi Field, in the Buzzard Point area of Washington in July 2018, the future of RFK Stadium is uncertain, with the possibility of demolition lingering over the 1960s-era facility. On September 5, 2019, EventsDC announced the demolition of RFK Stadium will take place in 2021.

Transformer fire

On September 21, 2015, a transformer caught fire near the station, causing severe delays. The reduced power as a result of the loss of the transformer caused WMATA to implement strategies to combat congestion in the system. This included having Orange and Silver line trains skip the Stadium–Armory station during rush hours, but service had been restored as of November.

Station layout