If you've ever taken the train to 68th Street and Lexington, you know that the Hunter College stop is not exactly the prettiest. What it is is very, very busy. And handicap inaccessible. But between the Second Avenue Subway and a planned elevator on 68th Street the MTA is really trying to make things better on both fronts. Cool, right? Ha! Ever meet an Upper East Side NIMBY?

The MTA's $57 million plan for the 68th Street station, the 30th busiest in the system, is to close its entrance at the southeast corner and install an elevator where there is now a flower shop. While they do that—to keep the station open and decongest it a little—they'll first add stairs at the southwest and southeast corners of East 69th Street and Lexington Avenue. And this, as DNAinfo reports, has neighbors on 69th Street seeing red.

"The co-ops on 69th Street have gotten together and formed a block association and retained counsel, resident Bill Roskin told the website at a community meeting last night—with his lawyer from Davidoff Malito & Hutcher sitting next to him. He says his block is "pristine" and worried that adding an egress to the busy station on his corner would "attract people looking to hang out" on his block. Really? Wouldn't the Hunter kids have found your stoop by now if they were ever going to find it?

Or, as another neighbor put it, "The idea of spending $57 million because you want to put in an elevator, and that elevator is going to change the character of our buildings, is madness."

Still, the MTA is holding its ground. The elevator is necessitated by law, thanks to the MTA's American's with Disabilities Act settlement, and the MTA firmly believes that 69th street is a more economically and structurally feasible option than 67th or 70th Streets. "There is a problem that exists at that station and we are trying to solve it," Lois Tendler, of the MTA’s government affairs division, said yesterday. "It’s not like somebody decided, let’s make the people on 69th street miserable for the next few years."

Neighbors aren't done fighting this one though, and they've got some time. "The MTA expects to complete its environmental assessment by June. A public hearing and comment period would follow, officials said."