The MTA has leased out 60 former retail kiosks in subway stations to a company called CC Vending, which works exclusively with Coca-Cola to stock automated vending machines.

The initial rollout will place machines in 26 stations throughout the system in the coming months, including Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall, and the A/C/E and the R/W at Canal. There are already three operating at the 23rd Street-Broadway, Second Avenue-East Houston and 116th Street-Lexington Avenue stations.

The MTA put out a request for proposals in 2024 to transform long-vacant subway newsstands with automated retail machines that sell beverages, snacks and everyday essentials. CC Vending, which has owned vending machines across the city for 35 years, partnered with Transit Tech NYC, which will provide the design, engineering, construction and program management.

This would be a better addition IMO if they used cans instead of plastic bottles — since the planet (and the neighborhood) seems to have enough — this graphic from Reuters is a stunner. Hudson River Park Trust decided at the very least to NOT sell plastic on its property by partnering with their vendors to supply only cans in the machines throughout the park. (They even have a primer with metrics.) You would think the MTA as a client could demand the same…

Of course I miss buying my People magazine at the newsstand on Chambers…

And I really wish we could get one of these from the MTA Vacant Unit Activation Program.

A vending machine was placed in the Chambers Street 1/2/3 station in 2019 as part of a two-year pilot program between the MTA and CVS. It sold deodorant, beef jerky, toothpaste, cold sore cream, razors and Trojans, among other items — and eventually disappeared, but I have no record of when. This looks like a larger but simpler concept.