I used to take the U2 at Eberswalder Straße regularly, and agree it's a lovely station and blends in nicely with the charm of the neighborhood.

I think the main issue in the NYC metro area is that the offending trains/platforms do not seem to take noise pollution (let alone neighborhood flavor) into account at all. The result is that the platforms and trains are unfortunately more like alien oppressors than helpful neighbors.

It's also worth pointing out that today's Berlin is enjoying the fruits of an unique opportunity to rebuild their urban infrastructure post-ww2 (Gleisdreieck was an industrial train yard, for example). Much of the city was leveled, and then shortly thereafter occupied by East/West Germans with fiscally-backed ideological incentives to compete over who could build the most impressive X "for the people".

Lessons learned: Maybe we should tear down NYC, split each borough in half down the middle, and give one half of it to liberals and the other half to conservatives?

L stops in chicago are also very desirable locations. The parent is greatly overexaggerating the problems with elevated trains

Seriously. Wrigleyville is a real slum what with the brown line cutting right through it, right? https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9485827,-87.6531626,3a,75y,2... (brown line runs right behind those houses).