Trolley Tuesday 12/08/20 - A Brief History of New York's Subways and Elevateds, Part 1

Peek into any children's book about trains, and you'll find a simple question posited to the reader: "Why does New York City have a subway or an elevated railroad?" The answer is, of course, "because there was plenty of traffic." However, read more into the real history of New York City and you'll find the first elevated railroad went up way before the first commercial motorcar was ever produced. Despite being only a pioneer in elevated railways (as Boston already claimed the first subway in America), the New York rapid transit systems under the Interborough Rapid Transit and the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit companies remain one of the largest and most historic in the United States, and even the world. In today's Trolley Tuesday, we'll see how these systems got Gotham on the move.

Also if you haven't noticed, the title of my blog does involve "Trolleys", but it's my blog so I can cover whatever I want. This includes significant rapid transit lines like New York. With that out of the way...

Now That Traffic Problem Makes Sense...

Mulberry Street on New York's Lower East Side, 1900,
showing off its ubiquitous traffic problems.
(Public Domain)

Horsecarts and horsecars cram the line leading to the
Brooklyn Bridge in the mid-late 1800s.
(New York Transit Museum)

As we related last week when we covered Brooklyn and Manhattan's streetcars, it didn't take long for gridlock to form before the advent of the automobile. With New York growing at a rapid rate as a market and industrial city, merchant horse carts rubbed shoulders and wheels with railed horsecars, and then even faster cable cars until all were simply stuck in one place, going nowhere. The initial convenience and novelty of the horsecar also gave way to complaints ranging from overworked horses left to die in the streets to the blisteringly-fast cable cars maiming humans and animals alike on their speedy rampage. Plenty of men in the interim would propose various measures and designs to place the street railroads as safely away from the people as they could, but one design eventually stuck on April 20, 1866

Watch For Falling Clinkers!

Charles T. Harvey, Inventor of the Elevated Railroad and Bushiest Beard in New York.
(Museum of the City of New York)

Charles T. Harvey taking a test-ride of his new cable
elevated railroad at Greenwich and Morris Streets, 1867.
(Public Domain)

Charles T. Harvey (1829-1912) was a self-taught civil engineer whose biggest claim to fame was building the Soo Canal between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. Always the experimental mind, he persuaded the New York City Council to approve an experimental 25-mile elevated railroad running from Greenwich Street to Yonkers via Ninth Avenue on April 20, 1866. With an initial capital of $100,000 ($1.6 million in 2020), the West Side & Yonkers Patent Railway (WS&Y) opened for business on July 3, 1868, as an elevated cable railway, but this elevated railway did not go over smoothly. To the horsecars, the WS&Y's novelty was making them uncompetitive with the street railways, and to Boss Tweed's infamous Tammany Hall gang, the WS&Y got in the way of their own railway grift, the "Viaduct Railway". Nevertheless, the new elevated railway persisted until 1872, when mechanical issues with the cable and several defaulted bond payments resulted in the forming of the New York Elevated Railroad Company (NYER). 

The infamous "Suicide Curve" standing 100 feet
above 110th Streets, between Ninth and Eigth Avenue.
(Ephemeral New York)

With the cable railways out of fashion and the new NYER Ninth Avenue Elevated Line (colloquially called the "El") rapidly expanding, steam power took over the elevated. This of course had the unfortunate consequence of passing steam trains tossing hot coal embers ("clinkers") through the ties and onto the streets, but the faster and larger trains meant New Yorkers definitely had room to move. In 1875, the line was regauged to standard gauge to allow freight interchange and in 1885, it was extended out through Harlem via the Putnam Bridge, a giant and ornate swing bridge. Operations also experimented with unique selling points like "Pay As You Enter" boxes where paid tickets were dropped in fareboxes rather than collected by conductors, and "bicycle trains" in 1897, which featured half a car's seats removed to fit bicycles. Electrification for the elevateds wouldn't arrive until February 18, 1903, when the first third-rail train ran from South Ferry to 155th Street. 

The tragic aftermath of the Ninth Avenue El
derailment, September 11, 1905.
(Public Domain)

Unfortunately, the Ninth Avenue El was not immune to disasters and, rather disquietingly, New York's first and worst elevated railway disaster occurred on the morning rush hour of September 11, 1905. That morning, a Ninth Avenue train operated by motorman Paul Kelly took a curve at three times the mandated speed limit (30 miles per hour instead of 9) while following a Sixth Avenue train. Kelly realized his error, but the rapid speed and sharp curve meant the train immediately threw itself off the tracks and into the street below. Though the first car remained on the tracks, the second hit the street and burst into flames after flipping upside-down. The third car ended up dangling and some passengers ended up crushed by a falling truck. In total, 13 people were killed and 48 injured. Both Motorman Kelly and a signalman, Cornelius Jackson, were convicted of the accident, with Kelly claiming Jackson pulled the switch from under him just to spite him. Kelly would eventually serve his time in Sing Sing Prison.

As Above, So Below

Before we continue, let's rewind just a bit.

A photo of the Beach Pneumatic Transit,
taken in 1873 shortly before or after closure.
(Public Domain)

We all know the first subway in the United States was built in Boston in 1897, the Tremont Street Subway, but funny enough New York experimented with underground railways way before Boston ever did. In 1869, local inventor and patent lawyer Alfred Ely Beach created a curious novelty under Broadway. Dubbed the "Beach Pneumatic Transit", it was a 312 foot long tunnel, 8 feet wide, and powered by compressed air in the tube that pushed the car back and forth. Despite being built in 58 days, located under what's now the Rogers Peet Building, and showing popular support with New Yorkers, various delays in planning permission (possibly orchestrated by William Tweed, who refused to support it) and financial issues caused by the Panic of 1873 led to the pneumatic railway becoming a one-off and abandoned after only three years of operation. 

However, New York never forgot about that little subway idea and continued to quietly pursue it as its elevated railways were extended across the boroughs. On May 22, 1894, the "Rapid Transit Act" canonized the scheme to build new rapid transit lines above or below existing New York Streets, with the help and permission of property owners and local authorities. Thus, the New York Subway was born, beginning with a line running north from City Hall to 103rd Street via Lenox Avenue and Bronx Park. A fixed fare of five cents was also indicated in the new act, and this would of course cause plenty of problems later on, but for the time, the die was cast and a new company had risen to run the new subway on behalf of the city of New York.

A clattery Interborough Wood Car train clatters over 1940s New York City.
(Curbed New York)

The Interborough Rapid Transit

A cast-iron IRT sign at Wall Street Station.
(Delaywaves)

The Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) was founded in 1902 as the operations wing of the Rapid Transit Construction Company, which was awarded the contract to build the new subway line detailed above. As this was happening, the IRT then acquired the Manhattan Railway (which absorbed the New York Elevated and its rival, the Metropolitan Elevated, in February 1890) and now had a whole monopoly on New York's four elevated lines along Second, Third, Sixth, and Ninth Avenues (along with the Bronx Extension). Interestingly, as the new IRT subway line was being built, the dirt moved ended up going to other places in New York, such as expanding Ellis Island from 2 acres to 27.5 acres and donating dirt towards construction of the City College of New York. The IRT officially began operating on October 27, 1904, between City Hall to 145th Street on their West Side Branch, but they were not alone.

The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company 

The BRT logo on a 1907 Brooklyn Union
Elevated car, taken in 2008.
(DilligentDogs)

We already discussed the BRT's streetcar holdings last week, but the company was also busy acquiring other early elevated railroad constituents. In just 1899 alone, BRT acquired the Brooklyn Elevated Railroad, Kings County Elevated Railroad (now the Fulton Street Line), and the Brooklyn & Brighton Beach Railroad among others, having a virtual monopoly on New York's rapid transit south of the East River. Many of their lines eventually connected through to Manhattan following the opening of the East River Bridge (now the Williamsburg Bridge) in 1903, carrying streetcars and rapid transit alike on what was then the longest suspension bridge in the world. Their first subway line opened shortly in Manhattan on June 16, 1908, which was actually just a tiny subway terminal at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge. Eventually, the BRT formed the New York Consolidated Railroad to run their combined elevated and subway holdings by 1912, and this led to the golden era of rapid transit expansion.

An 1897 map of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit's Elevated Holdings and Franchises.
(Public Domain)

Contracts are for Professionals

A 1910 proposition for
the expansion of Manhattan's
elevated railways.
(Public Domain)

With two competing-but-cooperative privately-owned public transit operators under the New York City Council, the BRT and the IRT entered a period of expansion and construction that was known as the "Dual Contract" Period. Starting on March 19, 1913, the two companies were locked into a 50 year deal to "build or upgrade" all of New York's subway lines, then operate them for 49 years. The biggest impetus for such a contract came from crowding problems, as all of New York's transit systems (trolleys, rapid transit, ferries, commuter railroads) carried almost one billion people during the year from June 30, 1910 to 1911. The Dual Contract also superseded the IRT's original contracts on its West Side and East Side (Lexington-Fourth Avenue Line), replacing it with a requirement that both companies upgrade their rapid transit lines accordingly to meet the huge crowding issues. This eventually led to tripling the total of rapid transit miles across the city (618 planned miles over the original 296 system miles) and paid for by the city with the difference handled by the companies. This also meant that the original 5-cent fare was still upheld (which was about to cause problems) and the city could, at any time, take away the lines from the operating companies.

Brooklyn Takes On New York

Unfortunately, the Dual Contracts also had a negative effect on New York's Elevateds and Subway as much as it tried to do good. Due to the economic downturn and inflation caused by World War I, the BRT floundered until it was forced to declare bankruptcy and reorganized as the Brooklyn Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) in 1923. The president at the time, Gerhard Melvin Dahl, immediately published a rag called "Transit Truths" to both herald the new company to the public and denigrate the choices made by the New York City Mayor that forced them into reorganization under then-Mayor John Francis Hylan (himself an ex-elevated railroad worker and initially under the thumb of Tammany Hall).

"For seven years, you have been misleading and fooling the people in this community… For seven years, you have blocked every effort at transit relief. You, and only you, are to blame for the present…deplorable condition of the whole transit situation. You have used the transit situation as a political escalator". - BMT President Gerhard Dahl in a private letter to Mayor John Hylan

The logo of the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corp.
(Public Domain)

Similarly, the IRT attempted to violate the Dual Contract in 1928 by raising fares to 7 cents, both to deal with the inflation crisis and to stem the losses incurred by the effects of the Dual Contract. The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court as "Gilcrist v. Interborough Rapid Transit". Like BMT's little rebellion, this too failed in court and both companies continued to flounder into the 1930s.

To The Four Boroughs

While the companies floundered, however, the subways in the four boroughs they served (The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens) flourished and grew in the public conscious. The last borough, Staten Island, was too far and too New Jersey for subway service.

A contemporary view of Brighton Beach, New York, featuring its iconic elevated railway gantry.
(Emirates)

The "4" Train, otherwise the Lexington Avenue Express,
works an IRT service to Coney Island. 
(SallansCorner)

In Brooklyn, popular destinations for commuters and day-trippers alike were, of course, the pleasure communities of Brighton Beach and Coney Island. As part of the Dual Contracts, the originally-ground-level steam line to Brighton was elevated in 1918 to 1920, after some significant planning beginning in 1903. The Brighton Line also served Coney Island thanks to the Prospect Park & Coney Island Railroad. Interestingly, the main terminal at Coney Island contained separate platforms into the BMT era, as both lines remained disconnected from each other. As with everything else, the borough was accessed by the Williamsburg Bridge.

The IRT Flushing Line's grand concrete viaduct at
33rd Street and Rawson Street, seen here in 1920.
(Public Domain)

Queens was late to the rapid transit party, as they continued running streetcars well into 1915, but after that, the BMT Myrtle Avenue and Fulton Street Lines, along with the IRT Flushing Line helped open up the community. The Flushing Line, particularly, was a magnificent piece of civic artwork as its elevated and underground structures ranged from steel girders to "European-style concrete viaducts" to even its subway stations resembling everything from the London Undergrounds at Grand Central-42nd Street to 34th Street Hudson, which aped the modern style of the Washington Metro. One could seemingly travel the world on the Flushing Line, which also made it convenient for service to the World's Fair at Flushing Meadows.

Pelham Bay's ornate terminus on the IRT Pelham Line.
The station originally opened in 1920.
(David Shankbone)

For the Bronx, just north of the Harlem River opened up by the West Side & Yonkers Railway, Yankee Stadium was always a popular destination via the IRT Jerome Avenue Line. Another notable line was the IRT Pelham Line running from Pelham Bay Park to Third and 138th. What makes the Pelham Line so notable is due to its fame (or infamy) in the Morton Freedgood novel, "The Taking of Pelham 123". Despite the popularity of the novel and its two adaptations, superstitious transit operators and dispatchers have banned outbound Pelham Bay trains from leaving at 1:23AM or PM in reference to the book. It seems railroad superstitions are still alive and well.

Finally, in Manhattan, the subways became so ubiquitous (as all lines converged in Manhattan) that when Bloomingdale Department Stores set up their flagship store in Midtown Manhattan (at the corner of 59th and Lexington), the subway station serving the BMT Broadway Line and IRT Lexington Line made a point to add a direct staircase into Bloomingdale's on the Southeast Corner in the 1920s. The department store further emphasized this fact by proclaiming "ALL CARS TRANSFER TO BLOOMINGDALE'S", which brought much foot traffic into the store.

A print example of Bloomingdale's once-famous tagline.
(Warburg Reality)

Municipal Ownership

An original IND tiled sign in use at 14th Street/Sixth Avenue Station.
(u/Robearsn on reddit)

A station guide to the new IND lines when it first opened in 1931.
(Vanshookenraggen)

In 1932, a third rapid transit railway opened for service to both compete with the Dual Contract systems of IRT and BMT and create the first municipally-owned rapid transit line in New York. Originally known as the Independent City-Owned Rapid Transit Railroad, but known better as the Independent Subway System (IND), it was formed after Mayor John Hylan decided in the early 1920s that he could do what the two independent subways could do, but with better service and more back to the city. As the two companies worked out the Dual Contracts, the IND broke ground on their premiere Eighth Avenue  and Sixth Avenue Subways in 1925, two trunk lines to undercut the IRT and BMT.

The new lines also utilized existing infrastructure of the BMT and IRT, as the first IND train used the BMT Sea Beach Line from Coney Island to Time Square on July 8, 1931. The IND specialized in trunk lines, connecting different private lines together and providing more convenient cross-town trips for the average commuter. The IND also introduced letters to their numerous lines to make them easier to identify, with double-letters denoting "locals" and single-letters denoting "expresses". This was a departure from how a company like BMT would name their early lines by numbers. This leads into...

Take The A Train!

The IND "A" Train limited service at Euclid Station.
(NYC Subway.org)

Well you MUST take the A train... even farther than Harlem
to 181st to get to Washington Heights, as made famous
by Lin-Manuel Miranda's hit musical, "In the Heights".
(Beyond My Ken)

Finally, I can't talk about what makes the New York Subways so iconic without mentioning the most famous subway line in (possibly) the world. From music pieces to Japanese train simulators, the IND Eighth Avenue Line's "A" Subway Service from Harlem to Eastern Brooklyn via Lefferts Boulevard remained both the longest-by-mileage and most-socially-impactful rapid transit line in New York City after first opening in 1936. This was due to connecting the historically black neighborhoods of Harlem (a cultural cornerstone of African Americans) and Bedford-Stuyvesant, a community that would later grow into a center for African American culture and immigration. The "A" train offered Harlemites more residential options and helped them also find their own cultural identity across New York City as a whole.

Duke Ellington (L) and Billy Strayhorn (R).
(National Museum of American History)

Such was the importance of the "A" train in black New York identity that, in 1939, it was canonized with the Duke Ellington jazz standard, "Take the A Train". The song's origins came from directions that Ellington gave Billy Strayhorn, a newly-hired trumpeter, to get to his place in New York City, starting with "Take the A Train" from Pennsylvania Station (Strayhorn had taken the train from Philadelphia to New York). When Strayhorn got to Ellington's place, the rest was history. The song's lyrics, written later by vocalist Joya Sherrill, made explicit references to the "black elites" of Sugar Hill in Harlem and gave the neighborhood a must-visit reputation. But as the IND got off its feet and claimed cultural legacy with a hit jazz song, the IRT and BMT were in for a wild, bumpy, and ultimately uncool ride to the scrapyard.

Thank you for reading today's Trolley post, and watch your step as you alight on the platform. My resources today included a summary of the Gilcrist v. Interborough Rapid Transit Case, the Mid-Continent Railway Museum's biography on Charles T. Harvey, and Bloomingdale's own corporate history. I'd also like to thank Twitter user @ThatssRich for the Bloomingdale factoid today. The trolley gifs in our posts are made by Brian Clough and can be found on his site, Banks of the Susquehanna. On Thursday, we cover Part 2 of our big city story by looking at the modern history of New York's Metropolitan Rapid Transit. For now, you can follow myself or my editor on Twitter, buy a shirt or sticker from our Redbubble stand, or purchase my editor's self-developed board game! It's like Ticket to Ride, but cooler! (and you get to support him through it!) Until next time, ride safe!