The Routes Not Taken Page 14
The Regional Plan Association issued proposals for steps to link railways with other transit services in 1927. Their Plan for New York and Its Environs called for a larger commuter network. The RPA wanted to extend the W&B into Manhattan, running across 125th Street to the West Side with connections to other lines. Harold M. Lewis of the RPA prepared a report on the W&B for the Harlem Board of Commerce in 1929 proposing an extension along 125th Street, linking with existing and proposed north–south lines.139
The RPA wanted the W&B to keep operating:
Nothing could be more short-sighted and better calculated to add to the present confusion of the commuting service than to take the easy way of the proposed sabotage of existing rights-of-way.
… By means of an extension, however, in New York City these lines would become primary instead of secondary commuting facilities and eventually serve as an integral part of a united system of transit for Long Island, Westchester County and Metropolitan New Jersey.… It is obvious that the continued use of [the W&B] for suburban rapid transit will serve the best interests of the region.140
The RPA made proposals that affected discussion of Northeast Bronx transit service, calling for the 2nd Avenue El trains to run “over the Bronx section of the [W&B] by constructing a short cross-over from the Interborough track in Bronx Park [the White Plains Road line] to the 180th Street station; direct platform changes between trains could be made at one or more stations.”141
The W&B’s bondholders demanded tax relief; only New Rochelle seemed willing to help. Nothing came from a meeting of Westchester town mayors and corporation counsels on December 16.142 Saying he had no choice, Judge Knox ordered the W&B to cease service on December 31: “I have no more right to extend the service than I have the right to give part of the road’s cash to a mendicant in the street.”143
Bronx and Westchester officials and groups fought to keep the W&B running while searching for a long-term solution. Following the RPA’s suggestion, the Allied Civic Associations asked the city to study incorporating the Bronx section of the railway into the subway system. However, there was a real danger that its right-of-way wouldn’t be available for the BOT to connect it with the Concourse line extension or any other subway line.
5
Buy Land Now, Ride the Subway Later
In the early decades of the twentieth century, real estate developers saw the benefits of buying land along the route of subway lines that were proposed, planned, or built. One company with that foresight was Wood, Harmon, and Company.
William E. Harmon, his brother, Clifford B. Harmon, and their uncle, Charles E. Wood, founded Wood, Harmon in Cincinnati in the 1880s. They each invested a thousand dollars in land in the Cincinnati area. William had a plan for marketing the land: “It wasn’t easy to buy land in those days. The first payments were always so high that a man with little money could not meet them. So most folks went on wanting land, but they didn’t buy any. I worked out a plan by which even the smallest wage-earner could buy a building lot. All the purchaser needed was one dollar to pay in cash and a few cents to pay each week. It was simply the installment plan applied to real estate and I was sure it would work.”1
The plan worked; Wood, Harmon bought more land in the Midwest and along the East Coast, moving to New York City in 1898. The Brooklyn Development Corporation, with William serving as president, bought sixteen large properties in Brooklyn and elsewhere in the region to be developed. Wood, Harmon marketed the subdivided lots.
Wood, Harmon promoted what were suburban areas of New York City ahead of subway construction. There areas are now neighborhoods like Flatbush, Midwood, Bensonhurst, and Harlem. It invested approximately $4 million in Brooklyn by 1909, accumulating what they termed 20 percent of the borough’s available land. Some of Brooklyn’s last farms in a huge belt of land from Bensonhurst to Canarsie were purchased. William E. Harmon saw that the best way to market property was to take advantage of the area’s rapid transit and rail system.2
Harmon saw what would happen in the rest of the city as the subway system grew: “Since the present plans of the transportation companies began to mature values have materially increased, and it is certain that they will continue to improve with great rapidity as the people come to a full realization of what the combination of all the surface and elevated railways, with consequent quick transit and cheap fares to all of the suburbs, means to this borough as a whole.”3
These properties were marketed with an emphasis on access to transit. In the case of their largest piece of property, five hundred acres in Rugby (east of Flatbush), Wood, Harmon committed to building homes near Utica Avenue, the north–south street that bisects it, as a means of persuading the BRT to extend a trolley line to the area and to provide a free transfer to the Fulton Street Elevated.4 William E. Harmon became one of the main advocates for building a rapid transit line along Utica Avenue.
Figure 5-1. William E. Harmon in 1909. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle)
Wood, Harmon succeeded elsewhere in Brooklyn. Land bought near the nascent Brighton Beach and Culver lines and the Long Island Rail Road’s Manhattan Beach line was developing. Other properties were near where the BRT’s West End and Sea Beach lines and the IRT’s Nostrand Avenue line would be built in the next decade.
Harmon emphasized the rapid transit system in press releases to real estate sections of newspapers, stating that vacant lands along subway lines were more dependable assets than were improved properties in other sections of the city.5 He campaigned to extend rapid transit to areas his company developed and marketed.
With the first subway line under construction and plans being made to extend it to Brooklyn, Harmon wanted to ensure that areas his company had a stake in benefited. When the planning process that led to the awarding of the Dual Systems Contracts was underway, he was in the forefront of the campaign in Rugby and East Flatbush to have a line built along Utica Avenue.
Utica Avenue runs from Fulton Street in Bedford–Stuyvesant to its juncture with Flatbush Avenue in Flatlands, intersecting many of Brooklyn’s primary east–west streets. There have been many proposals to build subway lines along Utica Avenue, though the type of construction and routing has changed. It could have been part of all three subway systems. Early proposals called for the line to be connected with IRT or BMT lines. It was part of the Board of Transportation’s plans for the second phase of the IND. At times, it was proposed to link with the IRT’s Eastern Parkway line, which was built to allow for a spur tunnel to be built along Utica Avenue, similar to how the Nostrand Avenue line was built, a mile to the west.
Planning work done in 1910 for Utica Avenue coincided with work on the Eastern Parkway line. The two lines would have crossed; the mezzanine of the Eastern Parkway line’s station appears to be built to allow for a north–south line to cross over its platform levels.
The 1910 plan called for an elevated line to be built south of Eastern Parkway, as did most subsequent plans. Unlike those in other areas of the city, East Flatbush and Rugby residents at the time embraced building an el through their neighborhoods. The East Flatbush Taxpayers Association agreed to get the consent of property owners required to allow for construction, and hired engineers to work on a plan for the line.
Figure 5-2. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle published this map on February 13, 1910, showing the Utica Avenue line as an extension of the 14th Street–Eastern District line.
George J. Luhn, the chairman of the Railroads and Transportation Committee of that association, presented a petition in favor of the line to the Public Service Commission, stating, “We are not asking too much to be given what other sections already have. We are not only willing to have this proposed line built at our expense, as a gift to the City of New York, but are anxious for it and wish to urge you to give it most favorable consideration as speedily as possible.”6
Figure 5-3. On April 3, 1910, the Eagle ran this map showing the Utica Avenue line as a branch of the Eastern Parkway line.
Harmon and thre
e other realtors, Frederick W. Rowe, William C. Demarest, and Henry Roth, wrote to the PSC: “We hereby agree that we will take a lease to operate [the Utica Avenue line], paying interest and a sinking fund of 1 percent on the cost of the Flatbush Avenue portion and a nominal rental on the balance. Should our proposition be considered favorably by you we will organize a company in such form that will be satisfactory to your commission and the Board of Estimate and make the necessary formal application for the obtaining of this lease.”7
Utica Avenue property owners wanted to be assessed to pay for constructing an elevated line. Wood, Harmon was among them. “It seems to me the Public Service Commission should take immediate action concerning the building of the subway on Eastern parkway and Utica avenue,” William H. Milnor of Wood, Harmon told the Brooklyn Daily Standard Union. “It is not dependent upon the City’s credit in any credit in any sense. Moreover, any delay in authorizing the work is a serious menace to the proper development of Brooklyn.”8
Figure 5-4. George J. Luhn in 1909. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle)
East Flatbush and Rugby groups attended the PSC meeting on June 16 to present the plans for the el. William T. Donnelly, the architect who prepared them, was inspired by German railroad structures. They included his concept for the Church Avenue station and a solid elevator structure limiting the noise that would emanate to the surrounding community.9 Donnelly said he prepared his plans at “the request of a well-known real estate company, which is one of the petitioners for this hearing.”10
Allied Subway Association President Gilbert Elliot discussed the benefits the line could bring to Brooklyn, suggesting that it could be further extended to the Rockaway Peninsula. Flatbush Taxpayers Association President John J. Snyder talked about how construction of the line could contribute to the development of Jamaica Bay, then under consideration.11
Wood, Harmon marketed their land in Rugby on the basis that the subway was coming before the PSC had acted, taking out full-page ads in the Eagle and the Brooklyn Daily Times on June 24. Readers were told the subway was coming and that they should buy land right away at reduced costs. The ads took a very hard-sell approach (“Oh, you stupid New Yorkers”), showing how the value of other properties they sold in advance of other subway lines had increased.12
The PSC approved the assessment plan on July 14. Commissioner Edward M. Bassett’s report stated that the line would “extend from the Hudson River to Jamaica Bay and yet its length would only be 11.32 miles. It would directly connect the Fourteenth Street district of Manhattan with Williamsburg, upper Brooklyn, and an immense area of inexpensive land lying south of Eastern Parkway.” He continued: “At regular express subway speed of twenty-six miles per hour trains could run from the corner of Broadway and Fourteenth Street, Manhattan to Eastern Parkway, the beginning of the unbuilt section, in 14.5 minutes. The route would not only open a new field to population, but would also take people who work in the Fourteenth Street district directly to inexpensive homes without carrying them through downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn.”13
Figure 5-5. William T. Donnelly’s plan for the Church Avenue station on the Utica Avenue line, as published in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on June 17, 1910.
Capacity was further incentive for building a route directly to Manhattan, instead of connecting the route with the Eastern Parkway line. Even in 1910, there was concern that Eastern Parkway, with one branch operating to East New York and the other along Nostrand Avenue to at least Flatbush Avenue,14 could be overcrowded. A direct route along Utica and Stuyvesant Avenues was more practical for the PSC.
The Board of Estimate approved the line on September 30, 1910. One person opposed it; Jacob Suydam, a Utica Avenue property owner, felt landowners had too great a cost to bear in financing construction. Aldermanic President John Purroy Mitchel, serving as acting mayor in William Jay Gaynor’s absence, stated, “We are only approving the route. The assessment of the property holders may come up in the future. Then you can make your complaint.”15
The PSC went to work. A photograph in the Brooklyn Daily Times of December 2, 1911, shows its engineers conducting surveys at an unspecified intersection along the route. People bought land in Rugby and East Flatbush near the proposed line. Throughout 1910, 1911, and 1912, real estate sections in the Brooklyn and citywide newspapers ran accounts of land purchases in the area.
While property owners and civic and business groups along Utica Avenue welcomed the building of an elevated line, those along Stuyvesant Avenue had the opposite reaction to building a subway. They spoke out during the spring of 1913.
Henry Weismann, the Stuyvesant Avenue Property Owners Association’s counsel, spoke in opposition to the route at a State Appellate Court hearing on May 13. He claimed subway construction and subsequent operation would create vibrations that would be a nuisance to residents and reduce property values. His group suggested building the line a block to the east on Reid Avenue. Former PSC Commissioner Bassett, representing the Utica Avenue property owners, said the vast majority of property owners along the entire route supported its construction.
“Just think what the building of this line means to people in Brooklyn and other parts of this city as well,” Bassett, appalled at the opposition, later said. “Why, it will bring one of the most sparsely settled territories in the city within sixteen minutes’ ride of Broadway and Fourteenth Street, Manhattan. A similar radius would come somewhere south of the Harlem River in Manhattan. Look at the development there and think of what this means to Brooklyn.”16
The Stuyvesant Avenue Property Owners prepared a response at a meeting on May 15: “It involves tearing up of our street for years, the building of a four-track line, practically up to our cellars and foundations, the destruction of our beautiful trees, the immense inconvenience and damage to all of us and the noises and vibration incidental to the operation of fast express trains underground, not to speak of the unsightly stations with their outpouring of passengers during evening hours. Reid Avenue is only too willing to have the subway and there it belongs.”17
William Barclay Parsons testified for the Stuyvesant Avenue routing, saying that Reid Avenue would add additional turning movements, slowing the trip and increasing costs. Some Reid Avenue property owners testified, saying that they didn’t want the subway either.18 That prompted Stuyvesant Avenue representatives to try locating Reid Avenue landowners who would support them. They found sixty property owners.19
Figure 5-6. The New York State Public Service Commission’s map of the Utica Avenue line from its Annual Report for 1912.
The Stuyvesant Avenue issue stopped the process cold, to the annoyance of Utica Avenue line supporters. “Just selfish,” said Clarence B. Smith, a Fulton Street realtor. “The only protest is from the abutting owners on Stuyvesant Avenue. Everyone else in this section is in favor of the subway and particularly those owners on the streets that cross Stuyvesant Avenue. The Stuyvesant Avenue people all want a subway, but not on their street.”20
The Stuyvesant Avenue property owners prevailed. The Appellate Division sent the matter back to the PSC, saying, “We think that the facts shown fall short of proof that the public need which could warrant the invasion of a residential street with jeopardy to private property rights. We are therefore constrained to deny the motion.”21
Plans for the line were withdrawn and a connection with the Eastern Parkway line was again considered, despite concerns about overcapacity. Even then, the line wasn’t an immediate possibility; it wouldn’t be taken up until the Dual Systems Contracts lines were completed and the city could afford the costs of construction and operation.
The assessment plan’s supporters continued their efforts. With PSC support, Assembly Member Almeth W. Hoff filed a bill in March 1915 enacting the assessment process. Alvah W. Burlingame, Jr., filed similar legislation in the State Senate. The Assembly passed the bill on March 23; the State Senate did the same on April 24. The PSC authorized planning work.
In the summer of 1915, PSC engineers
were developing a plan for the line,22 but complications arose. The Stuyvesant Board of Trade, representing the area of Utica Avenue north of Eastern Parkway, met on October 26 to protest the assessment plan. They felt the line should be incorporated into the Dual Systems Contracts and the city should pay construction costs. Magistrate John F. Hylan, in his role as president of the Allied Taxpayers Association, spoke and encouraged the group in their efforts.23
Despite the enabling legislation and the PSC’s support, work leading to the construction of the line went too slow for its supporters. To encourage a faster process, the Utica Avenue Subway Extension League was formed at a meeting in Rugby on January 13, 1916. William E. Harmon was the keynote speaker. He expressed his frustration about the seeming lack of progress and the gossip that must have been going on at the time:
We have struggled for three years to put through a rapid transit plan that once demonstrated, would forever free New York City from the cost of future transit extensions into the suburbs. We have made some progress. We have been promised co-operation time and again. The net result, however, has been distressingly insignificant. The Public Service Commission, or its employees, are continually setting forth the insinuation that this is a Wood, Harmon movement. The insolence of those subordinates would lose them their positions were they with ordinary business corporations.
We have finally decided to lay the whole situation before the taxpayers and ask for their cooperation.24
The PSC had reason to go slowly. A precedent was being set and it wanted to have a full plan in place before going to the Board of Estimate for authorization. Smaller-scale private investment had already taken place. The Henry Morgenthau Company led a group of investors, including Colonel Jacob Ruppert (future owner of the New York Yankees), in funding construction of the Intervale Avenue–163rd Street station on the IRT’s new Bronx line in 1910.25 Developers today receive zoning variances for building subway station improvements,26 but building a whole line segment was an entirely new issue.