The Routes Not Taken Page 15

  An assessment plan was no sure thing. Bronx Borough President Cyrus Miller opposed a major assessment plan in his borough in 1910: “It seems to me that in many cases the rapid transit system is like a bridge between two thriving communities. It is a thing which touches immediately the land of only a few persons in each community, but its ulterior benefits are felt by the entire community. For that reason, it has been found just to have the cost paid by the whole community and not by the few persons whose property is affected immediately. It seems unfair, at any rate, to charge the whole cost on the community through which the road runs.”27

  This may have affected the Board of Estimate’s thinking. As PSC Chief Engineer Nelson F. Lewis and Deputy Chief Arthur S. Tuttle were preparing the assessment plan for Utica Avenue, the Board asked Lewis and Tuttle to “lay out an area of benefit for the construction of a rapid transit line in Utica Avenue, between Eastern Parkway and Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn.”28

  Figure 5-7. Following the Appellate Court’s decision, the Public Service Commission changed plans for the Utica Avenue line. This is a map from its Annual Report for 1914.

  Tuttle proposed six assessment zones in expanding radii from each potential station. Owners of the 46,111 properties in the area would pay based on how near the zone was to a station. The PSC was considering doing the same for the Brooklyn–Queens Crosstown line and a subway line serving central Brooklyn. This was seen as a test case for the concept of assessment plans. Mayor Mitchel and the Board of Estimate had qualms, possibly harking back to Borough President Miller’s earlier concerns. Work on the plan slowed.

  The concept of assessments experienced additional problems in 1918. A July 25 hearing on a plan for the extension of the 7th Avenue line through Lower Manhattan financed by assessments brought out a crowd in protest. The Board of Estimate laid over the proposal, and after that there was little action on similar plans.29 When the New York State Transit Commission was created, ostensibly becoming the lead agency on transit planning, momentum slowed even further. Although George McAneny, the chairman, supported assessments, there was opposition on the Commission, most notably from LeRoy T. Harkness. City Comptroller Charles L. Craig also opposed assessments.30

  William E. Harmon had largely retired from his real estate company, now called the Harmon National Real Estate Company, in 1924. Without his voice, the assessment plan was less of a priority in Rugby and East Flatbush, although interest in building the Utica Avenue line remained strong.

  There was little progress in building the line during John F. Hylan’s administration, despite Alderman John J. Campbell’s statement that the mayor regarded it as his “pet,” which must have surprised Hylan’s neighbors in Bushwick, who were frustrated by the lack of identifiable results in building the 14th Street–Canarsie and Brooklyn–Queens Crosstown lines. On June 18, 1924, Campbell told the Rugby Civic Association that work would proceed once the mayor effectively gained control over subway planning and construction with the formation of the New York City Board of Transportation.31

  That didn’t happen. The closest Utica Avenue came to being part of the first phase of the IND was a station on the Fulton Street subway line. Community and business groups and elected officials in Rugby, East Flatbush, and Crown Heights met at P.S. 135 on February 17, 1926.32 Groups in bordering areas sought an extension of the Nostrand Avenue line to Sheepshead Bay. Over the next few months, competition developed as the supporters of one line saw the other as being an impediment toward achieving their goal.

  In July 1927, Brooklyn Borough President James J. Byrne sent a telegram to the Rugby Chamber of Commerce to tell them that a line on Utica Avenue would be included in a new subway program,33 an early sign of planning for the IND’s second phase. The BOT and the Utica Avenue groups had the same idea: a revival of the Utica / Stuyvesant line, with the northern leg connecting with an extension of the yet-unbuilt 6th Avenue subway in Williamsburg.

  BOT Chairman John H. Delaney discussed this concept at a meeting with Flatbush groups on January 13, 1928. The Flatbush Chamber of Commerce suggested building a line to Sheepshead Bay via Stuyvesant, Utica, and Flatbush Avenues, Avenue U, and Bedford Avenue. Nostrand Avenue line advocates objected, thinking that it would prevent an extension of their line. Delaney suggested a compromise plan, swinging the Utica line toward Nostrand Avenue farther to the north and then turning south toward Sheepshead Bay.34

  News came out about the IND’s second-phase lines in the spring of 1929. Initial reports had the Utica line, referred to as the Utica Avenue–Crosstown line, heading east into Brooklyn from the 6th Avenue line and south via Union and Stuyvesant Avenues to Utica Avenue. It would then run south to Fillmore Avenue, turn west, connect with the Nostrand line and go to Sheepshead Bay, turn west again and run as far as Sea Gate, the gated community at the tip of Coney Island, via Emmons, Neptune, and Surf Avenues.35

  When the full second-phase plan was officially unveiled in September, the Coney Island leg wasn’t included; the rest of the line was amended. It would run to Avenue S, turn west, go to Nostrand Avenue, turn south, and run to Voorhies Avenue. It was a branch of the trunk line planned to cross Brooklyn and Queens, connecting with the 6th Avenue–Houston Street and 8th Avenue lines in Manhattan.36

  While the response to the route was generally positive, one component ran into a brick wall of opposition, as it did elsewhere in the city. There were no objections to the construction of an elevated line two decades earlier, but there were objections now. Representatives of twenty-three Flatbush civic and business groups met at Oetjen’s Restaurant on Church Avenue on October 21 to map plans to oppose els. “We must fight unalterably for subways. Let it be subways or nothing,” said the Flatbush Gardens Civic Association’s Frederick Boyd Stevenson. “Brooklyn has been at the tail end of every kind of improvement, and it is time that the two and a half million people in our borough demanded what was coming to them. If the City can afford to give Manhattan subways it can afford to do the same for Brooklyn.”37

  Aside from the reduced costs of building an el, the BOT believed there was a problem with building a subway south of Eastern Parkway due to groundwater levels. Allyn S. Crumm of the Flatlands Civic Association didn’t agree:

  If they can build subways under the river it ought to be very easy out here.

  Elevated structures certainly would kill the valuation of property. We do not want the subway if we have to have the “L.”38

  The BOT hearing was held on February 14, 1930, at its Manhattan office. Former Flatbush Chamber of Commerce President John J. Snyder stated that decreased property tax revenues would offset any savings achieved in building an el.39 Hugo Sesselberg of the Flatlands Civic Association cited Aldermanic President Joseph V. McKee’s pledge that no other elevated lines would be built in the Bronx due to protests, and asked why that wasn’t the case in Brooklyn.40 A BOT hearing on the Nostrand Avenue line’s extension and the Avenue S leg of the Utica line on March 3 attracted many of the same groups, all of whom had the same message.

  The funding issues that nearly crippled the IND’s first phase stopped the second; opposition to elevated lines didn’t help. The only work on the second phase that took place came when the Fulton Street subway was built. The Utica Avenue station was built to allow for a transfer with what would have been the Utica line’s Fulton Street station. Parts of two platforms, four roadbeds, and passageways connecting the two stations were built that would have allowed for work on the Utica line to go on without disrupting Fulton line service. Transfer stairways were built at the Fulton line station, but were removed when the station was rehabilitated in the 1990s.

  The advocates for the Utica line continued their work and the BOT continued to plan for it. The Board’s priority lists from the 1930s through the 1950s included different iterations. The proposal for the connection to Nostrand Avenue disappeared after 1929. All subsequent plans had it operating along Utica and Flatbush Avenues to Avenue U, and for the Nostrand Avenue line to be extended to
Sheepshead Bay. All proposals until 1951 kept it as an IND line. The BOT then revived the concept of connecting it with the Eastern Parkway line, despite earlier concerns about whether it had the capacity to handle Utica Avenue line trains.41

  The proposals for the Utica Avenue line survived the BOT. Capital plans issued by the New York City Transit Authority in the 1950s and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in 1968 included it as an Eastern Parkway line branch. The will was there, but the money wasn’t. The people who purchased the land that Wood, Harmon and other realtors sold likely did well with their investments, but it wasn’t the subway that allowed them to profit.

  The service area for the Utica Avenue line was one part of New York City that Wood, Harmon invested in that didn’t get a subway built through it. Staten Island was another.

  Staten Island’s one physical connection with the rest of the city is the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which connects it with Brooklyn. It was one of Robert Moses’s last projects, with its upper deck opening on November 21, 1964, and the lower deck on June 28, 1969. Staten Island has one rail line, the Staten Island Rapid Transit (SIRT), now the Staten Island Railway, part of the MTA New York City Transit system, running from the St. George Ferry Terminal to Tottenville at the island’s southern tip. Two lines formerly branched off, running along the borough’s northern and southern shores; passenger service on those lines ended on March 31, 1953.42

  Figure 5-8. A diagram of the Utica Avenue station on the Fulton Street line showing the space left for the Utica Avenue Crosstown line. (Courtesy of the New York Transit Museum Archive)

  It was not for a lack of desire that those lines weren’t connected with the subway system. A number of proposals were made over the last century to do so. Work began on a rail line in the 1920s but was halted, triggering a series of events that contributed to the downfall of John F. Hylan’s mayoral administration.

  Unlike in Rugby, where Harmon campaigned for the Utica Avenue line, his company focused on selling land, using plans for subway service as a selling point. Wood, Harmon marketed much of the land it owned on Staten Island as “Little Farms.” Properties were laid out larger than what would be found in Rugby or other locations in Brooklyn—two lots deep and two lots wide, enabling a property owner to build a house and use the rest of the land for cultivation. Fruit trees were planted.43

  This land was developed near the SIRT’s Annadale, Prince’s Bay, and New Dorp stations. Advertisements noted their accessibility to the SIRT and the ferry to Manhattan, and referred to a tunnel that would be built from Staten Island to Brooklyn, connecting the SIRT and the BRT’s 4th Avenue line. Wood, Harmon wanted people to believe the subway was coming. Other property was advertised as “South New York,” noting possible subway connections. There were many who thought that would happen, as Staten Island’s elected officials and civic and business groups had been seeking subway service.

  Figure 5-9. This Wood, Harmon advertisement for “Little Farms” appeared in the June 28, 1912, edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

  The completion of the Arthur Kill Bridge between Staten Island and New Jersey in 1888 brought the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad to the island and an expansion of its commercial facilities. Erastus Wiman, a Canadian businessman and land developer who led the Arthur Kill project, sought a tunnel between Staten Island and Brooklyn, expanding the rail system through Long Island and into New England.

  Wiman didn’t get far, but interest in rail service from Staten Island grew. As work for the first subway line in Manhattan went on, planning began for the next phase of subway construction. City Comptroller Bird S. Coler44 called for a line to be built to southern Brooklyn that would eventually be extended to Staten Island, which Coler believed would become a highly urbanized community.45

  Coler discussed this with the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce, inspiring them and others to participate in the Board of Rapid Transit Commissioners hearing on May 10, 1900. David J. Tysen, president of the Citizens Association of Richmond Borough,46 spoke, claiming that transit from the island hadn’t improved in half a century. W. Allaire Short called for an overall plan to relieve the congested parts of the city by making sparsely settled areas more accessible. Erastus Wiman called for the development of freight lines between Brooklyn and Staten Island.47

  Most proposals for the southern Brooklyn line, which evolved into the 4th Avenue line, called for a Staten Island extension. One of its strongest advocates was Brooklyn Borough President J. Edward Swanstrom. He believed that a southern Brooklyn line would open up more of Brooklyn to expansion than would any other line, and that expansion to Staten Island was a logical step. In a letter to the RTC Board, Swanstrom wrote:

  The selection of this route is demanded by the needs of both Brooklyn and Staten Island and is recommended by its adaptability to the purposes I have mentioned. In the first phase, the construction of a tunnel under Fourth Avenue is practically free from engineering difficulties, because the roadway is unusually wide and in addition is without railroad tracks. Furthermore, it terminates at the narrowest part of the Narrows, so that a subway connecting the Boroughs of Brooklyn and Richmond and thus uniting the five boroughs with lines of steel, could be constructed with a minimum of expense. Such a tunnel would be of incalculable value to this borough.48

  The 4th Avenue line had significant support in Brooklyn, and the BRT wanted to build it. It would serve as the trunk route for the West End, Sea Beach, and Culver lines and eventually replace the el on 3rd and 5th Avenues. Wood, Harmon used those lines to market their properties in Marlboro and South Marlboro.

  The 4th Avenue line proposal gave momentum to groups seeking subway service to Staten Island, as evidenced by Staten Island Borough President George Cromwell’s statement in 1908:

  We think we feel that aside from the benefit the pushing of the Fourth Avenue tunnel across to Staten Island gives to ourselves, that it is a very great thing for the welfare and advance of the interests of the City of New York as a whole. We think what confronts us, one of the great troubles the confronts the City of New York at the present time is the very serious issue of congestion in its business centers downtown, and we think that Staten Island has to offer thousands and thousands that toil downtown to make this city great, the best outlet of any that can be found in a radius from City Hall. We have an area of 60 square miles, large portions of which are still treated as farm lands whereas, in other directions, I believe are easily three times what they are with us. It therefore would be to the advantage of those who are looking for homes to turn their steps in the direction of Staten Island.49

  Staten Island’s representatives saw the 4th Avenue line as an important step toward getting subway service. Like Swanstrom did, civic groups in Brooklyn saw the extension as a means of garnering more support for their line, and reached out to their counterparts on Staten Island for their ongoing support.50

  Cromwell led three hundred people at a Public Service Commission hearing on January 11, 1911, to support building the line. Henry P. Morrison of the Richmond Chamber of Commerce spoke in support of building the line: “Hasten our Richmond tunnel and you will have regulated congestion with a baseball bat. Every dollar of subway money heretofore expended has been to increase rents in localities where rents are already high. Hasten the building of this subway and you will introduce the poor man to cheap land.”51

  Manhattan Borough President George McAneny proposed an extension from Brooklyn to Staten Island that day. The line, designated as Route No. 51, would run as a spur from the 4th Avenue line in the area of 66th Street and run under 67th Street to the Narrows, cross to Staten Island, and break into two branches. One would turn north and run under Stuyvesant Place, linking with the SIRT’s North Shore line at the intersection of Jay Street (now Richmond Terrace) and DeKalb Street (now Schuyler Street). The other branch would turn south and link with the SIRT’s Main and South Beach lines at the intersection of Bay and Minthorne Streets.

  Figure 5-10. The PSC’s 1912
diagram for Route No. 51.

  McAneny’s plan was approved by the PSC on June 14, 1912, the Board of Estimate on July 11, and Mayor William Jay Gaynor on July 16. It was on Dual Systems Contracts and PSC maps, but not in the construction contracts for the BRT. The consent from property owners that was needed to carry out construction work was never sought; nothing happened beyond the planning stage. Like the Utica Avenue line, this plan was held for future construction.

  As the 4th Avenue line was built south toward Bay Ridge, tunnel portals were built between the 59th Street and Bay Ridge Avenue stations. This would allow work on the Staten Island branch to take place later, minimizing service disruption. The portals open to the railroad tracks running under the 4th Avenue line, giving riders their only glimpse of daylight along that line.

  In February 1916 the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce revived Wiman’s plan to build a freight line to Brooklyn. They called for a tunnel that would be used by both subway and freight lines.

  When the contract for the construction of the BRT’s Brighton Beach line from Grand Army Plaza to Malbone Street (now Empire Boulevard) went before the Board of Estimate on March 17, 1916, Calvin D. Van Name, who had succeeded Cromwell as borough president, objected: “I must refuse to vote in favor of any appropriation of $1,300,000 for transit purposes in any other borough, while Richmond has to bear its share of paying $1,000,000 [$21.1 million in 2011 dollars, according to MeasuringWorth.com] of interest and amortization charges without getting any benefit from them. I am doing this on the unanimous request of the 100,000 residents of Staten Island.”52