The Routes Not Taken Page 16
Mayor John Purroy Mitchel responded by saying that it wasn’t good policy for a Board of Estimate member to “jimmy” improvements for his borough by attempting to stop improvements elsewhere.53 The funding was approved, but Van Name’s statement was evidence of growing impatience on Staten Island.
Efforts on behalf of that borough continued into the mayoralty of John F. Hylan. At a meeting at Staten Island Borough Hall on January 24, 1919, Van Name cited Hylan’s support for additional transit service and held weekly meetings as part of an ongoing campaign. PSC Chief Engineer Robert Ridgway promised to take action on the plan for Route No. 51 by the end of the year.
Frustration grew with the process of building a subway between Staten Island and Brooklyn; a movement developed to build a line directly to Manhattan. At a February 18 meeting at Borough Hall, Louis L. Tribus, president of the Chamber of Commerce and Chairman of the Staten Island Subway Committee, outlined a proposal for two routes. The first was an all-tunnel route, traveling under Ellis Island on its way to St. George. The second would run to New Jersey, operating as an elevated line along that state’s shoreline before crossing the Kill Van Kull in a tunnel to Staten Island.
“In making this application, the Staten Island Subway Committee expresses the unanimous wish and the undivided judgment of the people of Staten Island that such a subway would be to the greatest advantage of the City at large and of the Boroughs of Manhattan and Richmond in particular,”54 the Committee said in a statement.
The plan lacked support from City Hall. “There are certain people in Staten Island who want to appropriate $30,000,000 for a subway system in that borough. Those who are conducting this agitation know full well that they will never be able to get this sum—at least not at that time or in my mind,” Mayor Hylan said.55
When Van Name’s resolution calling on the PSC to study a tunnel from Manhattan came before the Board of Estimate, Comptroller Charles D. Craig wasn’t encouraging: “This city can’t do it for at least five years and we ought to be perfectly frank with the people of Richmond and tell them so. When the present contracts are completed, there won’t be one penny for other subway work. Why not tell the people of Staten Island so?”56 The Board of Estimate’s Transit Committee supported Route No. 51, and wouldn’t support the resolution because that line was already established.
The Board of Estimate voted on October 3 to ask the newly established Transit Construction Commission to study their report, conduct studies, and plan for a subway route. Assembly Member Frank Curley and John Sherlock Davis of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce led representatives of Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Queens business groups to call for the construction of a freight tunnel connecting Staten Island and Brooklyn. Van Name protested this request.
“You needn’t worry about that. We’re all against a freight tunnel. I am sure that everyone on the board will be against such a proposition,” Hylan said. Queens Borough President Maurice Connolly agreed: “Let’s settle this question right now. I move [for] the adoption of a resolution that it is not the sense of this board that a freight tunnel be combined with the proposed passenger tunnel.”57
This would turn out to be totally contrary to the actions that Hylan and the Board of Estimate would take for most of the next six years. Nonetheless, the Transit Construction Commission undertook the study and reported to the Board on May 11, 1920.
The report submitted by John H. Delaney and Daniel L. Turner looked at seven options. There were plans for three tunnels between Manhattan and Staten Island (two of which were submitted by the Staten Island Subway Committee). Two were for tunnels connecting Brooklyn and Staten Island (one which was Route No. 51). A sixth option called for extending the 4th Avenue line from its terminal to a temporary ferry terminal at the foot of 95th Street with a tunnel to Staten Island being built later.
Delaney and Turner ruled out the New Jersey shoreline plans on the grounds that an interstate project was fraught with legal and financial issues. The third Staten Island–Manhattan tunnel, which would have swung more toward Brooklyn and Governors Island, was also ruled out due to financial, construction, and operational issues. They thought there would be problems with providing ventilation and emergency access in a tunnel of such length.
The options for the extension of the 4th Avenue line were viewed as most practical because they would be built from the closest point between the two boroughs. Delaney and Turner shied away from them because no preliminary engineering work had been done there, as opposed to plans for Route No. 51, which took advantage of work that had been done for a tunnel in that area that had been built by the Board of Water Supply.58 Turner thought that a bridge would be the most practical for developing freight and passenger connections between the two boroughs, but would require more money and time to build.
Delaney stayed with Route No. 51: “It is my judgment that the most practical, as well as the least costly plan of connecting the Borough of Richmond with the rapid transit facilities of the Greater City is by means of a tunnel under the narrow waters separating Staten Island from Brooklyn, carrying the line to a connection with the Fourth Avenue Subway and operating the trains via that route until such time as a separate or additional route may be required by increase in population in Richmond and South Brooklyn.”59
Delaney and Turner found any consideration of a combination freight and passenger line to be impractical “except with the clear understanding that the freight service would be extremely limited and controlled entirely by passenger service requirements. It would be impractical to attempt to route any through freight trains over such a route, even though connections with trunk line railroads were provided.”60 They noted that a separate freight tunnel would add to the project’s cost, but still was more practical.
Support for a freight tunnel soon materialized. Just a week after Hylan told Borough President Van Name of his opposition to it, he expressed support for it. The reason was Jamaica Bay. Despite New York City’s fame for having one of world’s greatest natural harbors, for many years plans were circulated to turn Jamaica Bay into a separate seaport. A further incentive of the Utica Avenue line was that it could be extended there.
The plan for a freight tunnel under the Narrows took life as part of the Jamaica Bay plan. After a series of meetings with Hylan, Delaney sought and received permission from the U.S. Department of War and the Army Corps of Engineers in January 1921 to build the tunnel.61 Hylan and the Board of Estimate changed their original policy, seeking clearance from the state legislature for both passenger and freight tunnels, with the freight lines connecting to the B&O system in New Jersey. Legislation was approved on April 13, 1921.
More priority was given to building connections with the rail networks serving the rest of the region and to providing commercial access to the Jamaica Bay seaport. It didn’t appear as if much thought was given to passenger convenience. Arthur S. Tuttle, now the Board of Estimate’s chief engineer, discussed routes for the tunnel, downplaying Delaney and Turner’s report: “In the selection of a route for the tunnel under the Narrows, the fact that heavy freight must be carried through it must be given first consideration. We shall have to choose a route offering the easiest possible grade.”62
Figure 5-11. This rendering of a plan for Jamaica Bay appeared in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on April 20, 1910, with the headline “How Jamaica Bay Is to Be Made into a Great Inner Harbor.”
This resulted in more discord between the Board of Estimate and the Transit Commission. At a meeting on December 21, McAneny said they would cooperate with Mayor Hylan in building separate passenger and freight tunnels, but wouldn’t support a mixed-use tunnel, fearing this would delay the subway being built.63
“You may be assured that we will proceed with our plans for the building of a passenger tunnel, either to be independent of or linked up with some enterprise of that character, without any delay,” McAneny said. “Our ability to carry out that plan will, of course, depend on the co-operation of the Board of Estimat
e and Apportionment. I do not think that there can be any reasonable doubt that the development of Richmond ought to be put away to the front of the plan for the future development of the city.”64
The Board of Estimate put its plan into direct conflict with that of the Transit Commission by voting for a mixed-use tunnel a week later. This situation was made more complicated by the plans of the Port of New York Authority (later the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey), bypassing Staten Island. On December 31, they issued a plan for a tunnel running between Greenville, New Jersey, and Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.65
As with the Transit Commission, Hylan viewed the Port Authority as a challenge to his authority; further, he had another reason to support the city’s plan for the Narrows Tunnel, making other enemies in the process. “In his speeches and in public hearings, he managed to convey a sense that his efforts were motivated less by the benefits of the project than by a passionate desire to block the activities of the Port Authority (whose creation he had opposed), and by antagonism to the ‘foreigners’ of New Jersey (as he called them),” Jameson W. Doig wrote in Empire on the Hudson, a history of the Port Authority. Since the Narrows project could not be linked to the nation’s railroads without cooperation from New Jersey, Hylan’s rhetoric undermined prospects for its success. Moreover, the railroads said that they would not be willing to use the tunnel—at least not at the level of charges needed to amortize very large capital costs.”66
Undeterred, Tuttle defended the city’s plan: “In dealing with [the city’s plan], the press has apparently taken the Narrows Tunnel as one fostered by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment on a political basis aimed in part to circumvent the Port Authority effort to secure recognition and in part to secure an unfair advantage over New Jersey, and were it not for the fact that a strong protest has gone up from Staten Island against the Port Authority project it is perhaps questionable whether or not the proposed Narrows Tunnel would have come into the limelight as strongly as it has.”67
The Citizens Union filed suit to stop the mixed-use tunnel, contending that a huge amount of money would be wasted on an impractical scheme.68 The Transit Commission viewed the plan as infringing on its legislatively mandated authority and voted for its own route. They called for the extension of the 4th Avenue line from its Fort Hamilton terminal to Staten Island, connecting with the SIRT in Rosebank, and branching off to the north and south.
Mayor Hylan and the Board of Estimate ignored that proposal, viewing the Transit Commission as infringing on their authority. Hylan broke ground at the foot of Bay Ridge Avenue for the Brooklyn shaft of the Narrows Tunnel on April 14, 1923. He called the tunnel “the great key to the greater development of Jamaica Bay, which in time will make New York the greatest port in the world. We have some opposition by the newspapers against this great connecting link, but that criticism has not been constructive.”69
Hylan led a similar groundbreaking for the Staten Island shaft of the tunnel on July 19. LeRoy T. Harkness, a member of the Transit Commission, criticized the mayor and the Board of Estimate for proceeding without resolving who would use the tunnel: “No contracts have been let out for its operation and so far as freight is concerned, if and when the tunnel is completed, the City will be at the mercy of railroad companies in fixing the terms of the lease. So far as transit is concerned, this tunnel is a complete misfit.”70
Controversy continued as the two shafts approached completion, with construction of the main section of the tunnel to follow. In the seventh year of the Hylan administration, this was the only transit construction project not associated with the Dual Systems Contracts. Groundbreaking for the first IND line was still months away.
A New York Evening Post editorial criticized the Narrows Tunnel: “Thus the city is confronted squarely with a crucial question. It’s as if a fairy held a gift in each hand and said ‘which will you have—a tunnel you don’t need or a couple of subways you do need?’ Incredibly as it may seem, New York is about to reject the subways and take the tunnel.”71
The remaining Dual Systems Contracts were delayed while work on the Narrows Tunnel went on and Hylan and the Transit Commission fought for control. After the mayor made accusations of wrongdoing on the Commission’s part and demanded its removal, Governor Alfred E. Smith authorized a Moreland Act Commission to investigate and determine what actions were needed. Justice John McAvoy was appointed to head the probe.
When Hylan learned that McAvoy would be investigating both his and the Transit Commission’s accusations, he originally refused to participate. Governor Smith said Hylan had no choice:
The subject matter of the charges of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment is within the scope of the wider inquiry I have directed. I trust you will lay before Judge McAvoy, when he requests it, the proof of the charges you say you are prepared to proceed with. When he clears this matter up, we will have taken a long step to remedy the intolerable conditions of which you so bitterly complain.
The ability, integrity and standing of Justice McAvoy gives full assurance that the investigation will be conducted in a thorough, fair and dignified manner. No procedure under him will play into any hands. I am clear that the welfare of the people requires complete investigation only to the extent required by law and conclude to cooperate with Justice McAvoy fully in the public interest.72
McAvoy’s Commission worked through the beginning of 1925, including Hylan’s testimony on Christmas Eve. He put full blame on the ongoing problems on the Transit Commission, McAneny in particular, and the IRT and BMT. McAneny replied with equally strong testimony against Hylan.
McAvoy reported to Governor Smith on February 6, 1925. Whom he found to be culpable for the delays in transit construction was obvious: “The Transit Commissioners are not chargeable with the failure to build the much needed new subway lines or extend the existing subways. The repeated and persistent refusals of the Mayor and other members of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment to adopt proposals for the validation of new routes and to approve construction of routes already validated or provided for in the dual contracts of 1913, completely frustrated provision for increased transit facilities.”73
The report was specific about the Narrows Tunnel: “The plans for the Staten Island tunnel now being built for both freight and rapid transit service at a great cost to the City of New York should be changed to provide for a proper rapid transit tunnel which may be more speedily and economically constructed. Such amendment to present legislation as it is appropriate on this subject should be enacted to accomplish this result.”74
Mayor Hylan was vacationing in Florida when the report was issued. Upon hearing the news, he attacked McAvoy: “In whose interest was Commissioner McAvoy working?”75 Aside from William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers, he had little support. Most other papers blasted him on their editorial pages. He was politically vulnerable. Tammany Hall polled voters on his run for a third term.76
State Senator Courtland Nicoll and Assembly Member Samuel H. Hofstadter took McAvoy up on his call for legislation. They filed bills limiting the tunnel to passenger service. The Assembly approved the legislation on March 24; the State Senate followed the next day. It went to Governor Smith for his signature and he scheduled an April 20 hearing to obtain input on what to do.
In the weeks before the hearing, Hylan and the Board of Estimate implored Smith to veto the legislation. Ignoring the need for subway service to Staten Island, the mayor threatened to abandon the project: “I don’t see how the city could afford to build a tunnel from Staten Island to Brooklyn exclusively for rapid transit. It would cost $38,000,000 [$983 million in 2011 dollars, according to MeasuringWorth.com] and there are only about 133,000 people on Staten Island who could use the tunnel—hardly enough to warrant the cost of its construction.”77 Hylan led a contingent up to the Albany hearing and spoke, calling for a veto. Port Authority Chairman Julian A. Gregory and Consulting Engineer George W. Goethals78 were among the speakers supporting the veto. Hylan’s effo
rts were to no avail: Smith signed the bill.
Work on the tunnel stopped. Within days, much of the engineering staff was laid off; those who remained were there to maintain records through the end of the year.79 An office was maintained at Shore Road and Bay Ridge Avenue in Brooklyn until 1931.80
Questioning the constitutionality of the Nicoll–Hofstadter bill, Hylan still wanted to proceed. However, support for his plan was deteriorating, even in the part of the city that would most benefit by construction of the tunnel. The Staten Island Chamber of Commerce passed a resolution on April 25 stating that they wouldn’t support a court case against the bill. “The Chamber does not see where anything would be gained by lengthy law suits brought for the purpose of having the Nicoll–Hofstadter bill declared unconstitutional,” said Chamber President Anton L. Schwab. “Such litigation would be nothing more than expense to taxpayers, loss of time and no tunnel for Staten Island. Therefore, the Executive Committee passed a resolution urging cooperation by officials by putting through the passenger tunnel.”81
Governor Smith stood by his veto and McAvoy’s report. Hylan continued his attacks. He used the occasion of the groundbreaking for the first section of the 8th Avenue–Washington Heights line on March 14—the first major subway project that was not part of the Dual Systems Contracts—to launch an attack on Commissioner Harkness.
Hylan announced his candidacy for a third term on May 5, running regardless of whether the Democratic Party’s leadership supported him. A resolution seeking Board of Estimate control of the Narrows Tunnel project was passed. They would build it wide enough for freight traffic were the Nicoll–Hofstadter bill overturned.82
The five Democratic county leaders met at the New York Athletic Club on July 25. Queens Borough President Connolly, David S. Rendt of Staten Island, and John H. McGooey of Brooklyn supported Hylan. Tammany Hall’s George W. Olvany, the Manhattan leader, and Edward J. Flynn of the Bronx opposed him, although no formal vote was taken.