The Routes Not Taken Page 25

Building the Line That Almost Never Was

  It’s impossible not to write about New York’s unbuilt subway lines without discussing the 2nd Avenue subway. The question of when it would be built has been asked for more than eighty years. It’s being partially answered with the construction of a segment east and north from the Lexington Avenue station on the 63rd Street line to 96th Street and 2nd Avenue, one step in a process that has lasted the entire twentieth century and into the twentieth-first century. There have been at least thirty-eight separate official proposals for additional lines serving the East Side of Manhattan, issued by every agency with the responsibility for planning the expansion of the rapid transit system in the New York metropolitan area.

  The Metropolitan Street Railway Company, operators of many trolley lines in Manhattan and the Bronx, proposed a subway system running from the Battery to the Bronx along the East and West Sides of Manhattan in 1904. The East Side line would be built along William Street, New Bowery,1 and 3rd Avenue; the West Side line would be built along 7th, 8th, or 10th Avenues and Greenwich Street. The lines would operate along the New York Central Railroad’s Putnam Branch to Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.2

  The IRT responded to the Metropolitan’s proposal as it did with other competitors: by purchasing the company, on December 22, 1905. They had leased the 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 9th Avenue elevated lines from the Manhattan Railway Company in 1902 for a period of 999 years.3

  The Board of Rapid Transit Commissioners (RTC) and its chief engineers, William Barclay Parsons and George S. Rice, addressed the need for trunk lines on the East Side. Parsons considered building a north–south line on the East Side, and studied the avenues east of Madison Avenue in 1903. He ruled out 2nd and 3rd Avenues because of the presence of elevated lines:

  An examination of the traffic returns of the Second and Third avenue elevated railways shows that the passengers per station on the Third avenue line are more than twice as numerous as those on the Second avenue line, and that the bulk of the travel on the Third avenue line comes from points along or west of it. A line west of Third avenue, or under Lexington Avenue, for instance, would thus supply the most urgently demanded transportation facilities, and would best serve to relieve the present congestion on the most crowded elevated line on the east side.4

  Parsons also saw an advantage to building a 1st Avenue line. More residential and business growth would be coming and this street offered the most direct route all the way downtown.5

  Parsons and Rice both saw the role the 2nd and 3rd Avenue Els were playing in their service areas. They knew service demand would grow. The two RTC plans from 1905 called for lines on 1st, 3rd, and Lexington Avenues from Lower Manhattan to the Bronx, connecting with lines to be constructed in that borough.

  Many RTC proposals were authorized for construction, easing the way for subsequent plans to become reality. When the New York State Public Service Commission began to supervise transit planning in 1907, its plans would continue to include the 1st and 3rd Avenue lines, but other streets were studied, too. The PSC and the IRT considered a line along Madison Avenue. The PSC’s Tri-Borough Plan called for the construction of a line along Broadway and the length of Lexington Avenue, independent of the original IRT line to the Bronx, running the length of Lexington Avenue and splitting off to run along the Pelham and Jerome Avenue lines.

  The IRT wanted to run to Brooklyn, using tracks to be built over the Manhattan Bridge and along 4th Avenue. As its existing subway line was built through downtown Brooklyn, space was left for connections with both the 4th Avenue and Manhattan Bridge lines and a line planned for Lafayette Avenue.6 Knowing that the RTC’s proposed lines were authorized for construction contributed to the IRT thinking the Lexington Avenue route was better than the one along Madison Avenue. IRT President Theodore F. Shonts outlined his reasoning to the PSC on July 14, 1910:

  Lexington Avenue can be tunneled at once, because legal consents have been obtained and all other legal conditions fulfilled, thus avoiding a delay of many months, possibly of two years, in acquiring the right to use Madison Avenue, and, in addition, better physical connections can be made between the present subway in Park Avenue and a new subway in Lexington Avenue.

  … Lexington Avenue better divided that portion of the City between Central Park and [the] East River than Madison Avenue, which lies only one block east of the Park, where the residents are not so much in need of subway service as are the more crowded residents nearer to Lexington Avenue, and the Lexington Avenue extension will also give better facilities for the Grand Central Depot, the Belmont Tunnel [which would be used by the Flushing line beginning in 1915],7 and the Hudson and Manhattan tunnels, when constructed.8

  When the Subway Committee of the Board of Estimate proposed the Dual System contracts, this line had evolved into the eastern trunk of the IRT “H,” the route of the Lexington Avenue line as we know it from Lower Manhattan to the Bronx.9

  Figure 9-1. The PSC’s 1909 map for the 1st Avenue line.

  With work on the Lexington Avenue and 7th Avenue lines underway, consideration was given to additional trunk lines. Daniel L. Turner included two Manhattan lines in the Transit Construction Commission plan of 1920. He proposed an East Side line from the Harlem River to the Battery along Madison Avenue, 5th Avenue, Greene Street, and Church Street, with connections to lines traveling to the other boroughs. Turner called for the line in his plan to be built primarily with six tracks: “The Fourth Avenue–Lexington Avenue line is now heavily overcrowded. The neighborhood around the Grand Central Terminal area is rapidly building up. Large increases in hotel facilities are being planned. Numerous extensive office building projects are taking form. In a relatively short time the existing subway will be wholly unable to meet the transit requirements of the East Side of Manhattan and in particular the Grand Central neighborhood. Consequently, to meet this pressing demand, the proposed Madison Avenue line will have to be placed under construction in the near future.”10

  Turner saw the need for a greater expansion of West Side service, though. He proposed an eight-track line along 8th and Amsterdam Avenues. The State Transit Commission’s 1922 plan had two West Side routes but no East Side line. The first was the 8th and Amsterdam Avenue line to Washington Heights, intended to allow for a direct link with the Flushing line, not yet extended to Times Square. The second route would extend the BRT’s Broadway line north from the 57th Street Station via Central Park South, Central Park West, Central Park North, and 7th Avenue (now Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Boulevard). Track ramps were built as the Broadway line was constructed, anticipating an eventual northern extension.11

  The NYS Transit Commission waited two years to propose an East Side line, but this line wouldn’t be part of the existing subway system. Instead, it was part of Turner’s Metropolitan Transit System plan, his concept for connecting commuter lines from Long Island, New Jersey, and the northern suburbs. Turner called for a north–south line under a new street to be built between 2nd and 3rd Avenues.12

  Mayor John F. Hylan issued a more ambitious plan affecting the East Side in August 1922. He called for a line from City Hall to the Bronx via 1st and Webster Avenues and Boston Road, with a southern extension to Brooklyn.

  These plans were caught up in the battle for control of the subway between Hylan and the Transit Commission, which stymied efforts to expand the system. The Board of Estimate wasn’t willing to proceed; to the Transit Commission’s frustration, they waited until July 1, 1924, to take any action on new subways. That was when the Board of Transportation and its chairman, John H. Delaney, took the lead role in transit planning.

  Hylan’s plan sparked interest among the business groups who saw a 1st Avenue line as the way to promote growth. “First Avenue more than any street in Manhattan lends itself to the speedy building of a subway at this time, and if a trunk line should be built through First Avenue (it is wide and has no overhead structure above Twenty-Third Street) relief would be quicker than from [the] building of a subway in
any other part of the city,”13 Samuel J. Bloomingdale, president of the Bloomingdale Brothers department store, wrote to the Transit Commission.

  With the motto “First Avenue Subway First,” Bloomingdale and other property owners formed the First Avenue Subway Association on April 7, 1924, at a luncheon at his store.14 They believed the 1st Avenue line would have more of an impact than the 6th Avenue line, which had a higher priority in the planning process.

  Representatives of this group, along with business and realty groups from Manhattan and the Bronx, met with the BOT on July 25 to discuss the 1st Avenue line. They had petitions supporting the line and promised to share in construction costs. Delaney asked the representatives to meet with the property owners to determine how many of them would participate in an assessment plan. Newspaper articles over subsequent weeks ran stories on owners who were willing to join. However, the BOT’s plans for the IND didn’t include an East Side line.

  The First Avenue Subway Association protested to Hylan and Delaney. “The east side has been entirely ignored in the plan which has been submitted,” Managing Director Irwin L. House wrote. “The congestion on the east side is as great as exists on the west side and the money that it will cost to build the west side route with the Fifty-Third Street extension [the Queens Boulevard line] could be used to greater advantage if expended on the east side.”15 Charles M. Estabrook, a transit engineer hired by the Association, feared that if the East Side was neglected then, it wouldn’t get an additional subway line for another twenty years.16

  The Transit Commission got around to discussing expanded East Side subway service in June 1925. Writing in the June 12 edition of the New York Times, Major General John F. O’Ryan, a Commission member, discussed a plan for a subway line on 3rd Avenue. Turner called for the demolition of the 3rd Avenue El and the widening of the street to allow for the construction of a six-track line. The line would run from the City Hall area to the Harlem River, with at least three tracks linking with the 2nd and 3rd Avenue Els. O’Ryan and Turner saw 3rd Avenue becoming a second Park Avenue.17 The Merchants Association of New York called for the construction of a 3rd Avenue line as part of an overall position paper opposing the IND.18 This was as far as the 3rd Avenue line proposal went, with the BOT controlling the planning process.

  The lobbying efforts of the East Side groups paid off when news of the plans for the second phase of the IND appeared in April 1929. While the Utica Avenue–Crosstown line and the Nostrand Avenue line extension in Brooklyn drew the most attention, Delaney, trying to avoid making a definitive statement, did say that another route to be built was an East Side trunk line, operating along 2nd or 3rd Avenues, or a private right-of-way between those two streets. They favored 2nd Avenue but did not make a final choice.

  The line would run from an unnamed downtown location to the East Bronx. Mayor James J. Walker requested the routing to allay the fears of East Bronx residents that they were neglected due to the BOT’s earlier approval of the extension of the IND Concourse line via Burke Avenue and Boston Road.19

  A route was selected after two years of planning for the East Side Trunk Line. It was originally proposed to run from Houston Street to the Bronx via 2nd Avenue, connecting with the White Plains Road line. The mid-block routing was ruled out; land acquisition costs for the line and the new street were too steep. Building it on 3rd Avenue brought it too close to Lexington Avenue; 2nd Avenue brought it closer to areas not served by rapid transit.20 Connections to the 53rd Street and 6th Avenue–Houston Street lines were considered.

  Within a few weeks, the route was extended south to Water and Wall Streets and split into three branches in the Bronx. The original connection to the White Plains Road line at 177th Street was retained. A second branch would run along Boston Road to the Northeast Bronx, linking to the Concourse line extension at Burke Avenue and the Curtiss-Wright Corporation’s planned airport. Responding to Mayor Walker’s concerns, a third branch would be built along Lafayette Avenue, serving the East Bronx. No track connection would be built at 53rd or Houston Streets, but there would be a spur line built along East 61st Street connecting the 2nd and 6th Avenue lines.

  The response to where the routes would be built was largely positive. Samuel J. Bloomingdale spoke for the proposal and looked forward to when the elevated lines in his area would be gone:

  The plans for the Second Avenue line will dramatize a development which parallels the growth of any community from frontier town to city …

  … When the east side is completely equipped with subsurface transit, the day will be at hand when added light will be given to the splendid new buildings on Second and Third Avenues, and the unsightly elevated structures will be merely on of the reminisces of the oldest inhabitants.21

  Complaints in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens were directed toward the BOT’s plans for new elevated lines. There were concerns in Manhattan over building a route connecting the 2nd and 6th Avenue lines on East 61st Street, rather than 57th Street, a much wider thoroughfare. On the other hand, the 57th Street Committee of the Fifth Avenue Association spoke against running the branch along that street and supported using East 61st Street.22

  The greatest desire was for work to begin. The First Avenue Association, a group of businesspeople and realtors that included Bloomingdale, organized to promote growth along the East Side, began a campaign to achieve that goal. A series of speakers supporting the proposed route attended the BOT’s public hearing on the trunk line on February 10, 1930. Philip J. Healey Inc. carried out preliminary engineering on 2nd Avenue from East 30th Street to the Harlem River.23

  Delaney wanted to begin work on that line, as well as the Utica Avenue–Crosstown and South Queens Trunk Lines. However, finances affected the BOT. They needed to finish a component of the IND’s first phase, the 6th Avenue–Houston Street line, feeling it was necessary to relieve pressure on the 8th Avenue line.24 The 2nd Avenue station on this line was built to allow for a transfer with the 2nd Avenue line.

  Figure 9-2. A diagram of the mezzanine of the 2nd Avenue station on the 6th Avenue–Houston Street line, showing the room left for the 2nd Avenue line to go through and a transfer station to be built. (Courtesy of the New York Transit Museum Archives)

  The 2nd Avenue line was included in the Board’s next capital plan, released in February 1932. The White Plains Road line connection was gone. A connecting line running on 34th Street between 2nd and 10th Avenues had been added, the only time the BOT proposed this. The Northeast and East Bronx lines were retained. It was still significant on paper, but that’s all it was—a plan on paper. Despite the ongoing efforts of the East Side and Bronx organizations to start work, no action could be taken.

  The city government didn’t help. The Subway Committee of the First Avenue Association met with Acting Mayor Joseph V. McKee that fall to urge that he obtain a Reconstruction Finance Corporation loan for the line. McKee wanted to cut $50 million from the budget ($823 million in 2011 dollars, according to MeasuringWorth.com); he wouldn’t do anything that would add to the city’s obligations.25 Federal funding would later help to build the first phase of the IND in Fiorello H. La Guardia’s administration.

  The start of work wasn’t imminent, but some people supported actions that led to the contraction of East Side transit service. Not wishing to wait for construction of the trunk line, the First Avenue Association advocated for demolition of the 2nd Avenue El. Their main effort throughout the 1930s seemed to be advocating for the demolition of the elevated, rather than building the subway.

  The 2nd Avenue Trunk Line took on less importance for a time in the late 1930s. It ranked fourteenth on the Board’s 1938 capital priority list. The line itself shrank. While a connection from 2nd Avenue to the BMT’s Broadway line was proposed for the first time, the trunk line was now only a two-track line, with one route proposed for the Bronx, along the borough’s southern shore. Other lines took on greater importance in the Board’s capital plans. Proposals for the extensions of subway line
s in Queens ranked higher.

  The BOT’s capital plans from 1939 through 1941 brought on a change in the plans for 2nd Avenue. For the first time, there was a proposal to operate to Brooklyn, running under Water Street and Coenties Slip, connecting with the Fulton Street line at the Hoyt–Schermerhorn Street station.26 Construction of the 2nd Avenue line to Brooklyn and southern Queens remained a priority for many years.

  One capital budget item ranked higher by the BOT was demolishing the 6th Avenue El. The city government was listening to the groups calling for the demolition of the els. Comptroller Joseph V. McGoldrick announced that the demolition of the 2nd, 6th, and 9th Avenue and Fulton Street elevated lines would be in the 1939 capital budget.

  The BOT had wanted to demolish the 6th Avenue Elevated for years to facilitate construction of the 6th Avenue subway. It would be difficult building even if the el weren’t there, as it needed to be built around the Hudson Tubes below 33rd Street and above and below other tunnels and pipelines along the length of the street. The Transit Commission considered the demolition at a hearing on September 29, 1930.

  The IRT and the Bronx Chamber of Commerce opposed this. McKee, then Aldermanic president, opposed building new elevated lines, but he also opposed this action: “While I believe that everything should be done to enhance the value of real estate in our city, when there is any question between real estate value and the convenience of the people, I prefer to take my stand on the side of the people.”27 McKee thought the 8th Avenue line should be completed before demolition started. The BOT would have to wait.

  The Board of Estimate authorized demolition on August 3, 1938. The Transport Workers Union opposed this, fearing the loss of jobs, but had little help. The last train ran on the evening of December 4 and demolition began. Joseph P. Day auctioned off the structural steel.28

  Attention turned to the other elevated lines. The Transit Commission held a hearing on October 26, 1939, attended by a large group of civic and business group members and elected officials from the Bronx and Queens and the Transport Workers Union. Assistant Corporation Counsel Leo H. Brown made the city’s case for demolition. Council Member Joseph Kinsley criticized any effort to reduce rail transit service in the Bronx. John Gannon of the Bronx Chamber of Commerce stated that demolition “without adequate substitute transportation is contrary to the public good. There can be no justification for any procedure which will add to the already overcrowded East and West Bronx subways.”29