The Routes Not Taken Read online

  The TA established its own capital priorities in July 1953, which didn’t include steps to maintain or upgrade the structure of the 3rd Avenue El. Instead, they were planning to end el service in Manhattan. It would cost $1.5 million a year to operate ($12.6 million in 2011 dollars),52 and this didn’t include what was needed to upgrade the seventy-five-year-old structure. Since the spring of 1952, there had been no service on the el on weekends, holidays, or at night. TA engineers and executives believed that the structure had a useful life of only another five years. Service on the branch of the el running from Chatham Square to City Hall ended with one last trip at 6:49 P.M. on December 31, 1953. The end of the rest of the line in Manhattan was coming.

  When the TA issued its capital plan, its president, Hugh J. Casey, told the Board of Estimate that much of the money provided by the 1951 bond issue had gone to other projects. Additional funding would be needed for 2nd Avenue. The TA wanted to build that line but had no idea as to when work would actually begin, despite hopes for a 1957 start.

  The 3rd Avenue Elevated ran between Manhattan and the Bronx until 1955. Following on the TA’s plan, Robert Moses, as city construction coordinator, advised Robert F. Wagner, the new mayor, that the el should be demolished below 149th Street. Bronx groups protested to Wagner, but he wouldn’t take a position: “The [TA] is given sole purpose to determine whether any transit facilities shall or shall not continue to operate.”53

  Sentiment against demolition in the Bronx wasn’t unanimous. The Bronx Board of Trade, for one, supported it: “Faced with dwindling patronage, diminishing revenues, mounting deficits and the prospects of extending more than $80,000,000 [$905 million in 2011 dollars] to rehabilitate the railroad structure, the TA has no alternative … if it is to avoid an increase in fare.”54

  The TA held hearings at their headquarters in Brooklyn on June 4 and 5. Twelve speakers from the Bronx opposed demolition; the Board of Trade spoke for it, with Joseph F. Addonizio, its executive director, expressing the opinion that demolition might accelerate work on the 2nd Avenue line. The majority of demolition proponents came from Manhattan.

  On July 15 the TA Board voted four to one in favor of demolition. Rehabilitation of the el’s structure would cost approximately $80 million; the TA would achieve an annual savings of $2.4 million ($27.1 million in 2011 dollars) by demolishing it.55 The end of service was scheduled for December 31; legal and legislative efforts delayed the last day of operation until May 12, 1955. After service ended, the elevated structure was dismantled. As with the earlier elevated lines, the structural steel was recycled, in this case for the third tube of the Lincoln Tunnel.56

  One part of the 2nd Avenue line the TA wanted to start work on was the Chrystie Street connection. This would be the link between the 6th Avenue–Houston Street line and the BMT lines crossing the Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges. Grand Street would be the one station in that segment. The TA asked the city to fund this project on July 9, but the start of work on the main part of the line was no longer on the horizon.

  Charles L. Patterson, who replaced Casey as TA chairman in July 1955, issued a report at a Board of Estimate hearing on September 22. Patterson told the Board members that the start of construction of the 2nd Avenue line was “about ten years off ”57—working on the existing system and dealing with the TA’s financial issues would come first.

  The report, which responded to Board inquiries concerning the extension of the IRT’s Nostrand Avenue line in Brooklyn, made it clear: “No new lines or extensions should be undertaken until the major portion of the modernization program has been completed, and such construction should only be undertaken if it can shown to be self-sustaining.”58

  This was frustrating to the representatives of the 2nd Avenue line’s service area. Council Member Isaacs and a Queens colleague, Robert E. Barnes, criticized the use of the funding ostensibly earmarked for 2nd Avenue to maintain the existing system. Barnes called it a “disgraceful double cross”; he wrote to State Senate Majority Leader Walter J. Mahoney and Assembly Speaker Oswald D. Heck, asking for a legislative investigation into how the bond issue money had been spent.59 State Senator MacNeil Mitchell60 sought authorization for a hearing on what had happened to the $500 million from the 1951 bond issue ($4.33 billion in 2011 dollars).

  Twenty years earlier as an Assembly member, Mitchell supported demolishing the 2nd Avenue El. As a state senator, he was interested in what happened to the money meant to pay for the subway that would replace it. Mitchell soon found that people knew bond issue funds were never specifically earmarked for one subway line. “Where the $500,000,000 or most of it went—nearly $400,000,000 has already been spent or committed—is one of the worst-kept ‘secrets’ in city affairs,” the New York Times editorialized. There had been “no breach of faith with the people.”61

  Mitchell’s hearing was held on March 8, 1957. Patterson made it clear that the 2nd Avenue line wouldn’t be built with funds from the 1951 bond issue. Other system needs—the purchase of the Rockaway Beach line and its integration into the subway system, the completion of the Fulton Street subway, the DeKalb Avenue project, the connection of the Dyre Avenue and White Plains Road and the Culver and Smith Street lines, platform lengthening, subway car purchases, and other work needed to rehabilitate an aging system—took precedence. “It would have been a tragic mistake for the city to have embarked on the trunk line program [the 2nd Avenue line] as planned at the expense of denying capital funds for the improvement and modernization of the existing rapid transit systems,” Patterson testified.62

  With that, aside from the Chrystie Street / DeKalb Avenue section, most of the 2nd Avenue line went into the “state of suspended animation” John H. Delaney told James J. Lyons the Burke Avenue line was in during the 1940s. The Board of Estimate allocated $10,227,400 ($100 million in 2011 dollars) on October 25, 1957, to begin work on Chrystie Street; ground was broken on November 25. Mayor Wagner announced that the Grand Street station would be built using ramps and a minimum amount of stairs to provide access for the senior citizens who lived in the area.63

  The construction of the Chrystie Street connection required a northern subway extension. The TA announced plans to extend the 6th Avenue line north to 57th Street on January 30, 1962. Although this extension would be used for a future system extension, its purpose then was to handle the additional number of trains coming up 6th Avenue from Chrystie Street without running to Upper Manhattan or Queens.

  Chrystie Street line service began on November 26, 1967, completing the work started in the 1950s with the reconstruction of the track system at DeKalb Avenue. It completed the IND / BMT merger that began with the Queens Boulevard / 60th Street connection in Long Island City and the Culver / Smith Street connection in Brooklyn in the 1950s. Two 6th Avenue line routes used Chrystie Street to reach the Manhattan Bridge and run along the Brighton Beach and West End lines in Brooklyn; a new 6th Avenue route, the KK line, used Chrystie Street and the Williamsburg Bridge to connect with the Broadway–Brooklyn line. This was the most significant change in subway service in decades. The opening of the Chrystie Street line led to other changes in the system. Four new routes began service, and five others experienced significant revisions.

  In a span of about five weeks in 1968, two plans were released that harked back to the BOT’s old plans for 2nd Avenue. The first was a report for the TA by the engineering firm of Coverdale and Colpitts. They revived the plan to use all of the New York, Westchester, and Boston Railway’s right-of-way, connecting it with the Dyre Avenue line at East 180th Street. It would branch off on Burke Avenue to the Co-op City housing development, being built on land meant for Curtiss Airport. Another branch would connect with the Pelham line, bringing back part of the BOT’s plans from the 1940s and 1950s.

  A third branch would use part of what remained of the 3rd Avenue El, running along Washington Avenue to 198th Street, where it would connect with the el and run to Gun Hill Road. The el segment south of 198th Street would be
demolished. In Manhattan, Coverdale and Colpitts proposed connecting the 63rd Street line with the 2nd Avenue, 6th Avenue, and Broadway lines.

  On February 28, 1968, the newly formed Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which included the TA, the suburban railroads, and the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, issued its “New Routes” plan, succeeding Coverdale and Colpitts’s proposals.64 “New Routes” brought back components of past BOT and TA plans, and incorporated some of the Coverdale and Colpitts schemes. The 2nd Avenue line was included, starting in Lower Manhattan, linking with the Chrystie Street line at Grand Street, which would be rebuilt as a four-track station, and running into the Bronx. In the Bronx, it would run on the unused part of the New York, Westchester, and Boston Railway’s right-of-way to link with the Dyre Avenue line. A branch from the south would connect with the 63rd Street line going toward Queens; one from the north would connect with 63rd Street, going to the 6th Avenue and Broadway lines.

  The MTA wanted to avoid the problems of the BOT and the TA. Dr. William J. Ronan, the first MTA chairman, stressed the need to move ahead. “We must act decisively and with courage, recognizing that years of study and review have already helped forge and temper this program,” Ronan told the Board of Estimate on August 12. “The plan before you is practical and ‘doable’ and meets present and future needs.… We are little interested in stocking libraries with more studies. We want to bring people the transportation they deserve.”65

  That didn’t happen. City Council Member Robert A. Low wanted the line built on 1st Avenue. Robert W. Haack, the New York Stock Exchange’s president, and Edmund F. Wagner, the president of the Downtown–Lower Manhattan Association, wanted it extended to the Battery.66 The Downtown–Lower Manhattan Association proposed an extension around the tip of Manhattan to serve the Battery Park City development, then in the planning stage.67

  Figure 9-6. The Grand Street station on the Chrystie Street line, a two-track station, would be rebuilt to handle four tracks, allowing for transfers to the 2nd Avenue line. (Courtesy of the New York Transit Museum Archives)

  Shortly after Ronan’s speech, three city agencies asked for changes in the plan for 2nd Avenue. The City Planning Commission, the Transportation Administration, and the Bureau of the Budget issued a joint report to the Board of Estimate on August 14 calling on the MTA to build it with two tracks and to construct it using the “deep tunnel” method.68 On September 18 Mayor John V. Lindsay and the five borough presidents called for this to be done with limited stops.

  The Board of Estimate approved the overall plan on September 20, but 2nd Avenue had a long way to go. Funding issues weren’t resolved and there were more objections to its routing. Manhattan Community Board No. 4, acting on a request by Borough President Percy E. Sutton, held a public hearing at City Hall on March 4, 1969. Council Member Low and U.S. Representative James H. Scheuer led the speakers.

  Scheuer opposed the construction of a “two-track high-speed line” and called for inclusion of local tracks.69 Low felt that the BOT’s original plans didn’t anticipate the growth that 1st Avenue and the area to the east experienced.70 Jack Sissman of the New York State Liberal Party called the 2nd Avenue line “a rich man’s express, circumventing the Lower East Side with its complexes of high-rise low- and middle-income housing and slums in favor of a silk stocking route.”71

  The issue of Lower East Side service took on a life of its own. Borough President Sutton and Representative Edward I. Koch (eight years before becoming mayor) called on the MTA to reroute the line or run a spur line to serve that area. Ronan questioned the cost and benefits of the plan.72 The calls for an eastward routing had Mayor Lindsay’s support. His transportation administrator, Constantine Sidamon-Eristoff,73 called on the MTA to reconsider its plan for the 2nd Avenue line’s downtown routing: “If this route is reasonable and financially feasible, it should be done.… Our preliminary work shows that shifting the route to Avenue A or B would add only a minute to travel time, serve additional population and be fairly close in cost to [the] direct line recommended by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.”74

  The Board of Estimate scheduled a hearing for July 24 to review the MTA’s plans. Sutton was pessimistic about his plan being adopted: “It would seem that the Wall Street boys with their paid ads have done an effective job of routing and have defeated the little people of the Lower East Side.”75 That feeling was groundless. After a seven-hour hearing, the Board rejected the MTA’s plan. Only Queens Borough President Sidney Leviss and Brooklyn Borough President Abe Stark76 voted for it.

  The MTA reconsidered its plans for 2nd Avenue, a process lasting through the end of 1969. Comptroller Abraham Beame grew frustrated with the time it was taking to come up with a new plan and issued a statement on January 21, 1970, criticizing the MTA for the delay. Lindsay’s office also pressed for action. The MTA issued a plan for a spur route a week later. Nicknamed the “Cuphandle,” it would run east from the 2nd Avenue line at Houston Street to Avenue C and then turn north and run to meet the 14th Street–Canarsie line.

  That may have ended that issue, but another issue was festering. Ever since Lindsay and the borough presidents called for what Representative Scheuer later disparaged as a “two-track, high-speed line,” there were concerns in Manhattan over the number of Midtown and Upper East Side stops. It became a full-fledged controversy in September 1970. Ronan stated that no station locations had been set and hearings on the locations would be held, but John T. O’Neill, the TA’s chief engineer, stated there would be six stations, located at 34th, 48th, 57th, 86th, 106th, and 125th Streets.

  Figure 9-7. Senator Jacob K. Javits, Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller, U.S. Secretary of Transportation John Volpe, Mayor John V. Lindsay, Congressman Edward I. Koch, and MTA Chairman William J. Ronan break ground for the 2nd Avenue subway on October 27, 1972. (Photo courtesy of the New York Transit Museum Archives)

  The absence of stations at 72nd and 96th Streets drew protests. Sutton held a hearing on the issue on October 6. Ronan declined to attend, although Justin Feldman, an MTA representative, stated that no decision had been made concerning the number or location of stations. Assembly Member Stephen C. Hansen expressed the belief the station locations were being kept secret until it would be too late to alter the plans.

  Figure 9-8. A view of the 2nd Avenue line segment built between East 99th and East 105th Streets. (Photo by the author)

  This controversy went on for close to a year. A station was added at 72nd Street, which failed to satisfy many East Side residents. “While we are gratified that the MTA now accepts our previous request for a station at 72nd Street, which will serve the important New York Hospital Medical Center, we cannot understand why the MTA fails to provide such an equal facility for the Metropolitan Hospital Center at 96th Street,” William J. Diamond, the chairman of Manhattan Community Board No. 8, said at an MTA hearing at Hunter College on September 15, 1971.

  “… It is important to remember that in the early 1940s before most of the large high rise apartment houses were built on Second and Third Avenues, that the area between 34th Street and 126th Street had been served by the Second Avenue elevated line and the Third Avenue elevated line in addition to the Lexington Avenue IRT and trolley car service,” he continued. “… With the removal of these two lines the east side lost a total of 28 mass transit stations.… Even with the addition of a 96th Street station, the east side will still have only one-third the number of subway stations that it had thirty years ago when its population was much less than it is today.”77

  Ronan announced on October 3 that a station would be built at 96th Street. The question of how the construction of 2nd Avenue and the other “New Routes” routes would be paid for remained to be answered.

  Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller thought he had the answer. In March 1971, he announced he would seek approval for a $2.5 billion sale of bonds on the ballot in November ($13.9 billion in 2011 dollars). The money derived from the bond sale would help to
finance the “New Routes” projects as well as other transit and highway projects across the state.

  Despite a heavy advertising campaign for the bond issue, it failed at the ballot box by nine hundred thousand votes, attracting little support in New York City. Even though the bond issue would finance expansion of the transit system and maintain fares, many remembered the promises made in 1951 and forgot the work that was done.

  The 2nd Avenue project continued while other projects withered away and the fare went from thirty to thirty-five cents. Money remained from a 1967 bond issue, and federal funding was available. On June 21, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon announced that a $25 million78 Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA) grant would be provided to the MTA for 2nd Avenue.

  Governor Rockefeller, Mayor Lindsay, Senator Jacob K. Javits, Borough President Sutton, and U.S. Secretary of Transportation John Volpe broke ground for one of the two uptown segments of the line at a ceremony at 2nd Avenue and East 103rd Street on October 27.79 The MTA celebrated the groundbreaking at East 103rd Street by issuing a brochure, titled The Second Avenue Subway Line … The Line That Almost Never Was, tracing the history of the line back to Daniel L. Turner’s Transit Construction Commission plan of 1920. The uptown segments would run between East 99th and East 105th Streets and East 110th and East 120th Streets.

  More changes were sought. Bronx Borough President Robert Abrams proposed a new routing that would have the line run eastward along Whitlock Avenue to serve the Parkchester housing development and then north to Co-op City.80