The Routes Not Taken Page 29

  Two other BOT members, Colonel Sidney H. Bingham and Frank X. Sullivan, supported O’Dwyer. After a meeting with the mayor on September 19, Gross resigned. O’Dwyer appointed William Reid—who had worked for the city government in financial positions since the Mitchel administration, and was O’Dwyer’s fiscal adviser and chairman of the Special Transit Committee—to replace Gross.

  The CPC took a similar position in releasing their capital budget for 1948: “We believe that such action has now become imperative not only to relieve the city budgets and make it possible to advance other improvements but to assure safe and proper operations of the transit system.”12

  O’Dwyer wanted to raise fares. Realizing that approval by the voting public was unlikely, he asked the state legislature to approve an amendment to the Rapid Transit Law allowing the BOT to raise fares without a referendum. He also asked for an increase in the real estate tax to provide additional funding.

  In order to show what additional financial support could accomplish, O’Dwyer and the BOT released a new subway expansion plan on December 14, 1947. Developed by Bingham,13 a long-time IRT and BOT engineer, the plan called for a six-track trunk line on 2nd Avenue, with connections to lines serving the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and other parts of Manhattan, as well as bringing back extensions that were part of previous BOT plans. The one new component was a link that would connect the Jamaica Avenue and 14th Street–Canarsie lines in East New York. Bingham also prepared a service plan, showing how the system would change once all the components of the plan had been built.14 The new capital plan coincided with the TWU’s endorsement of the fare-increase proposal. With the Board of Estimate rejecting funding for a salary increase, it was the best way to provide for increased salaries.

  Mayor O’Dwyer’s financial package was not acted on until the end of February 1948. Governor Thomas E. Dewey and the legislative leadership indicated their support for increasing fares, but the proposal to increase real estate taxes was opposed by Republican legislators from Queens, fearing its impact on individual homeowners.15

  Figure 10-1. (Left to right) Brooklyn Borough President John Cashmore, Mayor William O’Dwyer, and Board of Transportation Chairman William Reid at ceremonies marking the opening of the Euclid Avenue station on the Fulton Street line on November 28, 1948. (Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection)

  The funding package passed on March 29 reflected that. The legislature authorized a fare increase without requiring a referendum, and empowered the city to increase gross receipts taxes on businesses. O’Dwyer wanted to wait until after the 1949 mayoral elections to raise the fares, probably concerned about it being an issue in the campaign. He felt the package that was enacted “would place the sole and entire burden on the great majority of people who could least bear it alone.”16 However, the needs of the system were too great to wait any longer. In a radio speech on April 20, O’Dwyer announced the fare would increase to ten cents on July 1.

  The BOT issued another plan for subway expansion in 1948. It wasn’t as ambitious as those issued earlier in the decade, but it was major in scope. The Board was equally concerned about upgrading the existing system. Reid had submitted the plan to the City Planning Commission in October. The CPC didn’t provide much help in obtaining funding and Reid turned to the Board of Estimate:

  The Board of Transportation requests your Honorable Board to do what the City Planning Commission did not do, that is, provide the funds requested.

  The Board takes this opportunity of calling your attention to the amounts not only needed to completely rehabilitate the present transit facilities during the next six years, but also to point out the urgent need of beginning immediate construction of the Second Avenue feeder line. This new line is needed to relieve the intolerable conditions existing at the present time in the other feeder lines in Manhattan and to make possible full utilization of the lines in the outlying areas of the City, which is now not possible because of the bottlenecks due to insufficient trunk lines in Manhattan.17

  Financing remained a concern. Reid noted that O’Dwyer opposed use of the additional fare revenue to pay down the debt. He wanted to use the revenue from the increased business tax revenue for that. Reid also opposed a proposal that the city’s sales tax be raised from 2 percent to 3 percent to provide additional capital funding: “If this were done, the cost would fall on the rider in large part, as it is primarily the seven million daily riders who are paying the city’s sales tax. Real estate would escape the charge almost entirely although real estate, as well as the rider, benefits because of the city’s rapid transit system.”18

  The BOT couldn’t proceed with its capital plans. Under constitutional restrictions, the city could only borrow up to 10 percent of the average total assessed real estate value over the previous four years for capital projects. As Reid’s letter pointed out, he wanted to see an increase in real estate taxes, but that wasn’t happening.

  The fare increase was an issue in the mayoral campaign, but not to the extent that O’Dwyer may have expected. Representative Vito Marcantonio, the American Labor Party’s candidate, did attack him, fearing that an increase to fifteen cents was already being planned. He promised to roll the fare back to a nickel. Former City Council President Newbold Morris touched on it, but only to question what riders got for the additional nickel. Morris’s main transit issue was in the Bronx.

  Competition existed between community groups, elected officials, and newspapers in each borough over capital funding and city services. The Bronx groups fought against the city building airports in Queens, rather than on the Curtiss Airport site. Borough President James J. Lyons protested that the Queens Boulevard line was being extended while the Bronx subway projects were not going forward. The feeling was reciprocated in Queens.

  As such, it was no surprise when a group from the Bronx led by Arthur V. Sheridan and George Mand toured the Queens Boulevard line project in June 1948, Sheridan said that while they were impressed, “There’s only one thing the matter with that extension, and that it’s in Queens instead of the Bronx.”19

  Queens was entering a period of massive postwar expansion beyond what was happening in the Bronx and beyond what anyone could imagine. The beginning of service in Queens as the result of the Dual Systems Contracts projects spurred residential and industrial development. It accelerated with the opening of the Queens Boulevard line between 1933 and 1937. While the financial issues that affected the expansion of the subway system in the Bronx also prevented the extension of service into eastern Queens, the impact it had was huge.

  The Queens Boulevard line extended from Forest Hills and Kew Gardens to Hillside Avenue and 169th Street in Jamaica in 1937. This triggered the massive development in that line’s service area that the Bronx’s elected officials, business leaders, and civic groups anticipated had the Burke Avenue line been built. While the elected officials and civic and business groups in Queens were disappointed when the extension of the subways to near the city line didn’t happen, what was built resulted in the growth of that borough that continues to this day; 179th Street became a major transit hub and remains a vital entry point to the subway system for the people who moved into eastern, northeastern, and southeastern Queens and Nassau County.

  What attracted a lot of attention in 1948 was the BOT’s plan to extend the 2nd Avenue line to the South Bronx, with a transfer connection to the 3rd Avenue El. This would lead to the demolition of the el below 149th Street. Indirectly referring to Burke Avenue, Reid said the 2nd Avenue / Pelham line connection, coupled with additional service along the White Plains Road and Jerome and Dyre Avenue lines, would provide the level of service the North Bronx needed.

  This was a variation of the plan for the 2nd Avenue line the BOT proposed for the second phase of the IND in 1929, but using connections to existing lines to provide service to the Bronx. The Pelham line connection was the alternative to the Lafayette Avenue line; the additional Lexington Avenue line service routed to the White Plains Road
and Jerome and Dyre Avenue lines would replace the two other branches.

  This changed the discussion of Bronx transit service. No one liked the appearance of the elevated structure on 3rd and Webster Avenues. Many Bronx groups made their feelings about those structures clear twenty years earlier when the BOT proposed building new ones. However, they also knew the el provided service that wouldn’t be easily replaced if demolished. Along with wanting new service, they needed to fight to hold on to what they had.

  The Bronx’s response was typified by a Post and Home News editorial, titled “They Give Us a Morsel, but We Want a Meal.”20 Everything the BOT proposed was viewed as positive, but the absence of the Burke Avenue and Tremont Avenue Crosstown lines seemed conspicuous to the editorial board.21

  The Empire City Racing Association bought the Curtiss Airport site in 1949 and planned to build a racetrack seating thirty-five thousand people. One entrance would be built adjacent to the Dyre Avenue line’s Baychester Avenue station. Empire City wanted a New Haven Railroad spur line built to the racetrack.

  Borough President Lyons, an airport proponent since taking office, said, “Racetracks bring in tax revenue; airfields don’t.”22 “During past years, the Bronx has always been Manhattan’s bedroom. Now the Bronx will get back to business,” Thomas Tozzi of the Bronx Board of Trade said.23 Frank Mazzetti of the Bronx Real Estate Board noted that the property was too small for the airplanes then in use. Mand still wanted the airport to be built: “For 20 years, we have consistently fought for an airport on that site. The airport plan was in conjunction with the seaport development to make the Bronx a leading transportation center. This is regrettable.”24

  The proximity of the proposed racetrack to the Dyre Avenue line, and the plans to connect it to the White Plains Road line, was a flashpoint. “We charge that the Board of Transportation has speeded up plans to build a direct rail connection at East 180th Street from the White Plains Road line to the Dyre Avenue line to replace the present transfer so that through rapid transit service will be provided to the racehorse players visiting the Empire City track without the inconvenience of transferring from the IRT White Plains Road line to the Dyre Avenue line,” Hyman Bravin wrote to O’Dwyer. “… The Board of Transportation proposed Bronx tinhorn special to the very entrance of the contemplated track is not needed.”25 Bravin demanded that O’Dwyer name the officials who sponsored the White Plains Road / Dyre Avenue connection and called for Burke Avenue’s construction.

  The racetrack issue brought renewed focus to Burke Avenue. In the week before the November 8 election, Newbold Morris made the question over the racetrack proposal and the subway service an issue in the mayoral campaign. In addition to his role on the Burke Avenue Subway Extension Committee, Bravin was the Liberal Party’s manager of Morris’s Bronx campaign. Bravin brought the issues he raised earlier on his own to Morris, who thought he had an issue with which he could attack O’Dwyer.

  Morris charged that O’Dwyer pushed the White Plains Road / Dyre Avenue connection over the objections of Budget Director Thomas Patterson. To Morris and Bravin’s view, the connection advanced only to benefit Empire City and their customers. He implied that there were improper connections between the mayor and Empire City, using Bravin’s expression “Tinhorn Special”26 to refer to Dyre Avenue, promising not to build the connection until the 2nd Avenue line was built. He would build the Burke Avenue line.

  Reid said the BOT knew nothing of anything related to the racetrack. They wanted the White Plains Road / Dyre Avenue connection to serve the new Eastchester Gardens and Pelham Parkway housing developments. Patterson’s objections concerned timing; he knew the connection was necessary. William Ellard, the city’s director of real estate, stated that proper procedures were followed in the sale of the Curtiss Airport property.27

  Lyons, an O’Dwyer supporter, said Morris was given a “wrong steer” on Empire City and suggested he consult with another La Guardia ally, Paul Windels, Sr., who he said was a counsel for Empire City.28 When reporters asked for his comments, O’Dwyer smiled, said, “Silly boy,”and changed the subject.29

  Bravin viewed Morris as Burke Avenue’s last hope: “The Burke Avenue extension is doomed if O’Dwyer is elected. Newbold Morris … has assured [the Burke Avenue Subway Extension Committee] that if elected one of his first acts will be to assign qualified engineers to study the project.… If they report the need genuine, as we have long know it is, he promises he will back extension work with the full force of his administration.… If you want the Burke Avenue extension, vote for Newbold Morris.”30

  Morris and Marcantonio split the vote opposing O’Dwyer, who won with a plurality of the vote. An extension of the Concourse line to Burke Avenue wouldn’t again be considered for two decades. The racetrack was never built; the land would sit vacant for another decade until it was later developed for the Freedomland amusement park. Freedomland would be demolished; much of that land would be used for the Co-op City housing development.

  The transit system’s needs increased without its financial needs being met. The infrastructure was aging; new trains and buses were needed. Diesel buses were needed to replace trolleys and trolley buses. The existing system needed work. IRT and BMT local stations had been built at a shorter length than had express stations; customer demand required their extension. The BOT hadn’t connected the White Plains Road and Dyre Avenue lines and the Culver and Smith Street lines. The DeKalb Avenue interchange needed to be rebuilt in order to unclog the bottleneck impeding service on the five BMT lines then traveling through downtown Brooklyn, and to facilitate the connections that would be built with the 2nd Avenue line. And the Board now had the issue of the LIRR’s Rockaway Beach line to address.

  The LIRR was looking to cut costs; they wanted the BOT to take over. “The people of the Rockaways need and should have the direct benefit of the rapid transit system they have been helping to support as taxpayers of the City of New York,” David E. Smucker, the LIRR’s chief executive officer and trustee, wrote in the Rockaway Review, the publication of the Chamber of Commerce of the Rockaways, in 1949. “It is hardly necessary to point out that extension of rapid transit to the Rockaways would make this community more accessible to visitors and also would make the Rockaways a more desirable year-round residential area.”31

  The Rockaway Beach line was originally built as a grade-level line. Its tracks were elevated in the early 1940s as part of a recreational development plan developed by Robert Moses to BOT specifications in anticipation of it becoming part of the subway system.32

  A takeover of the Rockaway Beach line was a BOT priority, but Reid wanted a change from earlier plans. The Queens Boulevard line was already experiencing the capacity problems that plague it to this day. Reid said connecting it with the Rockaway Beach lines was impossible “if we’re going to provide any kind of service”33 to Rockaway riders. Instead, it would link with the BMT’s Fulton Street Elevated in Ozone Park, which would then connect with the IND’s Fulton Street subway on the Brooklyn–Queens border. A $3 million savings would be achieved by connecting it to the Fulton Street line. More savings would be achieved—at least another $33 million ($417 million in 2011 dollars, according to MeasuringWorth.com)—by building the connection between the Fulton Street subway and elevated, instead of extending the subway eastward along Pitkin Avenue.34

  As a result, the BOT wanted to connect the Utica Avenue line with the IRT. A link of that line with the Fulton Street line was no longer viable. The BOT saw that it would have the same issues with the Fulton Street line as it would have if the Rockaway and Queens Boulevard lines connected in Rego Park. There wasn’t track space or passenger capacity to operate the three Queens branches and the Utica line to and from Manhattan. It was too expensive to connect to the Houston Street line. The BOT went back to the PSC’s plan from the Dual Systems Contracts era, a connection with the IRT’s Eastern Parkway line, despite long-standing concerns about that line’s capacity.35

  A new crisis then
arose. A fire destroyed a trestle that Rockaway Beach line trains used to cross Jamaica Bay during the evening of May 7, 1950.36 Twenty-nine fires had damaged the LIRR’s wooden bridges since 1942.37 The LIRR’s financial state was as precarious as the BOT’s. This was the last straw—it wanted to abandon the Rockaway Beach branch. Rail service would still be provided through Far Rockaway and Nassau County, a convoluted trip making rail travel impossible for many Rockaway residents.

  The BOT released its next capital plan on June 22, to be paid for with the funds from the bond issue going before the public in 1951. The 2nd Avenue line was the lead item, with an extension to Queens via East 76th Street now included, using either use the LIRR’s right of way to link up with the Rockaway Beach line or the LIRR’s Port Washington line, reviving the old plan to link that line with the subways. Rockaway residents would have had to travel well to the north in Manhattan before heading home.

  Mayor O’Dwyer resigned to become ambassador to Mexico on August 31, 1950; City Council President Vincent H. Impellitteri was elected to replace him in November. Impellitteri wanted to obtain the Rockaway Beach line and appointed a committee consisting of Robert Moses, Colonel Sidney H. Bingham, and Corporation Counsel John P. McGrath to investigate the feasibility of purchasing it. Moses was the chairman.

  Much has been made over Robert Moses’s impact on transit in the New York metropolitan area. There is no doubt his projects used funds that could have financed subway capital work. He wanted to obtain the New York, Westchester, and Boston Railway’s right-of-way to build a highway in the Bronx. He advocated for demolishing the 3rd Avenue El in Manhattan instead of rehabilitating it, further overloading the Lexington Avenue line. He was a more effective spokesman for his agencies than was John Delaney and his successors.