The Routes Not Taken Page 34
Broadway–Brooklyn line
J, M, Z
Brooklyn–Queens Crosstown line
G
Chrystie Street line
B, D
Concourse line
B, D
Dyre Avenue line
5
Eastern Parkway line
2, 3, 4, 5
8th Avenue line
A, C, E
Far Rockaway line
A
Flushing line
7
42nd Street Shuttle
S
4th Avenue line
D, N, R
14th Street–Canarsie line
L
Franklin Avenue Shuttle
S2
Fulton Street line
A, C
Hillside Avenue line
F
Jamaica Avenue line
J, Z
Jerome Avenue line
4
Lexington Avenue line
4, 5, 6
Liberty Avenue line
A
Livonia Avenue line
3
Montague Street line
R
Myrtle Avenue line
M
Nassau Street line
J, Z
Nostrand Avenue line
2, 5
Pelham line
6
Queens Boulevard line
E, F, M, R
Rockaway line3
A, S
Rockaway Park line
A, S
Sea Beach line
N
7th Avenue–Broadway line
1, 2, 3
6th Avenue line
B, D, F, M
60th Street line
N, Q, R
63rd Street line
F
Smith Street–Culver line
F, G
Staten Island Railway
No line assigned, although the terminal station is used to designate the routing
West End line
B
White Plains Road line
2, 5
Notes
1. BUILDING (AND NOT BUILDING) NEW YORK CITY’S SUBWAY SYSTEM
1. New York Times, March 25, 1900.
2. New York Times, May 16, 1902.
3. Later the 1916 Republican candidate for president, U.S. secretary of state, and chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
4. New York Times, June 23, 1907.
5. New York Times, October 14, 1906.
6. New York Times, April 29, 1907.
7. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 17, 1910.
8. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 14, 1910.
10. New York Times, January 2, 1919.
11. New York Times, December 16, 1919.
12. New York Times, October 23, 1921.
13. A Report by the Chief Engineer Submitting for Consideration a Rapid Transit Plan Covering All Boroughs of the City of New York, July 29, 1920.
14. New York Times, September 26, 1920.
15. Ibid.
16. New York Times, January 27, 1921.
17. New York Times, February 15, 1923.
18. New York Times, March 19, 1923.
19. New York Times, April 1, 1923.
20. New York Times, April 9, 1924.
21. New York Times, April 11, 1924
22. Ibid.
23. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 12, 1930.
24. Ridgewood Times, February 20, 1930.
25. Ibid.
26. New York Times, September 17, 1929.
27. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 17, 1930.
28. The Wave, February 20, 1930. The Wave began publication in 1893. It is one of New York City’s oldest newspapers.
29. New York Times, December 28, 1933.
30. Wall mosaics at the Queens Boulevard line’s 65th Street station refer to service to the Rockaways. MTA New York City Transit uses the third platform at Roosevelt Avenue–Jackson Heights as office and storage space.
31. New York Times, December 28, 1933.
32. Long Island Daily Star, April 19, 1934.
33. New York Post, May 21, 1936.
34. New York Times, June 1, 1936.
35. Letter from John H. Delaney to Rexford G. Tugwell, September 13, 1938. From the New York City Municipal Archives.
36. Brooklyn Eagle, June 3, 1942.
37. Brooklyn Eagle, June 12, 1940.
38. Bronx Home News, May 13, 1942.
39. New York Times, August 20, 1958.
40. New York Times, October 11, 1945.
41. New York Times, December 1, 1945.
42. New York Post, October 22, 1947.
2. SOUND TO SHORE: THE UNBUILT BROOKLYN–QUEENS CROSSTOWN LINE
1. Brooklyn wouldn’t become part of New York City for another twenty years.
2. Brooklyn Eagle, May 1, 1878.
3. Brooklyn Eagle, June 4, 1878.
4. Brooklyn Eagle, June 3, 1878.
5. Brooklyn Eagle, December 9, 1889.
6. Brooklyn Eagle, August 3, 1886.
7. Trains running on electrical power were a new concept in 1886. Traction power was just being developed at the time.
8. Brooklyn Eagle, October 21, 1886.
9. Namesake of a Brooklyn high school.
10. Brooklyn Eagle, October 21, 1886.
11. Decades later, the support columns for this elevated line along 3rd Avenue would be used to support the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway.
12. Brooklyn Eagle, January 5, 1887.
13. Brooklyn Eagle, March 23, 1887.
14. Ibid.
15. Brooklyn Eagle, February 21, 1888.
16. One of the people most responsible for the major expansion of the subway system in the twentieth century.
17. Brooklyn Eagle, January 10, 1890.
18. Brooklyn Eagle, January 17, 1890.
19. Brooklyn Eagle, January 25, 1890.
20. Report of the Board of Rapid Transit Commissioners for the City of New York for the Year Ending December 31, 1903, 11–12.
21. This segment of the Brighton line is still in operation as the Franklin Avenue Shuttle.
22. The northern extension represented the start of planning for the Astoria line.
23. This line would connect with what would be the IRT in downtown Brooklyn. It would have used lower-level platforms under the Nevins Street station before connecting with the line north of the station. The lower-level outbound platform is still there.
24. In a long and distinguished career, George A. McAneny (1869–1953) served as Manhattan borough president, president of the Board of Aldermen, and New York City comptroller. He also chaired the New York State Transit Commission, the Regional Plan Association, and the 1939–40 New York World’s Fair, and was New York City sanitation commissioner.
25. Bedford and Stuyvesant were separate communities in that era.
26. Rev. Cadman (1864–1936) was born in Wellington, Shropshire, England, and worked in coal mines before joining the ministry. He came to the United States and started Manhattan’s Metropolitan Methodist Church in 1895. He became pastor of the Central Congregational Church in 1901, serving there until his death in 1936. He wrote a column on religion for the New York Herald Tribune and was a pioneer in religious broadcasting, beginning to broadcast his sermons in 1923. He was a vocal opponent of anti-Semitism and racial intolerance, and was renowned for his progressive views. Rev. Cadman was the namesake of the plaza and park in downtown Brooklyn built following the demolition of that area’s elevated lines.
27. Brooklyn Times, March 23, 1912.
28. In 2009 dollars, $114 million, according to MeasuringWorth.com.
29. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 23, 1912.
30. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 26, 1912.
31. Brooklyn Times, May 28, 1912.
32. Robert F. Wagner (1877–1953) served in the New York State Assembly from 1904 to 1908 and the State Senate from 1908 to 1918. He was a New
York State Supreme Court justice from 1918 to 1926. Elected to the United States Senate in 1926, he served until 1949. Among the bills he sponsored were the National Recovery Act, the National Labor Relations Act, the Social Security Act, and the Public Housing Act. His son was mayor of New York City from 1954 to 1965; his grandson served in the Koch and Giuliani administrations.
33. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 26, 1912.
34. The team wouldn’t officially and only be known as the Dodgers until 1932.
35. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 28, 1912.
36. New York Times, December 31, 1924.
37. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 14, 1913.
38. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 18, 1913.
39. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 19, 1913
40. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 20, 1913.
41. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 30, 1913.
42. The legislation remains in place today as part of Section 20 of the New York State Rapid Transit Law. If the Metropolitan Transportation Authority wished to extend the Franklin Avenue Shuttle northward, the law would need to be amended by the New York State Legislature.
43. Brooklyn Times, March 5, 1914.
44. New York Times, August 22, 1915.
45. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 8, 1913.
46. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 30, 1914.
47. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 16, 1916.
48. The Fulton Street Elevated barely entered Manhattan, crossing the Brooklyn Bridge and making one stop at the BRT’s City Hall Terminal.
49. New York Times, August 3, 1922.
50. New York Times, October 18, 1922.
51. New York Times, March 22, 1924.
52. Ibid.
53. New York Times, June 1, 1924.
54. New York Times, June 6, 1924.
55. New York Times, June 13, 1925.
56. Ibid.
57. New York Times, July 2, 1925.
58. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 5, 1926.
59. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 6, 1927.
60. Ibid.
61. Brooklyn Standard Union, July 17, 1927.
62. Brooklyn Daily Times, July 28, 1927.
63. Traces of the connection can be seen east and west of the Queensboro Plaza station.
64. New York Times, November 26, 1940.
65. New York Times, July 22, 1937.
66. A comment that must be a shock to anyone who takes the Q88 bus from Queens Boulevard and Woodhaven Boulevard to reach Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
67. New York Times, July 22, 1937.
68. Long Island Star Journal, December 16, 1939.
69. New York Times, November 26, 1940.
3. WHY THE NO. 7 LINE STOPS IN FLUSHING
1. It was not until 1948 that numbers were used to designate IRT routes.
2. Documents of the Senate of the State of New York: One Hundred and Thirty-Seventh Session, 1914, 509–10.
3. The Steinway Tunnels, also known as the Belmont Tunnels (after August Belmont, the chairman of the IRT), were completed in 1907, finishing a project that had begun in 1892. There was no regular service through the tunnels until the Flushing line (then known as the Queensboro Subway) began service in 1915. David Rogoff, “The Steinway Tunnels,” Electric Railroads, April 1960.
4. It was another three years until LIRR trains operated to Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan. The LIRR ran trains on a branch line to College Point and Whitestone until 1932.
5. In 2011 dollars, $8.15, according to MeasuringWorth.com.
6. New York Evening Telegram, October 3, 1907.
7. Newtown Register, December 2, 1909.
8. The routing connecting the Astoria line and the BRT’s Broadway line hadn’t yet been developed. By the time that Mayor Gaynor approved the basic concept on April 9, 1912, a route had been proposed that would run over the Queensboro Bridge and into a tunnel portal in Manhattan. The 60th Street Tunnel wouldn’t be proposed until later.
9. Amity Street wouldn’t become part of Roosevelt Avenue until that street was extended across the Flushing River in 1927.
10. Flushing Evening Journal, December 12, 1912.
11. Flushing Evening Journal, December 14, 1912.
12. Wateredge Avenue was a street that no longer exists along the eastern waterfront of the Flushing River.
13. Flushing Evening Journal, December 24, 1912.
14. Flushing Evening Journal, January 3, 1913.
15. Flushing Daily Times, January 4, 1913.
16. Queens, along with the rest of the city, was divided into wards, reflecting the villages that were expanding and meshing into one borough. The First Ward represented Long Island City, Astoria, and the rest of northwest Queens; the Second Ward included Elmhurst, Maspeth, and central Queens; Flushing and the rest of northeast Queens made up the Third Ward; the communities of southern Queens made up the Fourth Ward; and the Rockaway Peninsula constituted the Fifth Ward.
17. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 14, 1913.
18. Flushing Evening Journal, January 6, 1913.
19. Ibid.
20. Flushing Evening Journal, January 7, 1913.
21. Both Fitch and Spear needed to say Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn, to distinguish it from Flushing’s Myrtle Avenue, which has long since been renamed 32nd Avenue.
22. Flushing Evening Journal, January 8, 1913.
23. Flushing Evening Journal, January 10, 1913.
24. Daniel Carter Beard (1850–1941) was one of the people responsible for the founding of the Boy Scouts of America. A middle school and a plaza in the Flushing area are named after him.
25. Flushing Evening Journal, January 10, 1913.
26. Ibid.
27. In 2011 dollars, $1.41 million, according to MeasuringWorth.com.
28. Flushing Evening Journal, January 14, 1913.
29. The Lexington Avenue line.
30. Flushing Evening Journal, January 14, 1913.
31. Ibid.
32. Flushing Daily Times, January 16, 1913.
33. Long Island Daily Star, January 17, 1913.
34. Long Island Daily Star, January 20, 1913.
35. Flushing Evening Journal, January 21, 1913.
36. Flushing Daily Times, January 23, 1913.
37. The Stewart Railroad’s right of way was eventually used to build the Kissena Corridor Park and parts of other parks in Queens. It is also found in the backyards of properties in the Bellerose and Floral Park communities.
38. Flushing Daily Times, January 28, 1913.
39. Ibid.
40. Flushing Daily Times, January 29, 1913.
41. Flushing Daily Times, January 29, 1913.
42. Flushing Daily Times, January 31, 1913.
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid.
45. Flushing Evening Journal, February 1, 1913.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid.
48. Flushing Daily Times, February 10, 1913.
49. According to the Flushing Evening Journal, Treadwell was rumored to have been in the employ of the LIRR.
50. In 2011 dollars, $4.45 million, according to MeasuringWorth.com.
51. Flushing Evening Journal, February 13, 1913.
52. Ibid.
53. Flushing Evening Journal, February 25, 1913.
54. Long Island Daily Star, March 6, 1913.
55. Flushing Evening Journal, March 18, 1913.
56. Flushing Evening Journal, March 13, 1913.
57. Long Island Daily Star, March 14, 1913.
58. Brooklyn Daily Times, March 20, 1913.
59. New York Times, April 6, 1913.
60. Ibid.
61. Flushing Evening Journal, April 3, 1913.
62. Ibid.
63. Ibid.
64. Flushing Evening Journal, April 5, 1913.
65. Flushing Evening Journal, April 8, 1913.
66. Flushing Evening Journal, April 5, 1913.
67. Flushing Evening Journal, May 15, 1913.
68. Long Island Daily Star, May 28, 1913.
69. Brooklyn Eagle, May 27, 1913.
70. Flushing Evening Journal, June 5, 1913.
71. Mitchel was thirty-four years old when he took office, acquiring the nickname “The Boy Mayor.”
72. New York Evening Post, November 8, 1913.
73. Ibid.
74. The ferry ran to the Bronx. The ferry landing in the Bronx is located on the site of today’s Ferry Point Park. The ferry line ceased operation with the opening of the Bronx–Whitestone Bridge.
75. Flushing Evening Journal, February 23, 1915.
76. Flushing Evening Journal, February 27, 1915.
77. Flushing Evening Journal, March 1, 1915.
78. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 6, 1915.
79. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 11, 1915.
80. Flushing Evening Journal, March 13, 1915.
81. At various times in the twentieth century, there were at least six other Myrtle Avenues in Queens besides the one that we know today.
82. Flushing Evening Journal, March 24, 1915.
83. Flushing Evening Journal, March 25, 1915.
84. Ibid.
85. Flushing Evening Journal, March 30, 1915.
86. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 26, 1915
87. New York American, April 4, 1915.
88. New York Times, April 2, 1915.
89. Flushing Evening Journal, July 17, 1915.
90. Flushing Evening Journal, July 19, 1915.
91. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 15, 1915.
92. New York Times, January 6, 1916.
93. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 29, 1916.
94. Ibid.
95. State of New York Public Service Commission for the First District, Proposed Extension of the Corona Line Operations over Long Island Rail Road Tracks to Whitestone and Little Neck: Report of the Chief Engineer, January 18, 1916, 6–7.