The Routes Not Taken Read online

  96. Bridge Street was another name for what is now Northern Boulevard.

  97. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 17, 1916.

  98. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 18, 1916.

  99. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 20, 1916.

  100. IRT trains from the Steinway Tunnels used the track network at Queensboro Plaza to run to Astoria; BRT / BMT trains used those connections to run to Willets Point. The crossover service ended in 1949 and the two northern platforms and tracks were removed later. IRT signs could be found on the Astoria line into the 1980s.

  101. Not to be confused with James J. Walker, the future mayor of New York City.

  102. Flushing Evening Journal, February 2, 1917.

  103. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 15, 1917.

  104. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 14, 1917.

  105. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 16, 1917.

  106. Flushing Evening Journal, October 31, 1917.

  107. Flushing Evening Journal, November 15, 1913.

  108. Ibid.

  109. Ibid.

  110. Ibid.

  111. Mitchel then enlisted in the United States Flying Service, the precursor to the Air Force, and died in a training accident. Mitchel Field on Long Island is named for him, and there is a large memorial to him by Central Park’s East 90th Street entrance.

  112. Flushing Evening Journal, November 15, 1913.

  113. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 25, 1917

  114. Ibid.

  115. New York Sun, December 2, 1917.

  116. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 3, 1920.

  117. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 1, 1921.

  118. New York Times, June 12, 1921.

  119. New York Times, April 22, 1923.

  120. Now the Mets–Willets Point station, slightly to the west of the original station. The station had been moved westward to facilitate access with the 1939–40 World’s Fair.

  121. New York Times, March 14, 1927.

  122. New York Times, March 30, 1927.

  123. Ibid.

  124. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 22, 1928.

  125. New York Times, January 24, 1928.

  126. Report by the Board of Transportation on the Proposal of the Long Island Rail Road Company to Transfer the Whitestone Branch to the City of New York, June 1928.

  127. See Chapter 11.

  4. THE BATTLE OF THE NORTHEAST BRONX, PART 1

  1. Bronx Home News, September 23, 1919.

  2. New York Times, June 30, 1912.

  3. New York Times, December 21, 1913.

  4. Time, April 24, 1944.

  5. Bronx Home News, June 22, 1922.

  6. See Chapter 9.

  7. Bronxboro, December 1924.

  8. New York Times, February 22, 1925.

  9. Richard Planz, A History of Housing in New York City (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 151–53.

  10. Bronx Home News, May 14, 1927.

  11. Bronx Home News, September 24, 1927.

  12. Bronx Home News, December 18, 1927.

  13. The namesake of the expressway.

  14. Bronx Home News, December 21, 1927.

  15. The namesake of the Boulevard and Expressway.

  16. Bronx Home News, January 1, 1928.

  17. Ibid.

  18. Ibid.

  19. Bronx Home News, January 15, 1928.

  20. Bronx Home News, January 22, 1928.

  21. Bronx Home News, January 27, 1928.

  22. Bronx Home News, February 1, 1928.

  23. Ibid.

  24. Bronx Home News, February 5, 1928.

  25. Ehrhart would become the Bronx’s consulting engineer and, later, a member of the City Planning Commission. He played a major role in Bronx transit planning a decade later.

  26. Bronx Home News, February 17, 1928.

  27. Transcript of the Hearing in Reference to the Concourse Line and Direct Line Downtown, New York Board of Transportation, February 21, 1928. Transcribed by Philip Rodman, p. 13. From the Bronx County Historical Society Archives.

  28. Ibid.

  29. Ibid.

  30. Ibid., 14.

  31. Ibid., 35.

  32. Bronx Home News, March 6, 1928.

  33. Bronx Home News, March 28, 1928.

  34. Ibid.

  35. Ibid.

  36. Ibid.

  37. Ibid.

  38. Letter to Frederick A. Wurzbach from William Jerome Daly, August 30, 1929. From the Bronx County Historical Society Archives.

  39. Bronx Home News, September 2, 1928.

  40. Ibid.

  41. The brother of Sherman Billingsley of Stork Club fame.

  42. Deegan, a friend of Mayor Walker, resigned after the Chamber criticized Walker, who named Deegan tenement house commissioner, a position he served in until his death in 1932 from complications after an appendectomy.

  43. Bronx Home News, March 29, 1929.

  44. Ibid.

  45. New York Times, January 14, 1928.

  46. Bronx Home News, March 29, 1929.

  47. Bronx Home News, April 5, 1929.

  48. Ibid.

  49. Bronx Home News, April 6, 1929.

  50. New York Times, April 6, 1929.

  51. Bronx Home News, May 4, 1929.

  52. Ibid.

  53. Bronx Home News, June 9, 1929.

  54. New York Times, July 14, 1929.

  55. This was the original terminal point for the White Plains Road line, becoming a spur when that line was extended to 241st Street. This station closed in 1952, and the spur was demolished.

  56. Bronx Home News, September 3, 1929.

  57. Bronx Home News, September 16, 1929.

  58. Bronx Home News, September 17, 1929.

  59. Ibid.

  60. New York Times, September 22, 1929.

  61. New York Times, September 22, 1929.

  62. Bronx Home News, September 18, 1929.

  63. Bronx Home News, October 2, 1929.

  64. Bronx Home News, October 3, 1929.

  65. The namesake of the expressway in the Bronx.

  66. Bronx Home News, October 4, 1929.

  67. Bronx Home News, October 20, 1929.

  68. New York Times, November 3, 1929.

  69. In 2011 dollars, $65,700, according to MeasuringWorth.com.

  70. In 2011 dollars, $680 million, according to MeasuringWorth.com.

  71. Bronx Home News, February 9, 1930.

  72. Ibid.

  73. Ibid.

  74. Bronx Home News, February 11, 1930.

  75. Bronx Home News, February 18, 1930.

  76. Bronx Home News, February 20, 1930.

  77. New York Times, March 2, 1930.

  78. Bronx Home News, March 1, 1930.

  79. Ibid.

  80. Bronx Home News, September 29, 1930.

  81. Bronx Home News, June 5, 1930.

  82. Bronx Home News, June 12, 1930.

  83. Ibid.

  84. Bronx Home News, June 13, 1930.

  85. Bronx Home News, November 17, 1930.

  86. See Appendix B.

  87. Another uncle, Isidore Straus, and his wife were among the victims when the RMS Titanic stuck an iceberg and sank in 1912.

  88. New York Times, September 14, 1961.

  89. New York Times, December 21, 1951.

  90. From an unpublished memoir of Nathan Straus, Jr., pp. 46–47. Courtesy of the Straus Historical Society Inc.

  91. Clarence S. Stein, “New Towns for New Age Needs,” New York Times, October 8, 1933.

  92. New York Times, November 5, 1932.

  93. Straus, p. 50.

  94. New York Times, November 15, 1932.

  95. Bronx Home News, October 25, 1932.

  96. Bronx Home News, July 1, 1933.

  97. New York Times Magazine, March 24, 1940.

  98. Mand went on to a new career with the New York Fire Department, rising to the position of First Deputy Commissioner. He died of a heart attack at a fire on Ogden Avenue. The Fire Academy’s library is named for him.

&nb
sp; 99. Bronx Home News, October 17, 1934.

  100. Letter from James J. Lyons to the Board of Estimate, May 19, 1934. From Proceedings of the Board of Transportation for 1934, 670–71.

  101. Bronx Home News, January 9, 1935.

  102. Bronx Home News, January 19, 1935.

  103. Bronx Home News, February 13, 1935.

  104. Ibid.

  105. Ibid.

  106. Bronx Home News, May 22, 1935.

  107. Ibid.

  108. Richard Plunz, “Reading Bronx Housing, 1890–1940,” in Building a Borough: Architecture and Planning in the Bronx, 1890–1940 (New York: Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1986), 53.

  109. Ibid.

  110. In 2011 dollars, $315 million, according to MeasuringWorth.com.

  111. In 2011 dollars, $189 million, according to MeasuringWorth.com.

  112. Bronx Home News, March 10, 1937.

  113. Bronx Home News, April 7, 1937.

  114. Communication from the Board of Transportation Transmitting Resolution Adopting Route and General Route for a Rapid Transit Railway in the Borough of the Bronx, May 25, 1937.

  115. Bronx Home News, June 12, 1937.

  116. Bronx Home News, June 13, 1937.

  117. Bronx Home News, June 19, 1937.

  118. Ibid.

  119. Bronx Home News, June 19, 1937.

  120. Ibid.

  121. Ibid.

  122. Ibid.

  123. Ibid.

  124. Bronx Home News, June 21, 1937.

  125. Ibid.

  126. Bronx Home News, June 27, 1937.

  127. Ibid.

  128. Bronx Home News, June 29, 1937.

  129. Ibid.

  130. Bronx Home News, July 9, 1937.

  131. Breinlinger’s was located on Boston Road by Dyre Avenue. A tavern had been on this site since colonial days. Marquis de Lafayette visited there in 1824. In the early 1900s, Henry Dickert purchased the property, calling it Dickert’s Old Point Comfort Park. He expanded it to a four-acre property, including dance and banquet facilities and children’s play areas. Kilian Breinlinger purchased it in 1926; his family maintained it until 1957. The structure was demolished in 1960. Bill Twomey, The Bronx (Bloomington, Ind.: Rooftop Publishing, 2007), 30–31.

  132. Bronx Home News, July 10, 1937.

  133. Ibid.

  134. Ibid.

  135. Ibid.

  136. Letter from Robert Moses to Judge Edwin L. Garvin, October 5, 1937. From the Robert Moses Archive, New York Public Library, Box 97.

  137. Letter from John H. Delaney to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, December 8, 1937. From the New York City Archives.

  138. Bronx Home News, December 10, 1937.

  139. New York Times, June 2, 1929.

  140. Bronx Home News, December 16, 1937.

  141. Ibid.

  142. New York Times, December 16, 1937.

  143. Bronx Home News, December 18, 1937.

  5. BUY LAND NOW, RIDE THE SUBWAY LATER

  1. New York Times, July 15, 1928.

  2. Clifford B. Harmon handled Wood, Harmon’s suburban investments around New York, purchasing land in Westchester County. One piece of land, near the town of Croton-on-Hudson, was sold to the New York Central Railroad for development as a railroad yard. One condition of the deal was that the Harmon name would be associated with the facility. It became the MTA Metro-North Commuter Railroad’s main storage and maintenance facility, the Croton–Harmon Yards.

  3. New York Tribune, March 22, 1899.

  4. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 13, 1900.

  5. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 7, 1913.

  6. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 1, 1910.

  7. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 15, 1910.

  8. Brooklyn Daily Standard Union, June 17, 1910.

  9. A concept later put into practice in the New York City subway system along the Flushing line’s Queens Boulevard viaduct, among other locations.

  10. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 17, 1910.

  11. Ibid.

  12. Brooklyn Daily Times, June 24, 1910.

  13. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 14, 1910.

  14. There have been about as many proposals to extend the Nostrand Avenue line to Sheepshead Bay as there have been proposals for the Utica Avenue line.

  15. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 30, 1910.

  16. Brooklyn Daily Standard Union, May 28, 1913.

  17. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 16, 1913.

  18. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 13, 1913.

  19. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 25, 1913.

  20. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 23, 1913.

  21. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 23, 1913.

  22. On September 1, the New York Times reported that stations would be built at Utica Avenue’s intersections with East New York and Remsen Avenues, Winthrop Street, Church Avenue, Avenues D, H, K and N, and Flatlands, Fillmore, and Flatbush Avenues.

  23. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 27, 1915.

  24. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 14, 1916.

  25. New York Sun, April 28, 1910.

  26. See Chapter 9.

  27. New York Times, February 20, 1910.

  28. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 2, 1916.

  29. New York Times, June 26, 1918.

  30. New York Times, May 31, 1925.

  31. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 19, 1924.

  32. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 18, 1926.

  33. New York Times, July 21, 1927.

  34. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 13, 1928.

  35. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 7, 1929.

  36. See Chapter 1.

  37. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 22, 1929.

  38. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 16, 1929.

  39. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 14, 1930.

  40. Ibid.

  41. See Chapter 10.

  42. Traces of the South Beach line remain; more of the North Shore line’s infrastructure still exists.

  43. New York Times, May 8, 1910.

  44. Namesake of the hospital on Roosevelt Island.

  45. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 25, 1900.

  46. For most of its history, Staten Island was known as the borough of Richmond. It wasn’t officially known as the borough of Staten Island until 1975.

  47. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 11, 1900.

  48. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 25, 1902.

  49. Staten Island Chamber of Commerce, Tunnel to Staten Island, Arguments Before the Public Service Commission, June 1908.

  50. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 19, 1905.

  51. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 18, 1911.

  52. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 17, 1916.

  53. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 18, 1916.

  54. New York Times, March 23, 1919.

  55. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 24, 1919.

  56. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 11, 1919.

  57. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 3, 1919.

  58. Report of the Transit Construction Commission to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, May 11, 1920, p. 6.

  59. Ibid.

  60. Ibid., 8.

  61. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 23, 1921.

  62. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 3, 1921.

  63. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 21, 1921.

  64. New York Times, December 22, 1921.

  65. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 1, 1922.

  66. Jameson W. Doig, Empire on the Hudson: Entrepreneurial Vision and Political Power at the Port of New York Authority (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 81.

  67. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 13, 1922.

  68. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 22, 1922.

  69. Brooklyn Daily Standard Union, April 15, 1923.

  70. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 14, 1923.

  71. New York Evening Post, July 12, 1924.

  72. New York Times, December 4, 1924.

  73. New York Times, February 9, 1925.

  74. Ibid.

  75. New York Times, February 10, 1925.

  76. New
York Times, April 24, 1925.

  77. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 21, 1925.

  78. Namesake of the bridge connecting Staten Island and New Jersey.

  79. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 24, 1925.

  80. Letter from John H. Delaney to the members of the Board of Estimate, September 8, 1931. From the New York City Municipal Archives.

  81. New York Times, April 26, 1925.

  82. New York Herald Tribune, May 6, 1925.

  83. Norman Hapgood and Henry Moskowitz, Up from the City Streets: Alfred E. Smith (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1927), 147.

  84. New York Times, December 1, 1925.

  85. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 28, 1926.

  86. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 21, 1926.

  87. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 30, 1926.

  88. Ibid.

  89. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 29, 1928.

  90. Jersey Journal, January 7, 1930.

  91. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 7, 1930.

  92. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 9, 1931.

  93. Metropolitan Transportation: A Plan for Action, February 1968, 40.

  94. New York Times, July 19, 1928.

  95. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 28, 1931. Marie Campbell Good, always known in print as Mrs. William H. Good, was renowned for her interest in progressive causes and charitable activities. Her home and land on St. Mark’s Avenue in Brooklyn was donated to the city and became one of the Brooklyn Children’s Museum’s buildings. Her father, Felix Campbell, had been a congressman and a member of the Brooklyn Board of Rapid Transit Commissioners in the nineteenth century, and was one of the original advocates of bringing rapid transit to Brooklyn.

  6. ASHLAND PLACE AND THE MYSTERIES OF 76TH STREET

  1. New York Sun, December 30, 1916.

  2. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 2, 1917.

  3. New York Sun, March 15, 1919.

  4. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 29, 1919.

  5. New York Times, July 27, 1919.

  6. New York Times, July 4, 1920.

  7. See Chapter 2.

  8. New York Times, April 1, 1927.

  9. The connection with the BMT’s Culver line wouldn’t be open for service until 1954.

  10. Letter from John H. Delaney to Fiorello H. La Guardia, January 8, 1934. From the New York City Municipal Archives.

  11. Ibid.

  12. Brooklyn Eagle, May 14, 1935.

  13. Brooklyn Eagle, April 8, 1936.

  14. Letter from John H. Delaney to the Board of Estimate, June 15, 1937. From the New York City Municipal Archives.

  15. New York Times, June 1, 1940.