The Train that Changed the City
Sam Burrow
AC2
Mrs. Resch
2 March 2018
Hopkins School
The final decades of the 19th century represented a revolutionary period of time for New York City, culminating in the opening of the New York City subway system in 1904. After the New York City subway system was completed and made public in 1904, the benefits both financially and practically soon came to the citizens of the city, and the people behind its creation. The subway was an incredible engineering feat, ahead of its time, that brought benefits such as a fast commute, money to the city, and the ability to live farther away from Manhattan for work. At over 450 million dollars per mile of track, the construction of the subway was no inexpensive task. Alfred Ely Beach engineered the first concept of an underground railway in 1869, but was soon terminated by the governor of New York, and financial reasons due to the crash of the stock market. It was not until 1891, when the Rapid Transit Act was passed, allowing cities of over one million inhabitants to build a mass transit network. This played perfectly into New York City’s condition, beginning the development of the underground rapid transit system we know as the subway. Following the development of official subway tunnels, battles between privately owned lines occurred, causing horizontal integration that combined different companies’ lines, before being acquired through a joint process by the city of New York, and the Board of Transportation. The subway’s development made a mark in political advances, as many legislations, rights, and funding were needed to finalize the construction, and make it go public. Before the subway, means of transportation in New York City included horse drawn carriages, electric cabs and steam boat ferries that operated between the boroughs and Staten Island. The subway brought a whole new level of technological advances to the city’s transport, as there was no traffic, and they could travel at much higher speeds for longer distances, making a commute take a fraction of the time as the contrary. While the decision to build a subway system in New York City in the late 19th century reflected the need for public transportation, the decision to combine and expand the systems in the 1920’s reflected the emerging economic benefits of the subway.
The transportation systems prior to the subway were not sufficient to withstand a proliferating urban city. They could not sustain the fast growth, causing traffic jams and slow transportation. In 1870, Alfred Ely Beach built and exhibited the first underground transit system in New York City. Although it was very short, measuring only one block at length, and the fact that it was built illegally against the word of Senator William Tweed, this then-luxurious mode of transportation opened new doors for the future of New York's underground mass transportation system. The Beach Pneumatic Transit remained inconspicuous as its offices, station and machine rooms were in the basement of Devlin's clothing store. This allowed Alfred Ely Beach to progress on his underground transit system without being shut down by the senator, as it was not made public. The basement where Alfred Beach designed the first New York underground transit was walled up, and its only entrance was through a vent. By 1878 the Beach Pneumatic System was made history, and there has been no further use of the original tunnel since. All the hard work and persevering against political command that Alfred Ely Beach did to create the Beach Pneumatic System acted as a stepping stone to the official subway system. In 1900, the Secretary of the Navy, William C. Whitney, in 1900 decided to start a taxi business. He bought out the existing Morris and Salem cab service. These automobile taxis were electrical powered, like the luxurious modern day Tesla and BMWi vehicles, and instead of stopping to charge them every few hours, he decided that each driver would have a charged battery in the trunk to re-fuel. Like a horse drawn carriage and its stables, at the end of their shifts, the drivers would return to the storage facility on Broadway and swap his battery for a recharged one, and lock up the vehicle for the night. In 1907 Harry Allen decided to start a taxi service that charged a fixed price per mile. His service pushed out horse drawn carriages and battery driven cabs. Expanding to over 700 cabs after only one year, his business was attracting many customers as the cabs waited in popular locations along Wall Street. This was not making his drivers enough money, which resulted in a Union revolt. Factors pushing the development of the subway system include the population growing out of proportion, the ability to live in outer boroughs and travel to Manhattan for work, and the technical advances that allowed it to be operated at a high speed ruling out taxi cab and horse carriage.
The New York City Subway system was made public through legislations, political will and technical advances. Abram Hewitt, mayor from 1887-1888 facilitated the legislation, funds and involvement of agencies to develop this large scale transit system. His proposal was to originally provide travel for workers and customers to shopping centers downtown. The Rapid Transit Act was passed in 1891 in New York, providing cities with populations of one million or more to develop a subway or rapid transit system. New York City benefited financially, phenomenally in the first year of the subway and the many years to come. The subway systems created new jobs in the city. The companies employed engineers, maintenance workers, motormen (operators), cleaning staff, ticketers, police, builders, and more. The subway allowed residents to live in the outer boroughs, or far away from work, and travel to the main island (Manhattan) in a matter of minutes, and for the fraction of the cost and time as a taxi. This also economically benefitted the citizens and city as the subway created lots of revenue for the city, and saved the citizens’ money in terms of commute.
After the subway was made public, New York City was on a new economical and geographical level. The 1911 proposal from the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company allowed it to invade the Interborough Rapid Transit lines by running a line from Brooklyn up Broadway. In 1913, the Public Service Commission Metropolitan Railway Company (PSC), Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), and Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT) settled a deal after two years of bargaining, brokered by George McAneny. This resulted in the split costs of the massive expansion of New York City’s underground transit system. 200 million dollars was granted from the city of New York, 77 million dollars came from IRT, and 61 million dollars came from the BRT. These new lines were owned by the city of New York, which combined, expanded, and hired the subway lines and workers. Senator James Walker put forth a bill that permitted the city of New York to borrow funds for subway construction. The Board of Transportation took over the existing lines. By 1920, 323 new miles of subway track were built.
Unification was an idea thought out to have the City of New York buy the two major independent subway lines, Interborough Rapid Transit and the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation. The New York Transit Commission held a forum on 25 April 1921 to discuss the popularity of the subway, and issues that resulted from its overuse.To compete with existing independently owned lines, Mayor Hylan wanted to open a new subway line run by the city only. Instead of developing a whole new line owned by the city, to compete with the other companies, the City of New York developed a plan to decrease overcrowding and delays on the subway and elevated train lines by buying out existing privately own lines. This solved the issue of competition between the lines, but also made the Board of Transportation in control of every subway line, and flowed all revenue to them as well. As Manhattan became overcrowded before the subway’s opening because everyone was desperate to live close to work, in 1920, when the Independent subway was first conceived, overcrowding was a major issue on the subway trains due to their popularity.
3 primary sources