For the first time in his life, Father Knickerbocker went underground yesterday, went underground he and his children, to the number of 150,000, amid the tooting of whistles and the firing of salutes, for a first ride in a subway which for years had been scoffed at as an impossibility. New York's dream of rapid transit became a reality at exactly 2:35:30 o'clock yesterday afternoon, when the running of trains with passengers began.

The official train made its run exactly on time, arriving at One Hundred and Forty-fifth Street in exactly twenty six minutes, and all along the way crowds of excited New Yorkers were collected around the little entrances talking about the unheard trains that they knew were dashing by below, and waiting eagerly for the first passengers to emerge from the underground passageways at their feet.

It was astonishing how little noise there was . . .  It seemed singularly homelike and familiar, despite the olive-green woodwork, the queer and unfamiliar air, the darkness alongside, and the sudden shooting into beautiful white stations like nothing that the elevated ever had.

The first man to give up his seat to a woman in New York's subway was F. B. Shipley of Philadelphia. He was on the official train, and the lady was good looking, but he said that made no difference-- in Philadelphia everybody was polite.

But New York had had an earlier subway. It was dug in 1870 by Alfred E Beach, founder of the magazine, Scientific American. He built his pneumatic line under Broadway using $350,000 of his own money. The eight foot wide tunnel ran for one block from Murray to Warren Street. Ostensibly it was a two tube parcel delivery system for the post office, but Beach meant it as a test subway whose advantages would be so apparent, the public demand would brick over his deception, and overwhelm the opposition of Tammany politicians. They were heavily invested in the city's horse railroad.

Beach's Pneumatic Railroad was a success. In its first year four hundred thousand people paid 25 cents to ride the little car with its 22 seats. Nor did boss Tweed's opposition matter since in 1871 Tammany was exposed as corrupt and ousted in 1872. The next year Albany gave Beach a charter to build a full scale version of his system. However, he could not secure the financing. The reason was the high expense of producing the great volume of compressed air needed to push and suck the car back and forth. There was also no way of moderating the 10 mph acceleration of the car.

Beach recognized those problems as insurmountable and decided to use his charter to build a subway pulled by steam locomotives. That was how the London Underground, which had opened in 1863, was then operating. But no private financier would back that approach either. Nor was the legislature willing to fund Beach. He closed his test tube in 1874 and it was forgotten until the BRT, in 1912, digging under Broadway rediscovered Beach's tunnel.

In 1868 Charles T. Harvey opened the first half mile of a test elevated line along Greenwich Street in lower Manhattan. A car was pulled by a steel cable at 15 miles an hour. It was a flimsy affair, still it was extended up to 13th Street. The market crash of 1870 broke Harvey's company however and the railroad was sold for $960 and reorganized as the NY Elevated Railroad. The new owners resumed construction, and switched to steam propulsion. By 1875 It was carrying passengers up to Central Park. In 1876 Cyrus Field (of the Atlantic Cable) bought the line, made it a two track road and extended it to 66th Street.

In 1872 Dr. Rufus Gilbert also began a company, the Gilbert Elevated, that hoped to operate an elevated railroad. Like Harvey's it went bankrupt and was taken over.

Albany passed the Husted Act of 1875 which put a 5 member rapid transit commission, appointed by New York's mayor in charge of the elevated lines. In September of that year this board awarded routes to the new owners of Gilbert Elevated and the new owners of Harvey's old railroad.

In August 1875 the first real el operations, catering to the general public, began. It was the Third Avenue line built by the New York Elevated Railroad Company. In 1879 both Gilbert's and Harvey's companies were consolidated into a single, Manhattan Elevated Railroad Company. In February 1879 the Sixth Avenue Line opened.

By 1880 the Manhattan Railway company controlled both the Manhattan and the NY Elevated Railroad Companies, and was operating trains along the Ninth, Second and Third Avenues, stretching from lower Manhattan to the Harlem River. It also ran a  Sixth Avenue line from South Ferry to Central Park. These trains had cushioned seats, were pulled by steam locomotives and the 12 mph ride cost a dime. At 54th Street this line branched left and connected with the Ninth Avenue tracks which terminated at 155th Street. The uptown region into which it headed was still very sparsely settled. Edward Clarks apartment building at 72nd Street was called the Dakota because it seemed to be so far out in the sticks. At 100th Street the El serviced a poor Irish shantytown called Goat Town.  From the 155th Street terminal it was possible to take a train that crossed the Harlem River into the Bronx, which was then called Highbridge. The trip, from lower Manhattan to the Bronx took 90 minutes. That journey took horse drawn carriages on the ground about 4 1/2 hours.

The els offered a big improvement in travel time and convenience. However, the fire belching and cinder spewing locomotives running through the city on massive iron structures were ugly. They made a terrific noise and  showered people down in the streets with sparks and smoke and grime. Axle box oil would splatter down on pedestrians. The els shook the buildings alongside which they thundered and turned the life of their tenants into a hell.

It was calculated that the locomotives each burned 10 lbs of coal per minute.producing 250 cu. feet of carbonic acid gas , or 15,000 per hour. Thus each locomotive took about as much oxygen out of the air as 25,000 people.In railroad tunnels this was more than 3 times worse. Substituting electric power for steam meant that the air was relieved of 99.9% of its pollutants.

In August 1885 NY began trying out long yellow cable cars as a replacement for street railways. The first line ran from 8th Avenue and 125th Street up to Forth George. Another ran on Broadway. But they could only run in straight lines. Their inability to take curves washed them out.

Within 20 years this elevated system pulled by steam locomotives, had become huge. Iit gave NY the world's largest public transit system. Ninety-four miles of elevated railways. 265 miles of horse-drawn railway. 137 miles of horse drawn omnibuses  It was larger than London's though NY had only a third as many people.

In 1888 New York's Mayor Abraham S Hewitt advised his aldermen that the city needed a subway and in 1891 Albany authorized a rapid transit commission. It was given the job of laying out the routes of a subway and assigning franchises and finding financing for the endeavor. The commission's head was Alfred Steinway who needed a convenient connection between lower Manhattan and his factory and real estate interests in Astoria Queens. This commission was almost stymied by the monopolists controlling the els. However, the stock market crash of 1893 undermined the the moguls, Gould and Sage, who owned the Manhattan Railroad Company.

The city elders, among them the banker Richard T. Wilson, came to the conclusion that the subway would need municipal financing. Former mayor Hewitt and the banker Schiff argued that the best way to avoid the problem of Tammany Hall corruption or shenanigans by a private corporation was  a subway operated privately but publicly owned and overseen. New York City voters approved this approach in  November 1894.

A new Rapid Transit Commission took over the work of the former Steinway board and adopted Steinway's ideas of a route. It was for a smaller subway than was originally projected but that less ambitious plan made it more practicable. Steinway argued  that the important thing was to begin, enlargement would automatically follow.

In October 1896 the electrification of the el system began with a two car train pulled by a locomotive which drew power from a third rail but contained a 256 cell storage battery in case of a power failure. In November 1900 the first multiple unit electric train was tried on the 2nd Ave. el. Four trailer cars were bookended between two motor cars. Thereupon $5 million was spent on electrifying the entire system.General Electric got the job of putting electric motors under all the carriages. Westinghouse built a powerhouse at 74th Street and the East River. The entire el system was electrified for a total cost of $11 million. In December 1901 regular electric service began on the 2nd Avenue el. In September 1902 the last steam locomotive was retired. By February 1903 the Ninth Avenue el, the last of the el lines was electrified. It had four electric elevators lifting passengers up to its new 110th Street station.

At the end of 1899 the RTC offered a subway franchise and asked for bids. The winner was John B. McDonald, an experienced contractor, who had immigrated from Cork Ireland as 3 year old during the potato famine. He offered to build a subway for $35 million.

But the terms of the contract required McDonald to put up a $7 million bond. He could not find the money. August Belmont however, a banker and former Steinway commission member offered to take the contract over, supply the bond, and have McDonald build the system for him. In this way it came to be Belmont, the son of a Rothschild protégé and Commodore Matthew Perry's daughter, who  signed the contract to build the subway in February 1900.


In September 1904 electricity began for the first time to flow through the subway. It was provided by a dedicated power plant on 11 Avenue and West 58th Street. It was, at the time, the largest electricity generating plant in the nation. Its four, coal fired, turbo generators produced 100,000 horse power

Frank Hedley was the general manager whom Belmont hired to run the IRT. He introduced multiple doors, the turnstiles and various safety devices. He was confident and dynamic and earned. $75,000 by the 1920s.


By 1888 NYC had largest urban transit system in the world. Ninety-four miles of elevated railways. 265 miles of horse-drawn railway. 137 miles of horse drawn omnibuses

Ridership hit a low point in 1933 with only 1.7 billion rides.

It increased to 1.9 billion in 1943 and peaked in 1947 at over 2 billion.

But after the war, with resumption of auto production ridership declined.

IN the whole of the US mass transit ridership declined from 23.4 billion in 1945 to 9.4 billion in 1960.
Car registrations rose from 25.8 million to 61.7 million.

In NY sub and elevated ridership from 1.9 bill to 1.3 bill

The subway deteriorated. In the 1930s and 1940s 90% of the trains ran on time. by 1983 on time performance was 70%.

In 1940 71% of all New Yorkers used the transit system, riding on the average, 10 hours  per month. It carried  2.3 billion riders. (1.8 billion on the underground and el lines). it was the most heavily used system in the world.

By the 1990s only half of all New Yorkers used the system. Annual NY subway ridership was 1.1 billion. Moscow had 3.2 billion, Tokyo 2.7 billion, Mexico City and Seoul, 1.4 billion, Paris 1.2 billion.


ACCIDENTS:

The subway's worst accident occurred on Nov 1.1918 during a motorman's strike. An overworked  BRT dispatcher subbing as a motorman took a downhill S curve too fast on Brooklyn's  Brighton Beach line, while approaching Malbone Street station (renamed Empire Boulevard). Four of the five composite cars left the track and were shattered, the last car escaped harm.  Surviving passengers stumbling along the tunnel were electrocuted when the third rail was turned on by unsuspecting e;electrician thinking  the short circuit was union sabotage. Ninety eight people died.

The second worst accident took 16 lives and injured 100. It occurred on 27 August 1928 when a faulty switch just outside the Times Square station turned under a  Broadway Express and flung the rear cars against the tunnel wall.

In the course of the 20th century els suffered only three serious accidents when entire cars fell to the street below. In September 1905 a Sixth Avenue el operating on the Ninth Avenue tracks encountered a misaligned switch at the 53rd Street curve. It threw one carriages completely down into the street  killing 17 passengers. In June 1923, in Brooklyn two cars of a fifth Avenue El were hurled into the street south of Atlantic Avenue when a steel IRT train rammed into a train of wooden composite cars.  A different kind o f trauma  had engulfed el passengers on March 11 1888. On that day a terrifi blizzard suddenly descended on the city and quickly snowed in 15,000 passangers on the els. Their steam locomotives were completely overpowering and one  even deraailedl. The snow and ice were so fierce, fire engines were largely unable to come to the rescue. On the following day  double teamed locomotives were finally able to reach the stranded trains and free their freezing passengers.


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