The Tunnel That Used To Be A Subway Station
On the Underground Underground.
History is often moving but it’s rare for that to be as literally true as in the subway. In the opening credits of 1986’s gift to cinema, Labyrinth, David Bowie sings that “Down in the underground/You'll find someone true/Down in the underground/A land serene/A crystal moon.” He makes a good point!1 The subway is not the most glamorous part of the city2 but it makes the entire thing possible. It’s easy to take for granted how much of life in the city is only viable because of the MTA: think how many neighborhoods would be impossible without reliable transit, how long Central Park would have been inaccessible to many New Yorkers without trains that cost a fraction of the fare of carriages, how choked the streets and air would be if we only had cars to move us. The subway system is too sprawling to tackle in one little newsletter so let us start at the very beginning,3 at the subway station that started the engine humming and has been quiet since 1945.
In the beginning, New York moved on horsepower, which is great is you’re a twelve-year old Horse Girl4 but less great for the horse. It also must have had a powerful enough stench5 to make that August trash smell seem preferable even without the diseases.6 Depending on living creatures in this way, moreover, means a health crisis is also an energy crisis, as came to pass in the horse flu epizoic7 of 1872. The infection rate of horses in the US was somewhere between 80 and high 90s, which is a lot of horses. The mortality rate was as high as 10% in cities, where conditions were more crowded8 than rural areas, where the death rate was between 1 and 2%. This not only highlighted the importance of the recently chartered ASPCA9 but the need for alternate transportation.
There were street cars starting in 1832, but the infrastructure was cumbersome and they were a bit dangerous.10 After some false starts,11 the Elevated Railway Company opened its Ninth Avenue elevated train in April 1871 followed by the Third Avenue El in 1878. The Metropolitan Elevated Railway12 opened the Sixth Avenue El that year and later the Second Avenue El. In 1880, Jay Gould’s Manhattan Railway Company bought all four lines, consolidating them. You might have noticed from the smorgasbord of names which are all companies instead of government agencies followed by Jay Gould making a cameo that mass transit started out as a commercial endeavor, not a public utility. It was also a bit of a sooty mess: the tell that it wasn’t always hospitable under the El tracks is that the wealthy who were consolidating along 5th Avenue made sure they didn’t have a line outside their door.
The trains ended up getting put underground for the same reason the power lines did: The Great Blizzard 1888.13 On March 11, a storm hit the city and stopped it dead in its tracks, literally in the case of some of the elevated trains14 which by their nature are extremely exposed to the elements.
This puts the city a little late to the subway game, as the London Underground opened in 1863, though the aftermath of the blizzard wasn’t the first time the idea had come up. A bill had first been introduced in the New York State Senate in 1864 to establish a transit system with plans leaning toward a subway, but a number of businesses lobbied against it fearing what the construction would do to them and what the routes might do to their property values so it got scuttled by the Railroad Committee.15 The compromise ended up being the subway coming much later than intended16 and that when the Interborough Rapid Transit Company planned its path, it was for the east side rather than in the backyard of the businesses on Broadway that had been so inhospitable.
William Barclay Parsons, a native New Yorker and civil engineer, was commissioned as chief engineer. He planned out the four-track system that allowed for express lines, which played a big part in making the subway much faster than the elevated trains.17 Parsons also opted for an electrical line with a third rail over a steam engine because steam seemed as messy as the elevated lines and it was preferred to not dig the tunnels as deep as in London based on rock foundations of the city.18
There were complaints when the tunnels were dug cut and cover style, but to be fair – that can happen. The contractor was an Irish-born builder named John Macdonald, with some loose connections to Tammany. When the city required a bond before the work started as a deposit to make sure tax-payers wouldn’t get stuck with an unfinished ditch in the middle of the avenue if things went poorly, financier August Belmont Jr. of Belmont Stakes fame19 put up the money, forming the Interborough Rapid Transit Company to manage the project.
28 stations were planned, running from City Hall to 145th Street. City Hall was to be the architectural jewel. George Lewis Heins and Christopher LaFarge were brought in to design, with the Budapest Metro as their model.20 Friends from MIT who had trained together at a Boston firm,21 by the time the tunnels were being dug for the subway, they had already broken ground on their design for The Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
This was the height of the City Beautiful movement, where making utilities attractive was a philosophical choice.22 The kiosks designed by Heins-LaFarge are no longer standing but the Astor Place kiosk is a replica, to give you a sense of things. There was also function behind the form: entrance kiosks were domed and shingled and exit kiosks were arched and glass, so it was easy to see at a distance if you were heading for the right spot. The wooden ticketing booths were also finely designed and would have looked like what you see at Wall Street now.
Ground was broken in March of 1900, with Mayor Robert “My Way Is the Expressway” Van Wyke doing the honors with a custom silver shovel from Tiffany’s.23 The space allowed for the rail to loop and circle around was tight: there was a post office across from the Woolworth Building on what’s now park ground that had to be worked around and that’s going to come up again soon.
On October 27th, 1904, the eighth wonder/eighth oldest subway in the world opened in New York, kicking off at 1 PM from City Hall Station with VIPs and open to the public that evening for a five cent fare. Over 100,000 riders hopped on that first night, with the Interborough Rapid Transit Company estimating 25,000 riders an hour from 7 PM on through midnight, and a million rode that first week.24
The convenience and speed were obviously a draw, but it helped that City Beautiful really meant City Hall Station Beautiful. Heins and LaFarge hired Rafael Guastavino for the vaulting and tiling.25 Guastavino26 emigrated from Spain in 1881 already a trained architect and brought with him Catalan techniques for constructing arches that he would build his name and his company on. The Guastavino Fireproof Construction Company27 that he ran with his son Rafael held dozens of patents for their engineering designs, including for the Guastavino tile arch system.
Guastavino would also work with architecture firm McKim, Mead & White when they designed the David N. Dinkins Municipal Building (née the Manhattan Municipal Building) in 1909, which covers the entrance of the very subway station we’re talking about, so this isn’t even a tangent, it’s an elaboration.
Back in City Hall Station in 1904, crowds could admire light coming from the Luxfer Prism Glass in the windows.28 This is where, in the interest of offering you only the best and truest facts, I have to admit I slam into a real Look at This Bitch Eating Her Crackers moment.29 By 1904, the New York mayor was George Brinton McClellan Jr.30 Now, obviously I don’t support visiting the sins of the father on the son, even when the father in question is just terrible, but one wonders if that truism becomes a little more gray when we’re talking nepo babies. Also McClellan Jr. was notably pro-censorship, trying to ban films because they weren’t just flammable but immoral, so maybe it’s fine to judge some books by their covers. Anyway, I bring all this up both to create a safe and welcoming space for anyone who needs to say their piece about either George B. McClellan31 and also because as mayor, McClellan was meant to ceremoniously drive the first train on the beginning of its inaugural voyage. However, when the engineer delicately suggested he take over, McClellan was enjoying himself too much to step back, insisting, “I’m running this train, no sir - I’m running this train.” I think I would find this story very charming if Seth Low had still been in office but context matters so as it stands: ugh. McClellan.
It would only go up32 for the subway from there. The IRT expanded as did the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit—or BMT—until they began to intersect and merge. The City-owned Independent Subway System, or IND, opened in 1932 and started with routes replacing the Ninth and Sixth Avenue Els. In 1940, the City purchased the IRT and BMT and the subway was integrated into one system. The MTA as we know it,33 however, wouldn’t be formed until the mid-1960s, when Mayor John Lindsey and Governor Nelson Rockefeller negotiated the purchase of the LIRR and the merging of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority despite the howling of Robert Moses with the subway system.34 That’s why the state has so much say in the city’s subways, though how much any given stakeholder claims ownership usually depends on if something is going well or there’s lots of complaints.
City Hall Station would end up being a victim of its own popularity:35 the trains needed to be increased from eight cars to ten but the platform couldn’t be expanded and the sharp turn of the loop meant too much of a gap. The station was decommissioned on Christmas Day, 1945.
In 1948, the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall Station, the Lexington Avenue Line local terminus which took the place of the old City Hall Station, was connected to the Chambers Street Station, which had been part of the Brooklyn Transit Company/BMT’s Nassau Line, which is still on some of the signage at the J/Z platform. It all proves definitively that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but a subway platform in humid weather is going to feel unfortunate regardless of the signage.
City Hall Station was restored in 2004 and can be seen on tours for members of the Transit Museum36 but glimpses can be stolen if you stay on the downtown 6 Train at the end of the line at Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall. It's iconic enough that when art director Mary Hawkins was creating her animated film "Love Letters for the Subway" illustrating the subway lines, she chose the old city hall station to represent the 6 train:
There’s something a bit melancholy about the decayed grandeur of the out-of-use station demoted to turning loop37 but considering the fate of the original Penn Station, a lovely chapter of history glanced fleetingly from a window is better than nothing. If all of the flowers whose beauty we most prize fade with time, perhaps a second life as a secret to be sought out is its own kind of immortality.
As you noticed, this week’s newsletter features an excerpt from an animated film by Mary Hawkins. Mary Hawkins is an art director, animator and designer based in NYC whose focus is typography-driven motion graphics. Her work can be seen here: maryhawkins.com
More on Love Letters to the Subway here: https://loveletters.city/
Many good points. No one marries Iman without bringing a lot to the table.
Not anymore, anyway, but we’ll get to that.
I have it on good authority that it’s a very good place to start.
Black Velvet, if you please.
Are two Labyrinth references too much for one newsletter? It’s giving Bog of Eternal Stench.
Did you know you can get tetanus from horseshit? You can get tetanus from horseshit.
An epidemic for animals, as “demos” is the Greek for people and “zoon” is Greek for animals. Sometimes with etymology, it’s all Greek to me. Heyooooooooo.
I do not imagine many reading this need a reminder of what a pandemic can do to a city without warning.
It had started in 1866.
The Brooklyn Dodgers got their name from civilians playing a live action Frogger around the streetcars. Just having typed that I will be cranky at their move to LA for weeks.
There had been a line on Ninth Avenue that only lasted around two years and also a brief experiment with pneumatic tubes.
Née the Gilbert Elevated Railway.
Also, technically why Roscoe Conklin was put underground, as he tried to walk home during the storm and ended up with pneumonia and an infection that he died of that April.
There are stories of one train stopped by the storm above a bar and lowering a bucket for boozy supplies.
There’s a joke about the city being railroading by lobbyists and Albany there.
Sounds like any morning I have an early meeting, amirite?
Though even the locals ran about three miles an hour faster than the Els.
It’s a lot of shist – what can you do?
Less well known: his maternal grandfather was naval Commodore Matthew Perry.
Consolidated cities have to stick together.
And also technically Nephew and Uncle-In-Law, as Heins married LaFarge’s aunt but she was enough younger than her brother that she was the same age as her husband.
Basically, a paraphrase of Peter Gallagher from Center Stage chiding Maureen: no one will want to use it if you don’t make it beautiful.
He would have gone to Tiffany & Co, since Charles Lewis Tiffany had the reputation for fine silver and his son Louis Comfort Tiffany was, as you may know, the one who made his name in glass.
For comparison, when the Second Avenue Subway opened on New Year’s Day 2017, its inaugural ridership was estimated at 48,200 that first day– one of them was me!.
He also worked with them on St. John the Divine.
He was born Rafael Guastavino Moreno but I don’t know when he decided that less is Moreno.
We spoke about this intersecting with the rise of the roof tank water tower, but not burning down was an extremely desirable feature for a building.
These are ribbed decorative tiles that were so popular with Frank Lloyd Wright that he designed and patented dozens of patterns.
You know when you already don’t like someone and then everything they do is proof of how irritating they are, even when it’s something as good and reasonable as eating crackers? Et voila.
Ugh. McClellan.
To paraphrase Alice Roosevelt Longworth, if you haven’t got anything nice to say about George McClellan, come sit next to me.
Down?
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority if you’re nasty.
And later, Metro-North would join the party.
Like Julius Caesar. Or Heather Chandler.
Not to brag or anything.
And also maybe the second lair of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
this isn’t even a tangent 🙂