The New York City subway system turns 120 years old later this year so we thought we'd honor the world's longest subway system with a supersized overview history -- from the first renegade ride in 1904 to the belated (but sorely welcomed) opening of one portion of the Second Avenue Subway in 2017.
New Yorkers like Alfred Ely Beach had envisioned a subway system for the city as early as the 1870s. Yet years of political delay and a lack of funding ensured that dreams of an underground transit would languish. It wasn't until the mid-1890s that the city got on track with the help of August Belmont and the newly formed Interborough Rapid Transit.
We’ll tell you about the construction of the first line, traveling miles underground through Manhattan and into the Bronx. How did the city cope with this massive project? And what unfortunate accident nearly ripped apart a city block mere feet from Grand Central?
You'll also find out how something as innocuous sounding as the ‘Dual Contracts’ actually became one of the most important events in the city’s history, creating new underground passages into Brooklyn, the Bronx and (wondrously!) Queens.
Then we’ll talk about the city’s IND line, which completes our modern track lines and gives the subway its modern sheen.
Through it all, the New York City subway system is a masterwork of engineering and construction. In particular, after listening to this show, you won’t look at the Herald Square subway station the same way again.
Today's episode is a remastered and re-edited edition of two 2011 Bowery Boys podcasts, featuring newly recorded material to take the story to the present day.
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FURTHER LISTENING
Other Bowery Boys podcasts on the subway and mass transit:
Miss Subways: Queens of the New York Commute
Opening Day of the New York City Subway
The First Subway: Beach's Pneumatic Marvel
Subway Graffiti 1970-1989
Cable Cars, Trolleys and Monorails
New York's Elevated Railroads
The East Side Elevateds: Life Under the Tracks
The Bowery Boys Adventures in the Netherlands TRAILER
#432 The Lenape Nation: Past, Present and Future
#431 Park Avenue: History with a Penthouse View
#430 The Story of Flushing: Queens History, Old and New
#429 The Moores: A Black Family in 1860s New York
The Age of Innocence: Inside Edith Wharton's Classic Novel
#428 The New York Game: Baseball in the Early Years
#427 The Chrysler Building and the Great Skyscraper Race
#426 Behind the Domino Sign: Brooklyn's Bittersweet Empire
#425 It Happened at Madison Square Park
Rewind: Truman Capote and the Black and White Ball
#424 Kosciuszko! The Man. The Bridge. The Legend.
#423 Leonard Bernstein's New York, New York
#422 Grace Church: A Most Fashionable History
Christmas in Old New York: Holiday History
#421 Evacuation Day: Forgotten Holiday of the American Revolution
#420 Garbo Walks: Old Hollywood in New York
The Official Gilded Age Podcast: S2 E1 with Lord Julian Fellowes
Rewind: The Gilded Age Mansions of Fifth Avenue
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