A Surface Car Line On Broadway

The idea of a surface car line on Broadway had its inception as early as 1850, and a company of thirty was incorporated for the purpose. This corporation, of which Jacob Sharp and John L. O'Sullivan were the prime movers, secured from the Common Council in December, 1852, a franchise "to lay a double track in Broadway and Whitehall or State Street from the South Ferry to Fifty-seventh Street; and also, hereafter to continue the same from time to time along the Bloomingdale Road to Manhattanville."

In addition, the company was to give free transfers to omnibus lines at a number of cross streets and to pay an almost nominal sum to the city for the privileges granted. The motive power was to be horses, the only known power at that time for street traction purposes. In granting the company the right to extend their line to the terra incognita of Harlem, the aldermen little thought how promptly the Manhattanville section would be built up and that their generous grant would in the near future prove to be of immense value.

Broadway and Seventh Avenue Car Line Established in 1864.

In 1864, the Broadway and Seventh Avenue car line was established, and the cars were run on Broadway above Union Square, continuing through University Place below Fourteenth Street. Sharp was one of the directors of this line and it became the backer of the Broadway line and the corporation through which the financial manipulations of the Broadway Surface Company, as Sharp's line was officially known, were made. The principal difficulty experienced by the exploiters of the road was in getting the consent of property owners on Broadway below Fourteenth Street. At last, in 1883, Sharp succeeded in having passed at Albany a general railroad act which permitted the aldermen to offer the franchise of a street railway for sale or not, "at their option."

Bicycles and Automobiles

The construction of the elevated roads in 1880, and the running of the surface cars made the section west of Central Park more easily accessible than in the days of the stages, and building operations began. Previous to 1880 and even for some time after that date the vacant lots were occupied by squatters, whose ram-shackle structures, goats, and multitudinous children added what we may now consider as a picturesque touch to the scene. Some of the children of these squatters have become rich through the increase in value of the lots which their fathers had the foresight, or good luck, to buy in those early days. About 1890, the bicycle was in its glory; and for nearly a decade the smooth asphalt of the Boulevard attracted the devotees of the wheel, the favorite ride being as far as Clarement and Grant's Tomb.

The annual parades of the wheelmen were beautiful sights, especially at night, when countless lights flickered along the roadway as the silent vehicles speeded swiftly along. Many shops and buildings were erected to accommodate the wheelmen and their needs; and there is no doubt that the desirability of this locality as a residence section was thus brought to the attention of many thousands and helped in its development. Now, alas! the wheel has departed; and where once bicycle shops abounded, we find their places taken by many more shops and garages for the sale and repair of the automobile. Where, in the nineties, the bicyclist had constant views of open spaces and truck gardens, now the autoist, as he dashes madly along, sees solid blocks of great hotels and apartment houses, with private houses only on the side streets.

Subway Railroad (Construction)

The subway railroad is directly responsible for this; and as it belongs to this period of Broadway's development subsequent to 1895, a brief account of it may be given here. The idea of an underground railway was of old date. It was in 1890 that the first rapid transit commission was appointed by Mayor Hugh J. Grant; it reported in 1891 that the tunnel franchise should be sold to the highest bidder, but capitalists were afraid to back the scheme on account of its uncertainty and the vast amount of capital involved. In 1894, the legislature created the Rapid Transit Board, which, fortunately, was composed of men of unimpeachable integrity and enterprise with no interest or concern in politics, and they went at the matter in a business-like way. The plans for the tunnel, drawn by the engineer, William Barclay Parsons, were approved by Mayor Strong in 1897; and the congested condition of the traffic lines due to the influx of visitors on Grant's Day, April 27, of that year, showed the absolute necessity of immediate relief. The contracts were let to John B. McDonald on February 21, 1900, and work was begun shortly afterwards, four and one half years being the time allowed for the completion of the work and the running of the trains. The section of the road under Broadway begins at Forty-second Street and continues to One Hundred and Sixty-eighth Street, rejoining Broadway again at Two Hundred and Eighteenth Street and continuing over it as an elevated structure to the terminus at Two Hundred and Forty-second Street abreast of Van Cortlandt Park. The road is four tracks as far as One Hundred and Third Street and two tracks beyond.

During the nearly five years that the underground was building, Broadway was a sight to be remembered, as the work was done from the surface and the street and the car tracks had to be supported by temporary bridges of planks; and it was no unusual thing for a vehicle to fall into the excavation. As a result of this excavation, the trees planted by the Tweed ring, which had by this time begun to beautify the thoroughfare, were badly injured, and in many cases destroyed completely. In May, 1910, the central plots of the street were fenced in, sodded, and set out with plants and shrubs. In the Washington Heights section the cut was so deep that the work was done entirely below the surface by regular subterranean miners brought from the mining places of the world, and the surface was undisturbed.

Subway Railroad (Its opening)

The subway was officially opened to the public from Brooklyn Bridge to Broadway, and One Hundred and Forty-fifth Street on October 27, 1904; to One Hundred and Fifty-Seventh Street, November 12, 1904; to Two Hundred and Twenty-first Street, March 12, 1906; to Two Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, January 14, 1907; to Two Hundred and Thirtieth Street, January 27, 1907; and to Two Hundred and Forty-second Street, its present northern terminus at Van Cortlandt Park, August 1, 1908. At its lower end, it was opened to Fulton Street, January 16, 1905; to Wall Street, June 12, 1905; and to the Bowling Green and the South Ferry, July 10, 1905. In the Washington Heights section, some of the stations are so deep that elevators carry the passengers to and from the surface.

So immensely popular has the subway become since its opening that it is greatly overcrowded, and other lines and extensions are projected. There are many thousands of New Yorkers who see and know nothing of their city except in the neighborhood of their homes and places of business, between which they travel on the underground.

Transportation

New York City has profited immensely from the advantages of internal transportation afforded by the Hudson River and the Erie Canal. In recent years the canal traffic has decreased. The canal is still if great importance, however, owing to its competition with the railway lines. All the railroads which approach New York from west of the Hudson River have their terminals in New Jersey. These lines are the Pennsylvania, the West Shore, the Erie, the New York, Ontario and Western, the Lackawana, the Philadelphia and Reading, the Lehigh Valley, the Central Railroad of New Jersey, and the Baltimore and Ohio. The Pennsylvania Company has projected a tunnel from the New Jersey shore under North and East Rivers to Long Island, with a great station in Manhattan. The lines which approach from the north, the New York Central and Hudson River, and the New York, New Haven and Hartford, have a union passenger station, the Grand Central Station, under the control of the New York Central. The Long Island Railroad maintains terminals in Long Island City and Brooklyn. The daily traffic on all these lines to the suburbs is enormous.


Intercommunications

The problem of passenger transportation within the limits of New York City and its residential areas offers peculiar difficulties. The wholesale business is at the lower end of Manhattan Island, and the shopping districts in the middle, while the dwelling districts are at the upper end, and across the water-ways in the surrounding regions. The crowding and discomfort on the various car and ferry lines during the "rush" hours surpass anything of the kind known in any other city of the world. There are car lines on almost all the thoroughfares leading north from the business district, the limit of surface transportation in this direction having been practically reached. The first elevated railroad was opened on Ninth Avenue in 1870, from the Battery to Fifty-ninth Street.

The Sixth Avenue line, opened in 1878, extended from the Battery to the Harlem River, the upper half being on the line of Ninth and Eighth avenues. Similar lines were built on Third and Second avenues to the Harlem River, and later the Third Avenue line was carried across the Harlem River into the northern suburban districts. The elevated roads, on which it was found practicable to run trains by steam at a high rate of speed and at very short intervals, with a minimum of danger, soon proved utterly inadequate for the traffic. In 1886 the first cable line in Manhattan was established on 125th Street.

In 1898 the underground electric trolley system was introduced and rapidly supplanted the cable all over Manhattan. The overhead trolley system still prevails in other portions of Greater New York. In 1902 the elevated roads began to run their trains by electricity. A contract was awarded in January, 1900, by a commission created for the purpose, for an underground rapid transit railway system running from one end of Manhattan to the other, with a branch, starting at 104th Street to the Bronx. Work upon the subway was begun in February of that year. The time fixed by the contract for the completion of the system was four years and a half, and the original price was $36,500,000. The contractors were conceded the right to operate the road for fifty years. Thirty-five stations are provided for on the main line and 13 on the Bronx branch. An extension of the subway to Brooklyn was decided on in May, 1901. The cars are operated and lighted wholly by electricity. Express trains run on two central tracks.

There is a very extensive ferry system between Manhattan and the surrounding region. Besides the ferries to Brooklyn (q.v.), lines connect with Jersey City, Hoboken, Weehawken, Fort Lee, Staten Island, and other points. During the winter months the ferry traffic is somewhat impeded by occasional fogs and floating ice. The construction of the Brooklyn Bridge (see Bridge) in 1883 greatly facilitated communication with Brooklyn ; but in recent years the bridge has been wholly inadequate. A second bridge was begun in 1896, extending from Delancey Street, Manhattan, to Broadway, Brooklyn ; three other bridges are projected; from Grand Street, Manhattan, to Williamsburg, Brooklyn ; from Corlears Hook, Manhattan, to the Navy Yard, Brooklyn ; and from Fifty-ninth Street, Manhattan, to Long Island City, by way of Blackwell's Island. Furthermore, two tunnels to connect Manhattan with Brooklyn have been planned, one by private railroad companies (also connecting with the New Jersey Shore), and the other by the city through the extension of the subway. The Harlem River is spanned by a number of costly bridges, Washington Bridge being perhaps the finest structure of its kind in the country, and High Bridge, which carries the old Croton Aqueduct at an elevation of over 100 feet, being unequaled among American stone bridges.