Most people who know me fairly well can recognize that i am sort of a history buff. Although i just read my first work of fiction since Orson Well's The Time Machine in the 7th grade, Watchmen (which was incredible, will blog about later), I do read a good deal of non-fiction. I read mostly on historical subjects or the sciences. The majority of my subjects deal with either ancient civilizations, technology, cultures and as you can probably tell from some of my earlier blogs, music. I also read, or research briefly, interesting things i encounter on a day to day basis, today it was the NYC subway. A pretty impressive feat of engineering if i don't say so myself (I'm an engineer, these things interest me), the subway is one of the stand out features of what is undoubtedly the greatest city on earth. It is the largest in the world in both number of stations and millage of track and is one of less than a handful that run 24/7. A short ride on the subway and you will be witness to a plethora of cultures, colors, dress, music and language. But what is not so obvious is that, what is already the largest of its kind, was intended to be much larger.
The subway extensions planned in 1929, and than revised in 1939, would have turned the already twisting and interlocking subway into what resembles nothing short of a plate of spaghetti. The plans called for many additional lines through the boroughs of Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and The Bronx, additional tunnels under the east river and even an extension to the neglected step child, Staten Island. The plan totaled 100 miles of additional tracks and would cost an estimated $500 million, and that was in 1929, before the revisions. Due to the limits of my attention span, i did not figure the modern equivalent in today's dollar amount, but imagine it would be astronomical to say the least. Some of these proposed additions actually led to real services, like the A train service to the Rockaways (which uses converted LIRR track) and the 2nd Avenue Line in Manhattan which is currently under construction. Others were left for later dates with provisions for future construction built in to our current system, some which can be seen today. Apparently their are large open spaces under or above some existing platforms for the future construction of new subway lines, one of these even has connecting stair cases. Also many mezzanine levels were originally intended to be platforms. One station was even completed, a second level at the Roosevelt Avenue station of the IND Queens Boulevard line (E, F, G, R, V trains) was built in 1933 although tracks were never laid. Most seemed to have been forgotten.
Now, much of what i found was through articles on Wikipedia, not exactly a concrete source if you know what i mean. However, those articles did site a 1929 article from the New York Times detailing the proposed extensions. I included the links below.
100 Miles of Subway in New City Project; 52 of them in Queen's - New York Times Wikipedia article on "Proposed NYC Subway Expansion (1929 - 1940)"2-22-2009: "With 6,400 subway cars, New York City Transit has the largest fleet in the world. NYC Transit also has more subway cars than the combined total of all other subway systems in the United States."
-"Transit Fact" on the back of my Monthly
