The Hell Gate Bridge is one of the more impressive bridges in New York City. Completed in 1916 to allow through service by trains from New Jersey to New England, the 4 track arch bridge was the longest of its kind in the world when it opened. Supposedly, it was over engineered so that it looked trustworthy enough for people to believe it would stand. Because of this it is thought that this bridge, after humans are gone from the earth, would be the last New York City bridge to fall, lasting almost a thousand years.

Having spent much of my time in Astoria near the bridge I’ve always wondered what it would take to explore it. Unlike the High Line or other right-of-ways I’ve explored in the past this was very much active and very dangerous. We had to keep lights off as not to be spotted and had to keep a keen eye out for any on-coming trains. After a long mile and a half walk in the middle of the night we made our way up the tracks.

It is quite a beautiful sight to see the city from that height, about 7 or 8 stories above the ground. We reached the southern support tower, designed to emulate the great triumphal arches of Rome. Inside there was a small iron spiral staircase leading up to the top of the arch, inside the arch that is. The cavernous space was a sight to behold (no pictures were taken due to the complete lack of light). The structure has large slits in it which seems like a nod to arrowslits in medieval castles. Continuing up another set of spiral stairs leads to the roof. Inside the air was heavy and filled with particles, no doubt from the inches of decaying bird carcases and dirt which lined the floors.

The archways surrounding the roof of the support tower created an interesting effect in that you did not feel at all like you were in a dangerous place much like you do on the roofs of ordinary buildings. The archways created a room with windows out into the city. The weather was so nice that you hardly realized you were outside at all.

The city was only an idea at this point. The noise, the energy, the problems, all were a distant hum; all was quiet and peaceful. Trains passing below offered the only clue to the reality of the situation, but also brought out the adolescent fascination we had of big powerful machines.

We were there for a while, not to do damage but to experience something few ever have the chance to. It was a moment. What has always attracted me to urban exploration was the curiosity in knowing that what one sees in their daily life is only skin deep, that a thousand levels of infrastructure supports everything you take for granted in life. The bridge was there before I was and will be after I am no longer.

We would have stayed, the sunrise from this vantage point would have been indescribable, but legal reasons kept us wary. On our way down we happened to catch sight of a light further below in the tower. Climbing down further we discovered that the tower itself was hollow and inside were four great halls, 7 stories tall each.

While exploring each great hall we quickly ran the numbers as to the feasibility of throwing the worlds most exclusive party inside the base of the tower. Obviously David Byrne was in… A stairwell led down under the floor to a locked door, one which was familiar to me from my many walks around the outside of the bridge in the day. This was the easy way, the less fun way, the practical way in.

We made the climb back to track level and back along the tracks. The night was completed to full, breakfast awaited as a reward.

Jackson Heights, Queens under development in 1924. The Corona Line (7 train) Subway is seen running east at the bottom.

The borough of Queens came late to rapid transit development. Even after Queens was created out of Nassau County when New York City consolidated into five boroughs it remained farmland well past World War II. Some areas did grow thanks to the introduction of railroads, the Rockaways had summer resort communities.  Some early railroads cut through Queens to serve already established towns like Flushing and Jamaica and some were built as real estate ventures that went bust, but by the turn of the 20th Century all of these had been consolidated into the Long Island Railroad or been abandoned. Queens began to develop after transportation improved with the opening of the Queensborough/59th St Bridge and the construction of the Steinway or Belmont Tunnel which allowed elevated and subway trains to be built to Astoria and Corona. A well repeated fact is that the first radio advertisement ever was for new garden apartments in Jackson Heights which were built after the Corona Subway (todays Flushing 7 Line) opened up the countryside.

Planners knew that Queens would eventually grow with development and as neighborhoods like Jackson Heights and Forest Hills began to pop up the need for improved rapid transit also grew. When the city built the IND Queens Line along Queens Boulevard it was designed to be the major trunk subway which future new lines would connect with to reach Manhattan. New connections were planned to Jamaica and Far Rockaway. A new subway was also being considered along Horace Harding Boulevard which would run through central and eastern Queens. Because much of the area was still farmland the subways could be built cheaper than waiting until the area was developed.

After World War II development shifted along with new transportation technologies, the car and the truck. With developers no longer needing to wait for subways to build their homes the farmlands of Queens filled up quickly. Robert Moses famously built his highways to exclude mass transit. The subways planned along Horace Harding Boulevard and Van Wyck Boulevard instead became the Long Island Expressway and the Van Wyck Expressway. Instead of a dense urban development pattern seen in the Bronx or Brooklyn, Queens embodied the new suburban sprawl development that was quickly changing the fabric of the entire metropolis.

Many of the proposals I’ve talked about previously in this series have looked at subway expansion along existing lines or new subways to replace older, out dated service. Because Queens developed around the car and not the train the new subways through Queens will have to be designed differently than in older areas of the city. I’ve already talked about the Myrtle Ave/Union Turnpike Subway which would service central Queens, and I’ve also talked about expanding the Second Ave Subway into southern Queens and Jamaica. Now I want to look at the last section of Queens, northern Queens and Flushing where a third and final new trunk line subway will knit the farthest reaches of the borough into the subway network.

Queens Plaza

Flushing Trunk Line through Queens Plaza and Sunnyside Yards.

The Flushing Trunk Line begins in Long Island City. In the last post I talked about a new Manhattan crosstown subway which would run into Long Island City and connect with the existing IND Crosstown G Line. Because the existing Queens Blvd Subway is already at capacity a new 4 track subway, the Flushing Trunk Line, would be built parallel to Queens Plaza with 2 tracks serving Manhattan trains and 2 tracks serving a rerouted IND Crosstown G Line. The actual subway would be constructed inside the Sunnyside railroad yards which is owned by the MTA. A second station would be built at Queens Plaza serving the Flushing Trunk Line with a free transfer to the Queens Blvd Line.

Just past Queens Plaza a new connection will be built to allow trains using the 63rd St tunnel to access the new subway. On the map to the right there is a station inside the Sunnyside Yards. Over the years there have been many plans floated for air rights development over the yards (much like the Hudson Yards and Atlantic_Yards) but ultimately nothing has ever been built. This station may be built as a shell at first in anticipation for future development. At the end of the yards the subway will split with 4 tracks running under Northern Boulevard and 2 tracks running under 37th Ave. The tracks under 37th Ave will be the first section of a super-express subway out to the Rockaways and will go as far as Broadway-Roosevelt Ave. After Roosevelt Ave the super-express line will head south along 78th St until it reaches the Long Island Railroad tracks at which point it will surface and run to the Rockaways along the abandoned LIRR Rockaways Line (see my previous post about a Second Ave Subway super-express subway).

Northern Boulevard and Alternatives

Flushing Trunk Line along Northern Boulevard and alternatives.

Northern Boulevard is a major highway through northern Queens (it runs out along the north shore of Long Island as NY25 all the way to the tip of the north fork at Orient Point). Because it cuts through such a substantial section of city and is wider than other avenues in Queens it makes the perfect route for a new subway. The Flushing Trunk Line would make a straight shot down Northern Blvd with one express station at Junction Blvd (this station would be specially designed for travelers transferring to shuttles to La Guardia Airport). The subway would snake south at 114th St where it would meet up with the existing station at Willets Point Blvd serving Citi Field, Flushing Meadows Park, and the National Tennis Center. Here will be a major transfer station as it also serves the LIRRs Port Washington Line. After this point the subway splits into two branches.

Though Northern Boulevard would be the preferable alignment there are two other options which would serve other parts of central Queens which at present the subways only skirt.  Central Corona used to have two commuter rail stations on the LIRR Port Washington Branch but these were taken out of service decades ago (Corona Station in 1963 and Elmhurst Station in 1985).

A Port Washington Alignment would run a branch of the Flushing Trunk Line along the Port Washington Branch right-of-way, splitting from the trunk line in the Sunnyside Yards so that it would run through Woodside before turning east into Corona.  Another branch would run along Northern Boulevard and at Willets Point Blvd both branches would meet up before splitting again in Flushing.  The right-of-way along the Port Washington Branch would not be wide enough for subway and commuter rail tracks.  Either eminent domain would be needed to take buildings along the tracks or the Port Washington LIRR Branch would have to be totally converted to rapid transit (neither are preferable options).

The southern most alignment would run along 57th Ave.  This alignment would go further in reaching under served areas of Queens but would have to contend with tight, winding, narrow streets.  Transit planners knew that this area would require mass transit at some point and began studying ideas for extending subway lines along Horace Harding Blvd as early as 1929.  Horace Harding Blvd was expanded by Robert Moses in the 1950s and 1960s to create the Long Island Expressway.  He ignored the cries of planners when he neglected to provide room along the median of the expressway for a future subway line.  The 57th Ave alignment would serve this same area but would be better integrated into the fabric of the city.  Subways built along highways are less expensive but require pedestrians to traverse a rather inhospitable landscape to reach them.  A subway built under 57th Ave would be better for pedestrians and businesses along the avenue and would not require taking a travel lane out of the Long Island Expressway (either permanently or during construction).

Flushing and College Point

Flushing Trunk Line into Flushing with branch alternatives to College Point.

The Flushing Trunk Line splits after Willets Point Blvd and becomes two, 2 track subways, one north to College Point and one south to Auburndale and Oakland Gardens along the Kissena Park corridor. The Flushing Trunk Line proposal also calls for the extension of the 7 Line east to Bayside. This extension has been proposed as far back as 1929 and also included a branch to College Point (I’ve incorporated this branch into the new trunk line).

College Point and Whitestone once had a rail connection to Long Island City with a branch off the LIRR Port Washington Branch just past Willets Point (a great write up about the Whitestone Branch over at ForgottenNY).  The old line ran up to College Point near 130th St, turning east along 11th Ave to the docks in Whitestone.  The line was abandoned in 1932.  The city at one point tried to buy the right-of-way for rapid transit conversion but no deal was ever finalized and the right-of-way was eventually sold and built over.

The modern College Point subway would continue down Northern Boulevard to 154th St where it would make a 90 degree turn north up to 14th Ave in Whitestone where it would make another 90 degree turn back west, creating a giant “hook” shape, out to 127th St in College Point.  This is pretty close to the original proposal by the city in the 1930s.  This alignment would serve more residential areas than the original, western alignment which would run along or through the old Flushing Airport (closed in 1982), now mostly soggy abandoned marshland.  A third alternative would be to run the subway along the Whitestone Expressway at grade.  While this alignment would not serve as many neighborhoods as the 154th St Alignment, it would be less costly and would have the space for large parking facilities along the highway.  It would also allow for possible extension of the subway across the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, something I talk about in the next section.

Flushing Trunk Line branches through Bayside and eastern Flushing.

The 7 Train extension west would be a 2 track subway under Roosevelt Ave to the point where it reaches Northern Boulevard.  Here the subway has three alternatives, the first would be to continue under Northern Boulevard to Crocheron Ave and continue west under 35th Ave to Bell Blvd in Bayside.  The second would be to have the subway, after Northern Boulevard, run at grade along the Port Washington LIRR Branch out to Bell Blvd (where the existing Bayside LIRR station is).  The final alignment would have the subway run entirely under Northern Boulevard out to Bell Blvd.

The second branch of the Flushing Trunk Line would make a quick turn southeast after Willets Point Blvd.  Like College Point, this area too once had a railroad running through it that was eventually abandoned, the Central Railroad of Long Island, the right-of-way for which was redeveloped as the Kissena Park corridor.  The southern branch of the Flushing Trunk Line would follow closely this alignment.  The subway would run under the park making construction much cheaper and less disruptive.  An important feature of this proposal are large underground parking garages.  Eastern Queens is much more suburban than other parts of the city and any subway expansion into Queens needs to take this into account.  This part of the city did not develop around walking, elevated trains, or streetcars like much of Manhattan, Brooklyn, or the Bronx, and because of this it wouldn’t work to build a subway without adequate parking.  The park space is perfect because when construction is complete the park will be restored and no buildings would need to be taken.  The eastern end of the branch would run along the Long Island Expressway to Bell Blvd.

An alternative to the Kissena Park corridor would be to run the subway under Parsons Blvd to 46th Ave to Hollis Court Blvd.  This alignment would run through residential and smaller commercial areas and would not serve drivers with large parking garages like the park plan would.  Both alternatives could also be extended south along the Clearview Expressway to meet up with the Union Turnpike Subway which I proposed in a previous post.

Long Island Sound Bridges

Subways between the Bronx and Queens via the Long Island Sound Bridges.

Like his highway, Robert Moses left no room on his bridges for mass transit.  When we was planning his bridges between Queens and the Bronx planners begged him to provide space for mass transit but he refused.  Because of his hard-headed short sightedness the only way to get between eastern Queens and the Bronx is by driving, taking a bus which is caught in the bridge traffic, or by taking the subway into Manhattan and back out.

At first it might not make much sense to connect the Bronx and eastern Queens, an expensive option since neither places are large employment centers with central business districts with their own traffic patterns.  But a subway connection would offer an alternative and faster ride into the city for residents of the eastern Bronx.  Presently there is only one subway, the congested 6 train and 6 express, at rush hour, serving this large area.  Express buses pick up the slack but are forced to sit in rush hour traffic.  The most congested sections of the NYC Subway are along the Lexington Ave Line to the eastern Bronx.  Even with a Second Ave Subway, residents of the eastern Bronx won’t have much of an improved commute (the current plan for the Second Ave Subway does not even extend into the Bronx).

A subway over one of the East River/Long Island Sound bridges would be a great improvement for commuters.  Large parking garages could be built along the highway or under interchanges where today there is just vacant land or parking lots.  Trains would collect commuters who might otherwise be stuck on the Bruckner or Cross Bronx Expressways and whisk them into midtown Manhattan via Flushing and Long Island City.  This would take considerable pressure off the Triboro/RFK Bridge and FDR Drive as well as the Lexington Ave Subway.  An added benefit to such a connection would be that travelers headed to La Guardia Airport would have a better mass transit option than driving through Manhattan or in Queens.

The two options for a bridge alignment would be as a branch of the Flushing Trunk Line (which would be faster into the city with fewer express stations) or an extension of the 7 Train (slower with rush hour-only express trains).  Either bridge, the Bronx-Whitestone or the Throgs Neck, would need to be retrofitted or replaced for this to be possible.  It is this fact which makes subway expansion over the bridges less attractive.  However, at some point in the future these bridges will need to be replaced.  Knowing this, I am not proposing that the city actively plan on extending subway service over these bridges now but only prepare for the eventuality and correct the mistake Moses forced on the city when he built the bridges.  Much like the planned replacement Tappan-Zee Bridge across the Hudson, space would be provided on a new bridge for mass transit (bus, light rail, heavy rail, or commuter rail).

Astoria Line Extension

Extension of the BMT Astoria Line to La Guardia Airport.

An extension of the elevated BMT Astoria Line (N/Q trains) east is much less far fetched as it sounds.  In the original 1929 IND Second System plan the Astoria Line was to turn east at Ditmars Blvd (the current terminal) and wind its way through Elmhurst to Horace Harding Blvd (now Long Island Expressway).  The area at the time was still largely undeveloped (see the picture of Jackson Heights at the top of this post) so an elevated line extension would not have caused much of an uproar (on the contrary, land owners at the time were fighting for improved transportation).  Like the rest of the Second System this extension never came to fruition.

As recent as the late 1990s, however, the idea was floated again as a way to reach La Guardia Airport.  At the time the city was looking at ways to connect mass transit to JFK and La Guardia Airports.  Many ideas were floated, an automated light rail system was proposed to connect both airports with subways and commuter rail (but was only built out for JFK as the AirTrain), an extension of commuter rail from JFK into downtown Manhattan, and an extension of the BMT Astoria to La Guardia.

The Astoria Line extension proposal had the elevated subway extended north along 31st St to 19th Ave (which is not an actual intersection because this land is owned by ConEdison and is not a street), turning right along 19th Ave where it would travel to a new terminal located near the La Guardia Marine Air Terminal.  This alignment would have avoided most of the residential areas and run through a mostly industrial neighborhood to reach the airport.    The proposal, which was very seriously considered, was shot down by residents who didn’t want the elevated trains running though any more of their neighborhood.

The map at the right shows a slightly altered proposal for extension, one that is closer to the original 1929 plan.  Here the Astoria Line would turn at Ditmars Blvd and run down to the Grand Central Parkway.  It follows the parkway, elevated, up to the La Guardia Terminals with stations at Steinway, Hazen, and 82nd streets (the 1990s MTA proposal had no additional stations besides the La Guardia terminal).  The subway could be extended further east to terminate at the Willets Point-CitiField station so that travelers coming from Long Island could have a mass transit option when going to La Guardia Airport.

Conclusion

Northern Queens is the best served section of Queens in terms of rapid transit today (which isn’t really saying much).  But the few subways which run through it are filled to capacity with no space left for extensions further east.  Most of the borough is miles from any subway and if there are going to be any more subway extensions to serve Queens then a new trunk line will be necessary.  Queens is growing in population and if New York City is to be able to take in an addition 1 million residents in the next 20 years then Queens will have to grow denser than it is today.  The only way this will be sustainable is if mass transit is extended out to reach all sections of the borough.

The Flushing Trunk Line is my proposal to address these issues in northern Queens.  It would take pressure off of the 7 Line and the Queens Blvd Line at the same time as serving large sections of the city.  With the growth of Long Island City as a residential and commercial neighborhood the congestion along the existing subways will just get worse.  New capacity is the only sustainable answer to address transportation issues in Queens.  This will require new zoning as well and the Queens of the future will be much less suburban than it is today, but then this was always going to be the case.  Like when the elevated trains came to the farmlands of old Queens, new transportation will go hand and hand with future transformation.  New subways will allow for a denser, more sustainable Queens and could even be a model for how other suburbs around the nation adapt to rising old prices and congestion.

Subway Diagram

Subway diagram showing Flushing Trunk Line

The futureNYCSubway

1. Introduction
2. IND Second System
3. Post War Expansion
4. The Second Ave Subway: History
5. The Second Ave Subway: To The Bronx and the Nassau Line
6. Brooklyn: Bushwick Trunk Line
7. Manhattan: West Side and Hudson Crossings
8. Queens: Flushing Trunk Line
9. Staten Island: The Last Frontier
10. TriboroRX and Atlantic Ave Super-Express
11. Conclusion

Elevated Train, 9th Ave, 1940 by Andreas Feininger

Manhattan is the only borough of New York City where major subway expansion is actually taking place. The Second Ave Subway and the 7 Line extension are the first major subway expansion projects in almost 40 years. I’ve covered both in previous posts so I want to look further into what might be possible for expanded service in Manhattan. The areas along the west side of the island are still far away from subway service (elevated trains once rumbled up 9th Ave but were replaced in the 1930s by the 8th Ave Subway). The 7 Line extension, as it is currently being built, will not include a station at 10th Ave/41st St which will mean that trains will bypass a large residential section of town, Hells Kitchen and Clinton, in order to serve a neighborhood which is not even built yet, the Far West Side and Hudson Yards.

While over on the west side let’s look across the Hudson River and realize that there are many commuters who pour into New York from New Jersey every day through the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels and over the George Washington Bridge, the most heavily trafficked bridge in the world. There are also rail connection between New York and New Jersey via the PATH system and New Jersey Transit into Penn Station. Construction of a new 2 track tube under the river from New Jersey to Penn Station has recently begun which will double capacity along the Northeast Corridor (check out the ARC Tunnel). The PATH system went through an identity change in the 1970s when the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey took over the defunct Hudson & Manhattan Railroad which was built to shuttle passengers from various train terminals in Hoboken and Jersey City into downtown and midtown Manhattan. As service grows between the two states and as capacity along the automobile lanes is stretched to capacity, new rail connections seem inevitable.

Another inevitability is that Manhattan will need a new crosstown subway line soon. Planners have seen this as an issue for over 70 years as crosstown subways have been proposed from 57th St to 23rd St. Any new subway lines into Queens will have to enter Manhattan at some point and even with a completed Second Ave Subway there will be little extra capacity on existing East River tunnels. A new crosstown subway in midtown Manhattan would be ideal for adding the additional capacity needed and could be extended out into Queens.

Flushing Line 7 Train Extensions

7 Line extensions into the Far West Side of Manhattan.

Currently under construction from 8th Ave/41st St to 11th Ave/34th St with layup tracks extending south to 11th Ave/25th St, I covered the history of the 7 Line extension in a previous post. Now I want to look at some past proposals for extension and some future possibilities.

• High Line and West Side Highway

  Before the High Line was a park it was just another abandoned railroad line though a major city which most people didn’t even know about (you can see my pictures from before the park was built on my“A Walk on the High Line” post). In the 1980s and 90s when the West Side Highway was being torn down and replaced by the Hudson River Park and a landscaped boulevard, many transit advocates called for using this opportunity to build a new transit line along the west side to the World Trade Center. A transit option had been proposed as an alternative to the plans for the Westway, a massive highway tunnel system along the Hudson River to replace the decaying West Side Highway. When the Westway was killed in 1985 it was hoped that the new replacement would have space from transit of some kind, be it a subway, elevated rail, or bus lanes.

  The proposal to extend the 7 Line south along the west side would have brought the 7 Line west from Times Sq down to the Hudson Yards where it would have connected to the High Line at the point where the High Line tracks enter the ground along 34th St at 11th Ave. From here the 7 Line would have looped around the train yards and made its way through the middle of the block along the High Line. Since the High Line was built only for freight trains it never had stations (though each building through which it ran did have loading platforms for freight). New stations would have meant that many warehouses and residential buildings would have needed to be demolished. The High Line had originally run south to West Houston St where it terminated in a large meat packing facility. The portion of the High Line from Gansevoort St to West Houston St was demolished in the 1990s for new housing development. Had this section not been removed then it could have been extended along an elevated structure from West Houston south along the West Side Highway to a new terminal at the World Trade Center.

  History has written a different story. Though the West Side Highway was replaced by a landscaped boulevard and park system, no space for transit was made available. The High Line was in danger of being demolished entirely but was saved by creative community activists and a new mayor.

  Please note: I am not in favor of replacing the High Line Park with active rail transit. This was merely an historical proposal.

• 23rd St Crosstown
  

  7 Line extension into Hoboken and Jersey City.

  The current extension of the 7 Line will end at West 25th St at 11th Ave. Since 11th Ave starts/ends at West 22nd St there are only two options for where the line could be extended from here.

  The first option would be to turn the line back east at 23rd St and create a new crosstown subway. Crossing the East River at 23rd St the line would be pointing directly to Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The 7 Line could possibly be extended southeast into North Brooklyn or could be sent northeasterly back into the southern tip of Long Island City to connect back with the 7 Line to Flushing thereby creating a large loop through midtown Manhattan.

• Hoboken and Jersey City

  The second option for extending the 7 Line past 25th St would be to send it west under the Hudson River into Hoboken, New Jersey. There are jurisdictional and bureaucratic issues with building anything across the Hudson River since it is a state boundary. The Port Authority was set up to build and maintain all interstate crossings inside a 25 mile radius area from the Statue of Liberty. Knowing this it is easy to understand why the New York City Subway has never crossed the Hudson River, but this does not mean the need does still not exist.

  The subway extension would leave Manhattan at 23rd St and head straight across the river to Hoboken at 12th St. The subway would curve south at Main St and head down to the Hoboken Terminal. Here there would be a transfer point for the PATH, Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, and New Jersey Transit. After Hoboken Terminal the subway would run parallel to the PATH down to Pavonia/Newport station, then down to 6th St where it would turn west. Jersey City was once covered in train tracks as it was the eastern most place trains could travel before they hit the mighty Hudson River. Jersey City was the home of many terminal buildings which allowed people and freight to transfer to barges headed to Manhattan. Because of this there are more than a few ruins left over from the railroad days. Like the High Line, Jersey City has a large abandoned railroad embankment running through the old residential neighborhood between 6th and 5th St. The 7 Line subway would ascend to the surface along 6th St here and run elevated along the embankment. The right-of-way leads directly to Journal Sq which is where the 7 Line extension would terminate, along side the PATH station.

• Union City and the Upper West Side
  

  7 Line extension into Clinton, Union City, and the Upper West Side.

  Back in Manhattan, instead of continuing the existing 7 Line south, an alternative would be to turn the 7 Line north into the Clinton/Hells Kitchen neighborhood along 10th Ave. On 10th Ave the 7 Line would run north to 72nd St where it would merge with the existing 7th Ave Subway at Broadway. From here north the 7 train would run along side the 1 train as a local service up to the Bronx. 10th Ave is interesting in this case since just west of 10th Ave, running through the block, is the depressed Amtrak right-of-way built at the same time as the High Line. This below grade rail line runs up the west side of Manhattan under Riverside Park and by Inwood before skirting the coast of the Hudson River up to Albany. This would allow for the 7 Line to act as a super-express subway for the west side of Manhattan up to Inwood. An actual current proposal for a similar transit expansion would have MetroNorth trains use this right-of-way with stations at 66th St, 125th St, and Dyckman St. MetroNorth trains would require no new tracks like a subway would so this is a much preferable and economical option.

  Alternatively the 7 Line could jump the Hudson River at 55th St and head into Union City, New Jersey. There is currently a train tunnel through the high cliffs on top of which Union City is built. The tunnel is currently being used for the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail. If these tracks were converted to subway service the 7 Line would have a ready to use tunnel into New Jersey. At the portal to the tunnel there could be built a large park and ride station which would attract commuters who might normally drive into Manhattan.

10th Ave and Crosstown Subways

10th Ave Subway and Crosstown alternatives.

As I stated above planners have seen the need for new crosstown subways for decades. In the 1960s an underground people-mover system was envisioned that would connect Grand Central Terminal with Rockefeller Center. Because the Midtown Central Business District (CBD) is so important to the economy of the region it is crucial that it is served well by transit. Since there is no more room for cars in this dense area the best option at the moment is mass transit. Currently there are crosstown subway lines at 59th St (N/Q/R trains), 53rd St (E), and 42nd St (7/Shuttle).

A new, 2 track, crosstown subway would serve an additional purpose, that of new capacity. Even if the 2nd Ave Subway is fully built out there will new capacity on existing lines in Manhattan but no new capacity in Queens. In my next post I will talk more about new subways in Queens but for these to be possible they need a place to go. A new crosstown subway in midtown Manhattan would be the perfect connection for a new subway to Queens. The 63rd St tunnel was built for this very reason but due to lack of funding no new capacity was constructed in Queens and the current 63rd St tunnel is operating under capacity because of this (read more about the history of the 63rd St tunnel here.)

The two best options for a new crosstown subway would be at 57th St or at 50th St. The 57th St alignment would connect with Columbus Circle, major express subway stations, and the hotel areas above midtown but the 50th St alignment would directly serve the CBD and still connect with major subway lines. A benefit to the 50th St alignment would be that an underground pedestrian mall could be constructed and connected into the existing concourse at Rockefeller Center. An underground concourse connecting Times Sq, the Midtown CBD, and Grand Central Terminal would reduce pedestrian traffic on the streets and allow for substantial retail which could help pay for the subway.

A cheaper alignment may be along 53rd St where the existing IND subway runs. The problem with this alternative is while the tunnel segment from 8th Ave to 6th Ave is 4 tracks, the tunnel from 6th Ave to the East River is only 2 tracks. Queens bound trains would have to be cut back to allow for an additional train, though an additional crosstown train at 53rd St would have the benefit of being able to directly connect to the 8th Ave Subway and add additional express service along the west side of Manhattan to downtown.

Crosstown subways from midtown Manhattan entering Long Island City.

Where ever the crosstown subway is built it will have end up somewhere. Like the existing 14th St-Canarsie Line it could terminate at 8th Ave but because there is a large residential neighborhood just west of 8th Ave (Hells Kitchen/Clinton) it would make more sense to extend the subway over to 10th Ave and run it south to 14th St to connect with the 14th St-Canarsie Line. This would mean trains could enter from Brooklyn and unload passengers heading south, then swing north to serve the proposed Hudson Yards development and the Hells Kitchen neighborhood, then turn back east into midtown and on into Queens. Due to the commuting habits at rush hour it is foreseeable that there would be three different trains running on this subway: an all local train running from Brooklyn to Queens via 10th Ave, a Brooklyn only train at 14th St which would terminate at 10th Ave, and a Queens only train at 50th St (or another alignment) which would also terminate at 10th Ave. Off peak hours could run one or two all local trains from Brooklyn to Queens.

On the Queens side of the East River the new 10th Ave-Crosstown subway would need a place to enter Long Island City, a growing mixed use neighborhood. This fact has more to do with affecting the location of the new subway in Manhattan than anything else. Because existing subways in Long Island City are at capacity a new 4 track subway would need to be built. Currently the IND Crosstown G Line is cut back to Court Sq instead of connecting to the Queens Blvd Line and running to Forest Hills. Because of the ridership demand for midtown Manhattan service G train riders must transfer to the E/M trains to get to Queens Plaza. A new tunnel under the East River servicing a 10th Ave-Crosstown train would allow for the G train to finally get a proper terminal.

Depending on the alignment, a new 2 track tunnel under the East River would enter Long Island City and head towards Queens Plaza. A more southern alignment, like the one at 50th St, would meet up with the IND Crosstown G Line before Court Sq, thereby allowing a new tunnel and station to be built which would combine the two subways into a 4 track trunk line built parallel to the Queens Blvd Line to Queens Plaza. The new subway would be built inside the Sunnyside Rail Yards so no buildings would need to be demolished for this expansion to take place. A new 4 track terminal station would be built adjacent to the existing Queens Plaza station for transfers.

Morningside Ave Line

Proposals for a super-express subway to Morningside Heights.

One of the more peculiar proposed subway lines from the original IND Second System was for a super-express subway under the west side of Central Park to Morningside Heights that would terminate at 145th St. The subway would have only had stations from 110th St to 145th St and would have connected with the BMT Broadway Line at 57th St. Early BMT subway maps actually show a small stud aimed this way at 57th St. While a new subway line through the Upper West Side was very much needed around this time, the peculiar thing is that this subway was still being proposed well after the 8th Ave Line opened, serving this same are.

My theory, and I have nothing to base this on, was that a Morningside Ave super-express subway was planned to compliment a pair of super-express tracks which were planned for the 2nd Ave Subway. Originally the 2nd Ave Subway was planned with 6 tracks through the Upper East Side, 2 local, 2 express, and 2 super-express with no stops until the line reached the Bronx. The subways through the Upper West Side were older, the original NYC Subway ran up Broadway, had two express stations at 72nd and 96th Sts, and only a third track for rush hour express trains after 103rd St. The areas around Morningside Heights, meanwhile, were rapidly developing at this time because of the improved transportation the new subways were bringing; in a sense the subways were too popular too handle the growing demand. A super-express subway would have taken considerable stress/directly competed with the IRT (keep in mind that the subways were still operated by three different companies at this time).

Today the shortcomings of the early subway designs are as evident as ever (for instance there is no express station at 125th St at Broadway). Already I’ve suggested three options for a super-express subway through the Upper West Side: a 7 Line extension along the Amtrak Hudson River tracks, a MetroNorth alternative along the same way, and a subway up Amsterdam Ave which would be an extension of the 14th St-Canarsie Line up 10th Ave.

Let’s add the original proposal into the mix, a branch off the BMT Broadway Line along Central Park. This would be the least disruptive option of them all since it would only require digging through the park. At the north end of the park the subway could swing west, like originally proposed, and run under Morningside Ave and Convent Ave to 145th St. Here the subway could terminate or merge with the IND 8th Ave Line and add super-express service directly to the IND Grand Concourse (B/D) Line in the Bronx. Alternatively, the subway could run under Lenox Ave in Harlem to 148th St (the IRT 7th Ave 3 train terminal) or connect to the IND Grand Concourse Line at Yankee Stadium.

George Washington Bridge Subway

George Washington Bridge with subway connection.

The George Washington Bridge (GWB) is notable for many reasons, but one that is almost never mentioned is that it was the first major bridge built in New York City which was not built with a mass transit connection. The Brooklyn (1883), Williamsburg (1903), Queensboro/59th St (1909), and Manhattan (1909) bridges all were built with some form of mass transit but the GWB (1931), completed almost 30 years after the Manhattan Bridge, did not. What has been noted many times was that it was overbuilt (the original design called for a skin of brick and granite) and space was left over for a second deck which would have allowed for mass transit. A second deck was added in the 1960s but no mass transit option was built, not even a bus lane which could have served the busy bus terminal on the Manhattan side of the bridge. Because the bridge spans the Hudson River the bridge is owned and operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey there are legal, jurisdictional, and bureaucratic issues that need to be dealt with if mass transit is to be a reality on the GWB.

There are two ways that mass transit could operate on the GWB, both of which would require the removal of a travel lane in each direction. This may seem counter productive since the GWB is the most heavily trafficed bridge in the world but mass transit would only cut down on the amount of space for cars; many more people could cross the bridge if mass transit was added.

• Bus Lanes

  A bus-only lane along the top deck would better serve the bus terminal on the Manhattan side. The GWB Bus Terminal is a strategic part of the region’s transportation network which diverts traffic away from the main Port Authority Bus Terminal at 42nd St. A bus-only lane would also allow charter buses, which would normally cross along at one of the tunnels further south, a quicker way into Manhattan.

• Subway

  An extension of the IND 8th Ave Line from 168th St (the current terminus for 8th Ave local trains) across the lower deck of the bridge to a new transportation facility/relocated bus terminal in Fort Lee, NJ. There exists, underground, a train yard under Broadway at 174th St to serve 8th Ave trains. The tracks connecting the yard to the 8th Ave Subway could be extended up Broadway a few blocks and curved west to run along the lower deck of the bridge (see map). On the New Jersey side a large new bus terminal and park-and-ride facility would be built where commuters would transfer to express trains to Manhattan. The facility would be built above the existing highway when space is freed up from the removal of the tool booth plazas (which would be replaced by automated license plate readers currently being installed on other bridges). The air-rights on the New Jersey side and the air-rights from the removal of the existing GWB Bus Terminal in Manhattan would be a way to finance the subway.

Conclusion

The unfortunate fact about all the subway expansion going on in New York City right now is that when it is all finished the Far West Side, Clinton, and Hells Kitchen neighborhoods won’t be that much better off. New subway connections which would extend existing lines through these neighborhoods are needed when the planned developments (and current developments along W42nd St) start to bring thousands more people into this area. This being the case it only makes sense to look at these transportation needs in a broader context. Subways in Manhattan are already close to (and in some places surpassing) their designed capacity. If other boroughs of the city are to grow (an additional 1 million people are expected to move into the city within the next 20 years) they will need a way to get around. New subways are the only desirable answer.

I’ve talked about new crosstown connections into Queens and in my next post I will discuss just where those new subways will lead to: the Flushing Trunk Line.

Subway Diagram

Subway diagram showing 10th Ave Subway, 7 Line to Hoboken, Bushwick Trunk Line, and Second Ave Subway systems.

The futureNYCSubway

1. Introduction
2. IND Second System
3. Post War Expansion
4. The Second Ave Subway: History
5. The Second Ave Subway: To The Bronx and the Nassau Line
6. Brooklyn: Bushwick Trunk Line
7. Manhattan: West Side and Hudson Crossings
8. Queens: Flushing Trunk Line
9. Staten Island: The Last Frontier
10. TriboroRX and Atlantic Ave Super-Express
11. Conclusion

At the time I was actually dismayed that these people were in my photographs; after all the point of urban exploration is to go where there are no people. It wasn’t until years later when the amazing High Line park opened and this once tranquil preserve became a world attraction, flooded daily with people, that I realized how lucky I was to capture that moment. These two people, out in the alien zone above the city, all alone, represent our spirit of adventure and discovery.

[Show as slideshow]

I was reading the Wikipedia entry on Stuyvesant Heights, Brooklyn, when I came across the section describing the meandering border. I decided to quickly throw it into Google Maps to see what it would look like…. and then just kept going. Like with all maps of neighborhoods this map generalizes the borders to some extent and excludes some micro-hoods to keep things simple. There is always some overlap and argument but I decided just to use the most widely held definitions of the borders. I really made this because all online mapping services don’t really do a good job of defining neighborhoods (Google, what the hell is “Adelphi”? No one in Brooklyn calls it that.) Download this and use it whenever anyone asks where a particular ‘hood is.

I’ll keep updating this with bits of information on each ‘hood.

Click here to download for Google Earth.

Listening to politicians and economists talk about the current crisis it is easy to see that most of them don’t get what is really going on. Most of them want to get back to the status quo of the last 20 years. Unfortunately that status quo evaporated in a blink of an eye, caused mainly by the fact that most of the development policies of this country from the last 50 years created an over inflated bubble that was built on the unsustainable idea of continued growth in the housing sector. As a real estate agent once told me, “Not everyone should own a house.” But the politicians needed to fuel that dream to get votes. Obama can only do so much when he is up against a congress of delusional egotists clinging on desperately to only what gets them re-elected.

American Grandstand – Bank Hearings

But what really got my eye was how Florida tied in Geography and Urban Planning to all this.

If there is one constant in the history of capitalist development, it is the ever-more-intensive use of space. Today, we need to begin making smarter use of both our urban spaces and the suburban rings that surround them—packing in more people, more affordably, while at the same time improving their quality of life. That means liberal zoning and building codes within cities to allow more residential development, more mixed-use development in suburbs and cities alike, the in-filling of suburban cores near rail links, new investment in rail, and congestion pricing for travel on our roads. Not everyone wants to live in city centers, and the suburbs are not about to disappear. But we can do a much better job of connecting suburbs to cities and to each other, and allowing regions to grow bigger and denser without losing their velocity.

The 21st century has just begun and already we are getting primed for a radical shift in the basic fabric of our society. Some changes will be fast and sudden (such as this economic crisis) and other will take a long time, probably an entire generation, to mature. As Florida says, cities are not going anywhere, but it will be interesting to see what happens to some Sun Belt cities in the next 50 years. Will Phoenix and Las Vegas be the new Detroit? Will the hundreds of acres of unsold homes decay and return to nature while the central cities that once spread out for forever shrink and condense? Given the history of redevelopment in places like Buffalo and Detroit it wouldn’t be surprising if the leaders of these newly decaying cities try the same tired redevelopment schemes that Rust Belt towns tried in the 1980s, most of which failed miserably.

The cities that will win and prosper in the 21st century will be the ones that see this economic crisis as a new beginning, a chance to throw out now obsolete building patterns of the 20th century and focus on planting the seeds for economic engines of the 21st. Cities do not need to grow outwards anymore, though there will still be an aversion to tall buildings in many places. The key is balance, a particular city needs to find out what densities work for it and lay the groundwork for rebuilding neighborhoods that are places rather than faceless subdivisions. Many inner cities are still bombed out moonscapes that need serious investment. People moved to the suburbs for space and in leaving the cities they created space by letting their old neighborhoods decay. These are the areas that need cultivation the most, the old rotting infrastructure should be torn down and new schools and roads and parks need to be built, but only where they need to be built.

Some places, such as suburban Phoenix don’t need new roads and schools to attract people. If the future of Sun Belt cities is anything like Rust Belt cities then the opposite approach is needed. Cities need to know when and how to contract, not grow. Drive from Albany, NY to Detroit and all you will see is mile after mile of depression. The cities you pass left their glory periods long ago and while it was worth while to try redevelopment, these places need to come out of their denial; they are not coming back. The land in these cities could be better used as parks or even urban farming rather than trying to build a new casino or convention center. Since most of these communities are poor to the level of 3rd world standards urban farming would be a fantastic way to get their citizens much needed fresh food while at the same time creating sustainable jobs.

This economic crisis is just the beginning of the rebirth of the American city.

Some of my most recent favorite acts have been coming out of Baltimore, including Ponytail and Dan Deacon. Adventure(Benny Boeldt) also hails from Wham City and is one of the better 8bit musicians I’ve heard. Maybe you just needed to grow up playing Nintendo, Atari, and Sega (Hey kids, this old man remembers time before PlayStation) but I find this music really interesting. Any artist who can limit themselves it terms of sounds and still make something new and interesting ranks high in my book. As I write this Adventure just finished playing over at Todd P’s not-CMJ music thing over at Continental Army Plaza in Williamsburg, Brooklyn but unfortunately I didn’t make it over there.

Adventure – Battle Cat

Adventure – Adventure (2008) is available on Carpark Records.

So when your friends come to you and say they are starting a metal band called Flaming Tusk you think that is bad ass as hell. You tell them you think that but in the back of your mind you are really thinking two things: first that ideas you thought up while drunk/high/tripping/etc sound great at the time only because you are drunk/high/tripping/etc, and second is a sense of nostalgia of when all your friends in high school were in metal “bands” which usually was nothing more then you all sitting around in their parents basement drinking/smoking pot/tripping/etc screaming while playing your instruments very loudly and very poorly (but it sure was fun as hell, wasn’t it?)

So after months pass by without hearing a sound from these guys I was pretty pumped when they let me listen to the first cut. I really didn’t know what to expect. When they said metal I was thinking something like pop-metal, Metallica or Tool or something (which is what all the high school kids tried to play). What came out of the stereo instead made my soul bleed. This is heavy, almost industrial, metal. This ain’t no frat boy metal, this shit is the real deal. This is music that will make you want to kill your pets and someday become a serial killer.

When trying to write a review of this record I realized that all anyone needs to know about it is that the title track is about Abigail Taylor, a young girl who’s intestines were sucked out by a pool drain and died shortly after. If that isn’t metal as fuck then you don’t know what metal is and you don’t know what good music is.

Flaming Tusk – Abigail (Guts Down the Drain)

You can download the Flaming Tusk EP at http://tusk.bandcamp.mu/

I met up with a London photographer last Friday night who had done some painting with light. I’ve always wanted to try it but when you are alone at night it isn’t smart to just leave your camera while you run across the street to act like a fool for 20 seconds. It turns out this is much harder than it looks because you have to paint in 3D something you can’t even see. Thank god for my hyper sense of spacial relations.

This last one was featured on Gothamist.

More here.

Most of us in the pro-development pool think that community groups have too much power but I think that is a very one sided view. Why is it that these people think they need to get together in the first place? I think that it is because they see the city fighting against them and they feel threatened. If we could have a system where all three parties, the city, the developers, and the citizens, had equal say in development then I think we might be better off; a checks and balances system if you will.

Obviously the role of the government is to speak and fight for the citizens but as we all know this many times isn’t the case.

The BRA used to work along the top-down approach. They were the educated elite and their new plans for the city would fix all its problems. As time has proved over and over this is the wrong way to do things. We need a bottom up approach. But can a massive bureaucracy work bottom-up? I think it can and it has to if we are going to seriously start fixing the problems of the city.

I firmly believe that a city is only as strong as it’s weakest neighborhood. Sure New York has Midtown, the Upper East Side, and Park Slope, but it also has the South Bronx, Bed-Sty, and East New York. I think it is an Utopian dream to think that a city will never have slums or ghettos; I believe that they are inevitable. But what I don’t think is inevitable is that they have to be places where people are beaten down, places that are broken with broken people begetting more generations of broken people. I think that we need to see neighborhoods as not just real estate but as functioning organisms, much like the organs of a body. If you had healthy lungs but a dieing liver, sure you could breath but you would still be dieing. I think low income neighborhoods should be places where the weakest in society can go and survive, and where they can even bring themselves up and eventually move out. This was the vision of Jane Jacobs and I think that it is a noble and attainable one.

What I think the BRA needs to be is the agent that regulates the neighborhoods of Boston to make sure each is working correctly. You might think that most neighborhoods won’t need much help but just look at how much stink the Back Bay or Beacon Hill makes when a new building is proposed. The BRA needs to have representatives in every neighborhood that are on the ground and can talk to community groups, and so that community groups and citizens know who they are (perhaps they are elected?) so that people don’t have to feel so powerless. The fact that there are so many community groups in Boston should be a good thing, it should show that the people there actually care about the future of their communities, that they want them to be better places with good transportation, good schools, and safe streets. If developers had no walls against them then Boston would look like Houston.

Hipsters and the Homeless: Exploration of the underground.

A relic of the old elevated subway days, Sedgwick Ave station connected the Jerome Ave line (4 train) to the 9th Ave Elevated. This was the connection between the old Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium, the origin of the term “subway series”. The elevated were torn down over 50 years ago and very little remain. When the 9th Ave was torn down Sedgwick Ave stayed in operation as a shuttle between Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds but when the Giants packed up for the west coast there was no need (also the city had built a proper subway connecting the two stations in the 1930s).

For more information on Sedgwick Ave: Abandoned Stations : Sedgwick Ave

For the full sets of mine and reveire’s images (as well as full sized ones for your desktops):
Reveire3
Vanshnookenraggen

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