The New York subway: its construction and equipment

345 Pages·1991·11.37 MB·English

by  Brian J. Cudahy

The New York Subway : Its Construction
title:
and Equipment
author: Cudahy, Brian J.
publisher: Fordham University Press
isbn10 | asin: 0823213196
print isbn13: 9780823213191
ebook isbn13: 9780585165578
language: English
subject Subways--New York (State)--New York.
publication date: 1991
lcc: TF847.N4I5 1991eb
ddc: 625.42097471
subject: Subways--New York (State)--New York.
Page i
The New York Subway
March 14, 1903. Considerable construction work on the first New York subway was
finished and it was time to start laying track. This photograph was taken after Mayor Seth
Low (right) drove home a silver spike to get the task underway. The tall gentleman to the
mayor's right is William Barclay Parsons, whose engineering talent was responsible for
the subway's design. To Parson's right is William Wilcox, who will soon become chairman
of the state Public Service Commission and make considerable contributions to later city
subway construction efforts; on the far left is John B. McDonald, the principal contractor
for building the 1904 subway.
Page iii
The New York Subway its Construction and
Equipment
Interborough Rapid Transit 1904
With an Introduction by BRIAN J. CUDAHY
FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW YORK
Page iv
¨ Copyright 1991 by Fordham University
All rights reserved.
LC 90-85874
ISBN 0-8232-1319-6
5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
The New York subway: its construction and equipment/Interborough Rapid
Transit; with an introduction by Brian Cudahy. New York: Fordham
University Press, c1991.
150 p.: ill.; 29 cm.
Originally published: Interborough Rapid Transit.
ISBN 0-8232-1319-6
1. SubwaysNew York (N.Y.) I. Cudahy, Brian J. II. Interborough Rapid
Transit Company, New York. III. Title: Interborough Rapid Transit.
TF847.N5 16 1991
625.42 N 90-85874
Page v
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
B J. C
RIAN UDAHY
Facsimile of the 1904 edition 5
Table of Contents 9

This is the way IRT motormen looked when they plied their trade from that first day of service in 1904
until the Transit Authority replaced the line's original equipment in the mid-1950s.
The motorman has his left hand on the controller that feeds electric current to the motors;
his right hand is on the brake valve.
Page 1
INTRODUCTION
By Brian J. Cudahy
Because the subways of New York play such a central role in the city's
daily life, discussion about them today tends to be dominated by
matters of immediate concern: finance, needed improvements, public
safety, proposed fare increases; the adequacy of the system's daily
performance. Vital as such contemporary issues surely are, though, it
is also important that proper attention be paid, from time to time, to
the cultural and historical heritage that the New York subways
represent.
That is why the publication of this bookor, more precisely, its re-
publicationis such a welcome event. Because while this is a book
about New York subways and nothing else, it is not a topical treatment
of any current concern. This book is a technically detailed and
historically accurate account of the New York subway, but it was
written and originally published in the year 1904 when the city's very
first subway line was brand new and not so much as a single
passenger had yet paid a fare and taken a ride on an urban railway that
today carries over a billion patrons each year.
Building the city's first subway in the early years of the twentieth
century required delicate collaboration between public and private
interests, and called for the expenditure of considerable sums of both
public and private money. To make this happen, fundamental changes
were required both in the law and in public policy, and this book
begins with a discussion of these changes. It introduces us to the
individual most responsible for their initiation, Abram S. Hewitt.
Hewitt, a reformer and a visionary, was a late-nineteenth-century
mayor of New York City. It was Hewitt who realized that, while