New York City Subway System Breaks Ground
Rapid transit system helped people easily commute through the city
© Jim Rada
May 31, 2009
“With a silver spade and in the presence of thousands of persons Mayor Van Wyck today lifted from an opening in city hall square a few pounds of earth, which formally began the work on the underground rapid transit system,” reported the North Adams Transcript on March 24, 1900.
Groundbreaking for the subway
The groundbreaking ceremony began with a procession at 1 p.m., Mayor Robert Anderson Van Wyck led a procession to the City Hall square. The square was filled with government officials, construction officials and spectators. Following the customary speeches, Van Wyck removed the first shovel full of dirt. It was deposited in a container that was preserved for the occasion.
As excited as people were about the new transit, the public works project also meant thousands of jobs.
History of the NYC Subway
Alfred Ely built the first underground subway in New York in 1869. However, it ran for 312 feet under Broadway. Though plans had been made to extend it, it turned out to serve as more of an example of what could be.
The same year, New York’s first elevated line was opened. Heavy snowstorms over the intervening years kept showing the value of Ely’s underground subway.
The rapid transit system started in March of 1900 was the beginning of New York City’s current subway system. It opened on October 27, 1904.
Construction methods for the subway
When the subway was originally built, it was done by digging a trench, constructing the tunnel and then filling in the trench and rebuilding and streets that had been torn up in the process. Sections where the ground was harder (Harlem) needed a boring machine to create the tunnel hole, which was then filled with cast-iron sections of extremely large pipe.
The underground sections of the subway were connected with elevated lines to extend the routes without as much work as was required to build the tunnels.
Who runs the subway?
Though the city government was involved with the original subway system, it was actually run by two private companies. The city began owning and operating its lines in 1932. The city government bought the privately owned lines in 1940. The systems were then slowly integrated.
The city ran the subway under the New York City Transit Authority from 1953 until 1968 when it became a part of the Metropolitan Transit Authority.
NYC subway system today
In 2007, riders used the subway nearly 1.6 billion times, including an average of 5 million times each weekday. Only Tokyo, Japan; Moscow, Russia and Seoul , South Korea has subway systems with a greater ridership.
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