Donald Hiscock | Articles | Conde Nast Traveller

New York Subway

Mayor Seth Low drove the first, ceremonial spike into the rails of New York City's first subway line. But it was his successor in office, George McLellan, who presided over the start of the underground railway's operation, a hundred years ago this month. The first line, connecting Lower Manhattan with 145th St in Harlem, opened on 27 October, 1904. The inaugural train left City Hall station with Mayor McLellan at the controls, a fact which caused comment in the New York Times the following day: it reported that most of the first train's occupants were astonished to discover that their lives had been placed in the hands of a rookie driver. After the dignitaries had finished their joyrides the ordinary New York public was admitted, charged a nickel for riding the nine miles of track.

According to the subway's advertising copy, Harlem could be reached in 15 minutes from downtown. But achieving this miracle in a heavily congested city took much time and effort. Some 12,000 men were involved in cutting a 55ft-wide trench and then filling in the structure of the 15ft-wide tunnel, a task which took more than four years and cost $35 million.

Demand for travel underground on trains driven by quiet and clean electric power led to subway extensions into the Bronx and Brooklyn - and, in 1915, beneath the East River. Today the subway system has grown to cover 722 miles, with 26 lines and 468 stations. Four-and-a-half-million people depend on it each business day to get to and from work.

City Hall station, the subway's point of departure, was built as the architectural showpiece of the railway, with a cathedral-like brick interior and ornate chandeliers. But it functioned for only a few years before being superseded by nearby Brooklyn Bridge Station, a more obvious transport hub. To passengers who stay on a number 6 local train as it loops from the southbound to the northbound route, City Hall still flickers by as a ghost station. But although that was the showpiece, other stations on the original line were at least given individual decorative details. Today's subway riders can still spot an oriental-rug design in the platform tiling at 72nd St, eagle motifs at Union Square and beavers at Astor Place.

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New York Subway

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