IRT Third Avenue Line - History

History

In 1875 the Rapid Transit Commission granted the New York Elevated Railway Company the right to construct the railway from Battery Park to the Harlem River along the Bowery and Third Avenue. The New York Elevated Railway Company at that time already operated the Ninth Avenue Elevated which it acquired in 1871 after the bankruptcy of the West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway. The Manhattan Railway Company took control of the New York Elevated Railroad in 1879. In 1886, the Suburban Rapid Transit Company commenced operations with a railway line over the Harlem River (via a double-decked swing bridge located between the Third Avenue Bridge and Willis Avenue Bridge with the upper deck carrying the express tracks, the lower one the local tracks, and a pedestrian walkway) from the Manhattan Railway's northern terminal at 129th Street to 133rd Street in the southern Bronx—known then as the "Annexed District." The Manhattan Railway assumed operations of the Suburban in 1891 as an extension of the Third Avenue Line and through service between the Bronx and Manhattan began in 1896. A 999-year lease of the Manhattan Railway was brokered by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company in 1902, for which rapid transit services in the Bronx, of which the Third Avenue Line was part of, would eventually be coordinated alongside the new subway.

As part of the Dual Contracts, this line was triple-tracked, which allowed for express service. The center track of the Bronx portion opened on January 17, 1916; in Manhattan it was opened on July 9, 1917.

In the 1930s and '40s, as part of the integration of the different subway companies in New York City—the IRT along with Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit (BMT) and Independent Subway System (IND)—the Third Avenue El and its counterparts on Second, Sixth, and Ninth Avenues came under criticism from New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia and his successors. The Els were regarded as blights on their communities and obsolete, since the subways were being built or were planned to replace them.

The IND Sixth Avenue Line and the IND Eighth Avenue Line did indeed render the Sixth and Ninth Avenue Els obsolete. Save for a small shuttle service for the Polo Grounds on the Ninth Avenue Line, they were closed by 1940 and demolished by 1941. The Second Avenue El was also gradually demolished from 1940 to 1942, leaving only the Third Avenue El, which was intended to stay in use until the Second Avenue Subway was built to replace it. Pressure against the El from real estate interests soon began, with creation in 1941 of the Third Avenue Elevated Noise Abatement Committee, which consisted of what the New York Times described as "men in the real estate business." The committee initially sought a decrease in train service, saying the noise from the El "constitutes a menace to health, comfort and peaceable home life." At the time the El was closed in Manhattan in 1955, the East Side was left with only the overcrowded IRT Lexington Avenue Line as the only subway east of Fifth Avenue, which is how the system has run to this day.

The system was closed in sections from 1950 to 1973. First, the South Ferry spur was closed in 1950, which connected South Ferry to Chatham Square in Manhattan. This forever closed the South Ferry elevated station, which had serviced all four IRT El lines that originally ran in Manhattan. Next to close was the City Hall spur in 1953, which started at Park Row in Manhattan and then connected with the South Ferry spur at Chatham Square.

On May 12, 1955 the main portion of the line closed from Chatham Square to East 149th Street in the Bronx, ending the operation of elevated service in Manhattan. The removal was a catalyst in a wave of new construction adding property values on the East Side, and the head of the Real Estate Board of New York suggested that Third Avenue be renamed "The Bouwerie" to symbolize the transformation.

In the 1960s, the remaining service was named the 8. Finally, the remaining portion of the line in the Bronx from East 149th Street to Gun Hill Road closed in April 1973.

In the Bronx, the line was replaced by the Bx55 Limited bus route making only the stops the former line made. This bus route was one of the first to have free transfers with the subway with the transfer points at the 3rd Avenue – 149th Street and Gun Hill Road White Plains Road IRT stations, and was one of three and the B42 were the others). With the introduction of free bus to subway transfers systemwide, the Bx55 (and B35) lost the special status; the B42 only kept its status because it uses a former trolley right-of-way that terminates within subway fare control.