In 1974 a very brave Daily News reporter took a marathon ride across the NYC subway system -- and wrote about the entire journey.
Reprinted here for the first time anywhere, go back in time and take the trip of a lifetime around a very different NYC.
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AROUND THE TOWN IN 26 HOURS AND 36 MINUTES
New York Sunday News March 31, 1974
The Lefferts Blvd. Station at four in the morning could be the loneliest place in New York. Or maybe just the coldest. Wind blows across the elevated tracks. I look out the train – suspended here – waiting for the return runs to Manhattan. Outside the night is dark except for some metal lamps on the deserted platform. Bare light bulbs form little circles of heat in the cold air. I am absolutely alone. Reflected in the train windows are its baby-blue walls splashed magenta and orange with graffiti. Beyond them I can see the black tops of trees, the low buildings of Queens stretching west toward Brooklyn. Far off, a yellow glow indicates Manhattan. Shivering, I cross to the open door and step out onto the platform. It is very still. A quarter moon hangs over Ozone Park, where all sensible people are asleep.
It might be warmer below near the token booth. Perhaps there is even a candy machine. But if the train should suddenly pull away…? No, I decide. Even if there is a machine, it won’t be working. There are some 6,600 vending machines in the New York Subway System. I know of four that work. The Interborough News Co. owes me eighty-five cents. Dear Sirs … I begin composing a letter in my head – then stop. If I give the locations of all the stations where I lost coins yesterday, they’ll think I’m mad. Some of those stations are 50 miles apart!
It seems to me that I have been here an eternity. I look at my watch: 20 minutes. This wait could ruin my chance at the world record. It stands at 21 hours and 8 minutes.
The first subway riding record – traveling the entire system of routes for a single fare – was set October 27, 1904: IRT Opening Day. The subway, an historic 9.1 miles, extended from City Hall to Grand Central, turning west across 42nd Street to Times Square, and then up Broadway to 145th St. After an official opening trip by city dignitaries – with Mayor McClellan holding a silver controller – followed by several hours of invitational rides, the subway was opened to the public at 7 p.m. 111,881 passengers paid a nickel each to ride that day. Scheduled time for an express was 26 minutes; the local took 46. Although those early riders were conscious of making history, it is doubtful that they had any thoughts of setting track records. It was just too simple.
The new subway generated appendages almost yearly. It reached Brooklyn via tunnel in 1908. The success of the IRT encouraged more construction. The Brooklyn Rapid Transit (after 1923, the BMT) began operations in August 1913, and the city-operated IND was opened Sept. 10, 1932. Under the dual contracts by which the city had financed construction of the privately operated IRT and BMT, it had also retained the right to purchase them. In 1940 both were acquired for $326,248,000. The three lines were unified under city control on June 12 of that year.
Two days before unification, Herman Rinke, a curious and still indefatigable electric railroad enthusiast, decided to tour the existing system for a single five-cent fare. He had no thought of setting a record. With unification, the IRT-operated 9th Ave. El was scheduled for demolition. His trip was a 25-hour sentimental gesture. It turned out to be the first recorded try. Since that day, 66 people have ridden the entire system in 24 recorded trips. These records are kept in an unofficial file at the TA Public Relations Dept. No one knows how may kids have done it just for fun. The 1961 subway map cited the example of a Flushing youth who had ridden all the routes in 25 hours and 36 minutes for a single token. The TA’s aim may have been to point out the scope or convenience of the subway, but that record – set Jan. 25, 1957, by Jerome Moses, 16 – instead seemed to invite competition. During the 1960s, subway derbies became a fad with urban students; 11 of them were completed during the peak years of 1966 and 1967. On April Fools Day of 1966, the M.I.T. Rapid Transit Club began a highly publicized ride. They had used a computer to route their attempt and informed the newspapers. On April 2, they were feeling foolish by 1 hour and 1 minute. And Geoffrey Arnold, who had held the 24 hour, 56 minute record since 1963 when he was 17, remarked “Pacific St. was a ridiculous place to start.” That June, nine boy scouts from Troop 290 in Queens further shamed the computer by logging 23 hours and 18 minutes. And on Aug. 3, 1967, 16-year-old James Law, with six buddies, rode from 168th St., Jamaica to Pelham Bay Park in 22 hours 11½ minutes; a time cited in the current Guinness Book of World Records.
When the Bronx Third Ave. El was closed in August 1973, subway route mileage was diminished 5.5 miles. On Oct. 8, Mayer Wiesen, 35, and Charles Emerson set a “modern record,” riding over 230.8 route miles, changing trains many times, and passing through the 462 operating stations, in 21 hours and 8 minutes. A record which looks as if it will stand unless I get out of the Lefferts Blvd. Station.
At 8 yesterday morning, I am just starting out, entering the 168th St. terminus of the Jamaica spur, an old elevated line taken over and extended by the BMT. The 1893 span between Alabama Ave. and Cypress Hills may be the oldest el track still in continuous use. The train I board is one of the oldest also: rolling stock built in the mid- 1930s. Sixty-watt bulbs light the cars. Hanging down from the ceiling are fans with black blades. I make my way to the front car, intending to ride looking out the window next to the motorman’s cab, but a handsome black kid, about 13, has got there first. He stands, hands in his pockets, nose to the glass, alert, ready to “drive the train.” At 8:03 we head toward Manhattan – looking down long streets of old houses, over expressways clogged with morning traffic, rattling past Cypress Hills Cemetery where miles of tombstones cast small, neat shadows in the early light. At Broadway-Myrtle, I change to the M train, yoyo-ing up and back to cover the Myrtle Line – past houses whose third-story windows, with pulled blinds, are often no more than six feet from the train.
9:15. Manhattan comes into view from the Williamsburg Bridge. The huge building blocks that pile its shore jut powerfully at the sky. Below, the East River is gray. It is a postcard approach. The train “zooms-in” like a 1940s movie – so familiar that I almost expect to see titles flash across. No matter. The Manhattan skyline still makes me gasp.
10:00. I am changing trains in Brooklyn when I see the kid from the Jamaica el again. We grin in recognition. “Hey,” I shout, “Are you doing the system too?” As the train doors shut, I see him nod. He swings off to Coney Island, while I race up in search of the Astoria train. On the DeKalb overpass I spot a snack bar and buy a Coke for breakfast. Aside from some coins in my jeans, a notebook and map, I have decided not to carry anything – sort of an urban Camp Fire Girl.
11:12 – En route to Flushing on a blue World’s Fair train. To my left Shea Stadium passes; while off to the right lies Flushing Meadow. The ribbed Unisphere and skeletal towers of the ’64 Fair rear up out of the flat landscape – fossilized like dinosaurs.
12:05. Returning to Manhattan, I change at Jackson Heights for the newer IND. On the underpass is a Nedicks – coffee and a hot dog – breakfast is shaping up. I am wiping mustard off my fingers when I reach the underground Roosevelt Ave. platform. On May 2, 1970, this was the site of the first subway fatality due to collision or derailment, in 42 years; two GG trains collided during evening rush hour, killing two passengers and injuring 71.
1:55. The F train to Coney Island is one of the new, longer R-44 models: pristine and elegant, with seats of muted orange and yellow. Panels of fake wood are set into its walls and fluorescent lights line the ceiling. Just before the doors close, a chime sounds – rather like the Avon doorbell. The advertising cards, color transparencies lit from behind, glow. These are the poshest cars to travel the subways since No. 3344, “The Mineola,” rolled through in 1904. No. 3344 was the private coach of financier and IRT organizer August Belmont. His car had real wood, mahogany, with velvet-draped picture windows so that guests could enjoy the flashing signals while white-coated stewards broiled steaks in the galley and served iced champagne. Above them, Empire ceilings arched, pale green and gilt; the washroom windows were stained glass. If one cares to make a comparison, the Mineola can be found in the Branford Trolley Museum at East Haven, Connecticut.
I am about to succumb to the quiet style of these long, air-conditioned cars, when I notice that the doors between them are kept locked. Existing subway tunnels were built for 60-foot cars, more the size, if not the décor, of the Mineola. These new, 75-foot units do not mesh properly on curves; the space between cars becomes dangerous. Motormen, conductors, and presumably transit police, have keys, but New Yorkers are naturally leery. Many feel that being trapped in one car could become a risky situation.
The IND Coney Island line becomes elevated for a brief span entering Brooklyn; the highest point in the system, 87.5 feet above street level, is at the Smith and Ninth St. Station. Here the view is open in all directions: back toward postcard Manhattan, out into the harbor. Little automobiles crawl over the arched expressway ahead; below, the Gowanus Canal and Red Hook. Too soon, we are underground.
At Church St. the line ramps upward again, joining the 1919 BMT el track at Ditmas Ave., where it emerges and begins the long approach to the ocean. Coney Island, cold and closed, decorates our passage. Orange and green spokes of the Wonder Wheel circle blue sky; flags and bits of banner blow. A deserted but honky tonk air prevails. We pass the roller coaster, webbed and delicate in the afternoon light. The air is bracing.
2:54. The Brighton Line heads back to Manhattan, for a while paralleling the sea. Short views down streets end in ocean. The pastel acres of Brighton Beach Baths stretch, patterned, toward the sand. We stop at Sheepshead Bay before heading northwest, traveling over the old ground level tracks of the 1890s Brighton Railroad, widened in 1907 to cut through the tree-hung backyards of Victorian mansions facing Buckingham Road.
3:15. At the Prospect Park Station hundreds of high school kids mill, going home. Cops range the platform and one accompanies us onto the Franklin Shuttle. The kids are wonderfully natty; boys and girls stride aboard wearing platform shoes that defy balance, pants with big bells, hats, lots of jewelry, elaborate hair-dos. While I am aware that teenagers in groups are responsible for a fair amount of subway crime, I cannot imagine this stylish group doing anything to muss their clothes. Subway history is full of accounts of rampage and vandalism. Two days after the 1904 opening, eight youths armed with buckshot blowers boarded the new subway at 145th St. and proceeded to shoot out the electric lights while doing gymnastic stunts on the straps. Two were arrested at 96th St., the rest escaped. But this was not the first subway crime. That occurred opening night. During the crowded ride north from Brooklyn Bridge Station, someone lifted the $500 diamond stickpin that had been holding down the tie of Harry Barret of W. 46th St. When he reached Grand Central, his necktie was flapping.
3:50. The return shuttle is almost empty. As it approaches Prospect Park again, we pass near Empire Blvd. In November of 1918 it was still called Malbone St. The name was changed after the Brighton Beach Special, jammed with evening rush hour passengers, failed to make a curve at the tunnel there. Five wooden cars, taken over from the old Brooklyn Union Railroad, were dashed to bits, and passengers thrown rapidly along the tunnel walls, literally had their faces rubbed away. Ninety-seven lost their lives, 150 were injured, and for days the accident drove World War I right off the front pages, When motorman Edward A. Luciano gave himself up, he was found to have had only two hours of instruction before being given the controller at Park Row in Manhattan. Earlier that morning – before motormen walked out in a dispute over unionization – Luciano had been a yard switchman. His promotion was sudden – this was his first run. He was acquitted, and the union made its point.
5:02. I am picking up a few stray miles under Rockefeller Center when evening rush hour begins. While I know the total 3.8 million daily subway riders cannot all be taking the D train tonight – it feels as if they are. Jammed shoulder to shoulder, passengers have nowhere to look but up. Above our heads, “Miss Subways” stares out of her poster, giving us a strained smile, “hoping to do some modeling.” Since 1941, when the contest began, over 200 New York working girls have become “Miss Subways.” In the early years, a new face showed up every month. Currently, two winners, out of six finalists, are chosen every eight months by passenger vote. Miss Subways receives a $40.00 charm bracelet dangling silver tokens, and her picture decorates the 6,700 subway cards for a three-month period. I ride standing all the way to 205th St., Bronx. Sheer endurance does not win a girl the title.
6:10. At 168th St. and Broadway, I change trains again, and descend into the IRT on a hot automated elevator to ride the Seventh Ave. local to Van Cortlandt Park. The ride is through the deepest section of track in the whole system: 180 feet below street level at the 191st St. and St. Nicholas Ave. station.
7:00. Moving under Harlem on the No. 3, a rather splashy train with big graffiti – mustard yellow and pink predominate. Despite $10 million spent to remove graffiti and 1,562 arrests in 1972, the TA is losing the “spray can war.” I read off the names: Supreme King 219, Snake II, Lopez 138, and amuse myself trying to think up my own subway logo – in case graffiti should become legal. Outside the stations pass, dingy, written all over. Two Black Muslims move in and out of the strap-hangers selling Mohammed Speaks. On this line, I am a “token white” – the pun lifts my spirits.
8:02. TA police range the E. 180th St., Bronx platform where the No. 2 pauses. One boards, walkie-talkie mumbling at his waist. He will be riding until 4 a.m. Since May of 1965, a uniformed transit patrolman has been assigned to every train during these hours.
10:30. I stand in the first car, face pressed against the glass, speeding through a dark, underground world, the lighted coach behind me forgotten, as the black tunnel comes on. Tracks in perspective lines rush, disappearing under my feet, crossing, converging ahead. Signal lights change: yellow – “proceed with reduced speed,” green over yellow – “on diverging track.” Express lines mount, as local tracks sink in the dark. In the distance, tiny orange lights flicker above the tracks, then disappear where track-men carrying lanterns dive into the sidings. Now the square, metal-pillared cut rounds into a tube; we approach the old, 1908, Battery-Joralemon tunnel. Green lights signal us through. I make myself useful peering intently at the dark curved walls, checking for leaks.
1:12. The Wilson Ave. station on the Canarsie line is a narrow, double-decked curiosity: one track occupies each level – the eastbound track emerges, briefly elevated, traveling above the underground westbound span. We pass the deserted platform in half light. It faces – a single track away – the Cemetery of the Evergreens. No one in his right mind would get off at Wilson Ave. at 1:12 in the morning. No one did.
2:30. The A train heads out over the waters of Jamaica Bay, leaving behind the huge glow of JFK that arc-lights the eastern sky. I have made the Rockaway Round Robin on schedule and can relax. Only between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m. is it possible to cover the entire Rockaway peninsula on a single train. This 19th century summer beach resort was linked to the L.I.R.R. until 1956, when service was transferred to the IND. The train moves further out across the vast, dark bay. Only feet below on either side, water laps the narrow trestle. Far out, a crescent of lights veers gently inward on the long railroad stem. Beyond that brilliant curve, the ocean pounds. For miles around the night is black and cold, the water deep. A strange place for a New York subway train.
4:00. And farewell to Lefferts Blvd.
5:30. Waits are long now. The work trains move slowly underground through nearly empty stations, picking up trash and cleaning out tunnels. The New York bars have closed, and some standees on the Hoyt St. platform bear witness to this fact. A heavy black woman joins me; she walks as if her feet hurt, and I suspect she has just got off work. The trains always take a while at this hour, she tells me. We stand together on the platform, unacknowledged sisters, re-enforcing each other. In 1907, the Hudson Tubes were still running Women Only Cars with guards aboard to insure protection. I guess we have come a long way.
At 6:26 the sun rises over Greenwood Cemetery where I am passing, for the second time, over an elderly bit of track known as the Culver Shuttle; 1.1 miles still bear tribute to Andrew Culver, who built a steam railroad to Coney Island that passed over this site in the 1880s.
7:00 – Coney Island for the second time in two days! Crossing the Stillwell Terminal overpass, I go by the employees cafeteria and smell breakfast. On the Sea Beach Line, morning rush hour is just beginning. This is the third rush hour I have ridden through without leaving the subway. The poignancy of that situation might be enough to make one who has dined off Zagnut bars, peanuts, and Lucy Ellen orange slices for two days, get a cramp. I try not to think of hot coffee.
8:10. Changing trains at Union Square I am especially careful, warned by history. The first subway passenger accident occurred here Opening Day, 1904. A Miss Sadie Lawson, 26, of Jersey City, who had been riding north and south for several hours, fell getting off the southbound train and broke her hip. I grab a metal strap and hang on tightly all the way to 42nd St.
8:25. Times Square. The 42nd St. shuttle contains 2,700 feet of original 1904 IRT track, now isolated. In 1928, the second worst accident in New York subway history happened just south of here on the Seventh Ave. line. A defective switch broke as the ninth car of a 10-car theater rush-hour train was passing over it. The rear wheels switched to a diverging track and the ninth car, running suddenly at right angles to the others, was sheared in two by the steel pillars between tracks. This mechanical “crack the whip” killed 18 passengers and injured 100.
9:30. The Lexington Ave. Express emerges into bright sunlight just before the old Yankee Stadium. Once, under a glaring blue sky, its lacy wood trim gleamed white like decorative icing – a great hollow cake with a short right field. Now, under the ungentle touch of the renovators, the place is growing unrecognizable. At the Woodlawn terminus, the leaves have lost their Fall colors, but on the golf course below, lucky men tee off across rolling fairways. It is a splendid day for riding elevated trains.
10:39. Pelham Bay Park. I have made the trip – on 67 different trains – in only 26 hours and 36 minutes. 26 hours and 36 minutes! The thought that I may be the first woman to complete the ride does not console me at all. But the sun is shining. And I have my logo: Ms. Subways 114.
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You can read this essay and other great ones just like it in How the Camp Fire Girls Won World War II by Rebecca Morris.
Also, read more 1970s subways coverage from the Village Voice here.
Reprinted here for the first time anywhere, go back in time and take the trip of a lifetime around a very different NYC.
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AROUND THE TOWN IN 26 HOURS AND 36 MINUTES
New York Sunday News March 31, 1974
The Lefferts Blvd. Station at four in the morning could be the loneliest place in New York. Or maybe just the coldest. Wind blows across the elevated tracks. I look out the train – suspended here – waiting for the return runs to Manhattan. Outside the night is dark except for some metal lamps on the deserted platform. Bare light bulbs form little circles of heat in the cold air. I am absolutely alone. Reflected in the train windows are its baby-blue walls splashed magenta and orange with graffiti. Beyond them I can see the black tops of trees, the low buildings of Queens stretching west toward Brooklyn. Far off, a yellow glow indicates Manhattan. Shivering, I cross to the open door and step out onto the platform. It is very still. A quarter moon hangs over Ozone Park, where all sensible people are asleep.
It might be warmer below near the token booth. Perhaps there is even a candy machine. But if the train should suddenly pull away…? No, I decide. Even if there is a machine, it won’t be working. There are some 6,600 vending machines in the New York Subway System. I know of four that work. The Interborough News Co. owes me eighty-five cents. Dear Sirs … I begin composing a letter in my head – then stop. If I give the locations of all the stations where I lost coins yesterday, they’ll think I’m mad. Some of those stations are 50 miles apart!
It seems to me that I have been here an eternity. I look at my watch: 20 minutes. This wait could ruin my chance at the world record. It stands at 21 hours and 8 minutes.
The first subway riding record – traveling the entire system of routes for a single fare – was set October 27, 1904: IRT Opening Day. The subway, an historic 9.1 miles, extended from City Hall to Grand Central, turning west across 42nd Street to Times Square, and then up Broadway to 145th St. After an official opening trip by city dignitaries – with Mayor McClellan holding a silver controller – followed by several hours of invitational rides, the subway was opened to the public at 7 p.m. 111,881 passengers paid a nickel each to ride that day. Scheduled time for an express was 26 minutes; the local took 46. Although those early riders were conscious of making history, it is doubtful that they had any thoughts of setting track records. It was just too simple.
The new subway generated appendages almost yearly. It reached Brooklyn via tunnel in 1908. The success of the IRT encouraged more construction. The Brooklyn Rapid Transit (after 1923, the BMT) began operations in August 1913, and the city-operated IND was opened Sept. 10, 1932. Under the dual contracts by which the city had financed construction of the privately operated IRT and BMT, it had also retained the right to purchase them. In 1940 both were acquired for $326,248,000. The three lines were unified under city control on June 12 of that year.
Two days before unification, Herman Rinke, a curious and still indefatigable electric railroad enthusiast, decided to tour the existing system for a single five-cent fare. He had no thought of setting a record. With unification, the IRT-operated 9th Ave. El was scheduled for demolition. His trip was a 25-hour sentimental gesture. It turned out to be the first recorded try. Since that day, 66 people have ridden the entire system in 24 recorded trips. These records are kept in an unofficial file at the TA Public Relations Dept. No one knows how may kids have done it just for fun. The 1961 subway map cited the example of a Flushing youth who had ridden all the routes in 25 hours and 36 minutes for a single token. The TA’s aim may have been to point out the scope or convenience of the subway, but that record – set Jan. 25, 1957, by Jerome Moses, 16 – instead seemed to invite competition. During the 1960s, subway derbies became a fad with urban students; 11 of them were completed during the peak years of 1966 and 1967. On April Fools Day of 1966, the M.I.T. Rapid Transit Club began a highly publicized ride. They had used a computer to route their attempt and informed the newspapers. On April 2, they were feeling foolish by 1 hour and 1 minute. And Geoffrey Arnold, who had held the 24 hour, 56 minute record since 1963 when he was 17, remarked “Pacific St. was a ridiculous place to start.” That June, nine boy scouts from Troop 290 in Queens further shamed the computer by logging 23 hours and 18 minutes. And on Aug. 3, 1967, 16-year-old James Law, with six buddies, rode from 168th St., Jamaica to Pelham Bay Park in 22 hours 11½ minutes; a time cited in the current Guinness Book of World Records.
When the Bronx Third Ave. El was closed in August 1973, subway route mileage was diminished 5.5 miles. On Oct. 8, Mayer Wiesen, 35, and Charles Emerson set a “modern record,” riding over 230.8 route miles, changing trains many times, and passing through the 462 operating stations, in 21 hours and 8 minutes. A record which looks as if it will stand unless I get out of the Lefferts Blvd. Station.
At 8 yesterday morning, I am just starting out, entering the 168th St. terminus of the Jamaica spur, an old elevated line taken over and extended by the BMT. The 1893 span between Alabama Ave. and Cypress Hills may be the oldest el track still in continuous use. The train I board is one of the oldest also: rolling stock built in the mid- 1930s. Sixty-watt bulbs light the cars. Hanging down from the ceiling are fans with black blades. I make my way to the front car, intending to ride looking out the window next to the motorman’s cab, but a handsome black kid, about 13, has got there first. He stands, hands in his pockets, nose to the glass, alert, ready to “drive the train.” At 8:03 we head toward Manhattan – looking down long streets of old houses, over expressways clogged with morning traffic, rattling past Cypress Hills Cemetery where miles of tombstones cast small, neat shadows in the early light. At Broadway-Myrtle, I change to the M train, yoyo-ing up and back to cover the Myrtle Line – past houses whose third-story windows, with pulled blinds, are often no more than six feet from the train.
9:15. Manhattan comes into view from the Williamsburg Bridge. The huge building blocks that pile its shore jut powerfully at the sky. Below, the East River is gray. It is a postcard approach. The train “zooms-in” like a 1940s movie – so familiar that I almost expect to see titles flash across. No matter. The Manhattan skyline still makes me gasp.
10:00. I am changing trains in Brooklyn when I see the kid from the Jamaica el again. We grin in recognition. “Hey,” I shout, “Are you doing the system too?” As the train doors shut, I see him nod. He swings off to Coney Island, while I race up in search of the Astoria train. On the DeKalb overpass I spot a snack bar and buy a Coke for breakfast. Aside from some coins in my jeans, a notebook and map, I have decided not to carry anything – sort of an urban Camp Fire Girl.
11:12 – En route to Flushing on a blue World’s Fair train. To my left Shea Stadium passes; while off to the right lies Flushing Meadow. The ribbed Unisphere and skeletal towers of the ’64 Fair rear up out of the flat landscape – fossilized like dinosaurs.
12:05. Returning to Manhattan, I change at Jackson Heights for the newer IND. On the underpass is a Nedicks – coffee and a hot dog – breakfast is shaping up. I am wiping mustard off my fingers when I reach the underground Roosevelt Ave. platform. On May 2, 1970, this was the site of the first subway fatality due to collision or derailment, in 42 years; two GG trains collided during evening rush hour, killing two passengers and injuring 71.
1:55. The F train to Coney Island is one of the new, longer R-44 models: pristine and elegant, with seats of muted orange and yellow. Panels of fake wood are set into its walls and fluorescent lights line the ceiling. Just before the doors close, a chime sounds – rather like the Avon doorbell. The advertising cards, color transparencies lit from behind, glow. These are the poshest cars to travel the subways since No. 3344, “The Mineola,” rolled through in 1904. No. 3344 was the private coach of financier and IRT organizer August Belmont. His car had real wood, mahogany, with velvet-draped picture windows so that guests could enjoy the flashing signals while white-coated stewards broiled steaks in the galley and served iced champagne. Above them, Empire ceilings arched, pale green and gilt; the washroom windows were stained glass. If one cares to make a comparison, the Mineola can be found in the Branford Trolley Museum at East Haven, Connecticut.
I am about to succumb to the quiet style of these long, air-conditioned cars, when I notice that the doors between them are kept locked. Existing subway tunnels were built for 60-foot cars, more the size, if not the décor, of the Mineola. These new, 75-foot units do not mesh properly on curves; the space between cars becomes dangerous. Motormen, conductors, and presumably transit police, have keys, but New Yorkers are naturally leery. Many feel that being trapped in one car could become a risky situation.
The IND Coney Island line becomes elevated for a brief span entering Brooklyn; the highest point in the system, 87.5 feet above street level, is at the Smith and Ninth St. Station. Here the view is open in all directions: back toward postcard Manhattan, out into the harbor. Little automobiles crawl over the arched expressway ahead; below, the Gowanus Canal and Red Hook. Too soon, we are underground.
At Church St. the line ramps upward again, joining the 1919 BMT el track at Ditmas Ave., where it emerges and begins the long approach to the ocean. Coney Island, cold and closed, decorates our passage. Orange and green spokes of the Wonder Wheel circle blue sky; flags and bits of banner blow. A deserted but honky tonk air prevails. We pass the roller coaster, webbed and delicate in the afternoon light. The air is bracing.
2:54. The Brighton Line heads back to Manhattan, for a while paralleling the sea. Short views down streets end in ocean. The pastel acres of Brighton Beach Baths stretch, patterned, toward the sand. We stop at Sheepshead Bay before heading northwest, traveling over the old ground level tracks of the 1890s Brighton Railroad, widened in 1907 to cut through the tree-hung backyards of Victorian mansions facing Buckingham Road.
3:15. At the Prospect Park Station hundreds of high school kids mill, going home. Cops range the platform and one accompanies us onto the Franklin Shuttle. The kids are wonderfully natty; boys and girls stride aboard wearing platform shoes that defy balance, pants with big bells, hats, lots of jewelry, elaborate hair-dos. While I am aware that teenagers in groups are responsible for a fair amount of subway crime, I cannot imagine this stylish group doing anything to muss their clothes. Subway history is full of accounts of rampage and vandalism. Two days after the 1904 opening, eight youths armed with buckshot blowers boarded the new subway at 145th St. and proceeded to shoot out the electric lights while doing gymnastic stunts on the straps. Two were arrested at 96th St., the rest escaped. But this was not the first subway crime. That occurred opening night. During the crowded ride north from Brooklyn Bridge Station, someone lifted the $500 diamond stickpin that had been holding down the tie of Harry Barret of W. 46th St. When he reached Grand Central, his necktie was flapping.
3:50. The return shuttle is almost empty. As it approaches Prospect Park again, we pass near Empire Blvd. In November of 1918 it was still called Malbone St. The name was changed after the Brighton Beach Special, jammed with evening rush hour passengers, failed to make a curve at the tunnel there. Five wooden cars, taken over from the old Brooklyn Union Railroad, were dashed to bits, and passengers thrown rapidly along the tunnel walls, literally had their faces rubbed away. Ninety-seven lost their lives, 150 were injured, and for days the accident drove World War I right off the front pages, When motorman Edward A. Luciano gave himself up, he was found to have had only two hours of instruction before being given the controller at Park Row in Manhattan. Earlier that morning – before motormen walked out in a dispute over unionization – Luciano had been a yard switchman. His promotion was sudden – this was his first run. He was acquitted, and the union made its point.
5:02. I am picking up a few stray miles under Rockefeller Center when evening rush hour begins. While I know the total 3.8 million daily subway riders cannot all be taking the D train tonight – it feels as if they are. Jammed shoulder to shoulder, passengers have nowhere to look but up. Above our heads, “Miss Subways” stares out of her poster, giving us a strained smile, “hoping to do some modeling.” Since 1941, when the contest began, over 200 New York working girls have become “Miss Subways.” In the early years, a new face showed up every month. Currently, two winners, out of six finalists, are chosen every eight months by passenger vote. Miss Subways receives a $40.00 charm bracelet dangling silver tokens, and her picture decorates the 6,700 subway cards for a three-month period. I ride standing all the way to 205th St., Bronx. Sheer endurance does not win a girl the title.
6:10. At 168th St. and Broadway, I change trains again, and descend into the IRT on a hot automated elevator to ride the Seventh Ave. local to Van Cortlandt Park. The ride is through the deepest section of track in the whole system: 180 feet below street level at the 191st St. and St. Nicholas Ave. station.
7:00. Moving under Harlem on the No. 3, a rather splashy train with big graffiti – mustard yellow and pink predominate. Despite $10 million spent to remove graffiti and 1,562 arrests in 1972, the TA is losing the “spray can war.” I read off the names: Supreme King 219, Snake II, Lopez 138, and amuse myself trying to think up my own subway logo – in case graffiti should become legal. Outside the stations pass, dingy, written all over. Two Black Muslims move in and out of the strap-hangers selling Mohammed Speaks. On this line, I am a “token white” – the pun lifts my spirits.
8:02. TA police range the E. 180th St., Bronx platform where the No. 2 pauses. One boards, walkie-talkie mumbling at his waist. He will be riding until 4 a.m. Since May of 1965, a uniformed transit patrolman has been assigned to every train during these hours.
10:30. I stand in the first car, face pressed against the glass, speeding through a dark, underground world, the lighted coach behind me forgotten, as the black tunnel comes on. Tracks in perspective lines rush, disappearing under my feet, crossing, converging ahead. Signal lights change: yellow – “proceed with reduced speed,” green over yellow – “on diverging track.” Express lines mount, as local tracks sink in the dark. In the distance, tiny orange lights flicker above the tracks, then disappear where track-men carrying lanterns dive into the sidings. Now the square, metal-pillared cut rounds into a tube; we approach the old, 1908, Battery-Joralemon tunnel. Green lights signal us through. I make myself useful peering intently at the dark curved walls, checking for leaks.
1:12. The Wilson Ave. station on the Canarsie line is a narrow, double-decked curiosity: one track occupies each level – the eastbound track emerges, briefly elevated, traveling above the underground westbound span. We pass the deserted platform in half light. It faces – a single track away – the Cemetery of the Evergreens. No one in his right mind would get off at Wilson Ave. at 1:12 in the morning. No one did.
2:30. The A train heads out over the waters of Jamaica Bay, leaving behind the huge glow of JFK that arc-lights the eastern sky. I have made the Rockaway Round Robin on schedule and can relax. Only between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m. is it possible to cover the entire Rockaway peninsula on a single train. This 19th century summer beach resort was linked to the L.I.R.R. until 1956, when service was transferred to the IND. The train moves further out across the vast, dark bay. Only feet below on either side, water laps the narrow trestle. Far out, a crescent of lights veers gently inward on the long railroad stem. Beyond that brilliant curve, the ocean pounds. For miles around the night is black and cold, the water deep. A strange place for a New York subway train.
4:00. And farewell to Lefferts Blvd.
5:30. Waits are long now. The work trains move slowly underground through nearly empty stations, picking up trash and cleaning out tunnels. The New York bars have closed, and some standees on the Hoyt St. platform bear witness to this fact. A heavy black woman joins me; she walks as if her feet hurt, and I suspect she has just got off work. The trains always take a while at this hour, she tells me. We stand together on the platform, unacknowledged sisters, re-enforcing each other. In 1907, the Hudson Tubes were still running Women Only Cars with guards aboard to insure protection. I guess we have come a long way.
At 6:26 the sun rises over Greenwood Cemetery where I am passing, for the second time, over an elderly bit of track known as the Culver Shuttle; 1.1 miles still bear tribute to Andrew Culver, who built a steam railroad to Coney Island that passed over this site in the 1880s.
7:00 – Coney Island for the second time in two days! Crossing the Stillwell Terminal overpass, I go by the employees cafeteria and smell breakfast. On the Sea Beach Line, morning rush hour is just beginning. This is the third rush hour I have ridden through without leaving the subway. The poignancy of that situation might be enough to make one who has dined off Zagnut bars, peanuts, and Lucy Ellen orange slices for two days, get a cramp. I try not to think of hot coffee.
8:10. Changing trains at Union Square I am especially careful, warned by history. The first subway passenger accident occurred here Opening Day, 1904. A Miss Sadie Lawson, 26, of Jersey City, who had been riding north and south for several hours, fell getting off the southbound train and broke her hip. I grab a metal strap and hang on tightly all the way to 42nd St.
8:25. Times Square. The 42nd St. shuttle contains 2,700 feet of original 1904 IRT track, now isolated. In 1928, the second worst accident in New York subway history happened just south of here on the Seventh Ave. line. A defective switch broke as the ninth car of a 10-car theater rush-hour train was passing over it. The rear wheels switched to a diverging track and the ninth car, running suddenly at right angles to the others, was sheared in two by the steel pillars between tracks. This mechanical “crack the whip” killed 18 passengers and injured 100.
9:30. The Lexington Ave. Express emerges into bright sunlight just before the old Yankee Stadium. Once, under a glaring blue sky, its lacy wood trim gleamed white like decorative icing – a great hollow cake with a short right field. Now, under the ungentle touch of the renovators, the place is growing unrecognizable. At the Woodlawn terminus, the leaves have lost their Fall colors, but on the golf course below, lucky men tee off across rolling fairways. It is a splendid day for riding elevated trains.
10:39. Pelham Bay Park. I have made the trip – on 67 different trains – in only 26 hours and 36 minutes. 26 hours and 36 minutes! The thought that I may be the first woman to complete the ride does not console me at all. But the sun is shining. And I have my logo: Ms. Subways 114.
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You can read this essay and other great ones just like it in How the Camp Fire Girls Won World War II by Rebecca Morris.
Also, read more 1970s subways coverage from the Village Voice here.
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