A Brief History of Transit in New York City
In the late 19th century, many enterprising entrepreneurs had their eyes on a lucrative sector - public transit. Many of the nation’s railway companies were undergoing restructuring, new technologies meant that infrastructure was in need of updating, and cities like NYC were willing to pay.
One such entrepreneur was engineer William Barclay Parsons. He and his team were tasked with creating the designs for the city’s first subway system when the Rapid Transit Act was passed. In 1900, after two years of legal negotiations surrounding route alignment, their plans were finalized and a contract signed. Heins & LaFarge Architectural Firm was hired to design 28 subway stations and one multimodal hub, featuring two shining crown jewels at either end - City Hall Station to the south and Highbridge Park to the North.
Ground was first broken at City Hall on March 24th, 1900, in a ceremony officiated by Mayor Robert Van Wyck. They repeated the ceremony for its sister station at Highbridge Park and 170th St. exactly one year later. There were plans to build a grand new bridge across the Hudson River just a few blocks north, which would finally connect mainland railroads to the island of Manhattan. At the time, all passengers had to transfer to ferryboats to get to their destinations.
Highbridge Park was by far the more extravagant of the two. No expense had been spared in its design. Like its sister station at City Hall, it featured glass ceilings, mosaic tilework, and brilliant Romanesque arches. Unlike its sister, it was intended as the ultimate multimodal transit hub for all incoming visitors, and so possessed ample space to connect the country’s railways to the city’s brand new subway system, as well as terminals for the above-ground trolley system and connections to the new bike routes that were being built. It also possessed far greater luxuries than its sister. It was fully integrated into the city’s sewage system, which was nearing the end of its 50-year-long city-wide installation. There was a fine dining establishment on sight, a mezzanine level with shops selling every good a traveler could want, and even a women’s restroom with flush toilets and mahogany seats! Throughout the century prior, it had been widely considered indecent for women to relieve themselves in public, but that particular public attitude was rapidly changing as shopping became a more prominent leisure activity for affluent ladies. This feature would prove to be extremely popular in years to come.
Remarkably, construction only took four years, and nearly stayed within its original budget (for anyone that follows these sorts of megaprojects today you know how rare that is). The first subway train in New York City departed from the City Hall Station at 2:34 pm on October 27th, 1904. The line carried 152,000 passengers on its first day, most of whom rode the entire length of the line, then disembarked at Highbridge to explore the amenities and take a walk along the scenic Harlem River Drive. By all accounts, it was a major success.
The subway system saw increases in ridership year after year. By 1910 the demand was so high that most stations needed to be extended to accommodate 10-car trains. Unfortunately, this was the beginning of the end for City Hall Loop. It was built on such a tight curve that the 10-car trains could not use it as a stop, and it was such a unique shape and location that it could not be extended without completely rebuilding it. As a result, many lines were forced to bypass the station, favoring the Brooklyn Bridge station a mere 600 feet away. In spite of this, the station managed to hold on for several decades. Its use was very limited in that time, and in the end it was closed as much as it was open. Its final day of service was December 31st, 1945. In the 60s it was considered as a possible location for the New York Transit Museum, but the abandoned Court Street station won out. Nowadays you can catch glimpses of it if you ride the 6 past its final stop, and once in a while NYTM members can go on official tours.
The fate of the Highbridge station was not quite so slow a tragedy. In 1905, a mere 5 months after opening and before the bridge had more than the first two piers in the water, a sinkhole opened under the dining room and main lobby, compromising the integrity of the entire building. Luckily there were warning signs and everyone was able to evacuate with minimal injury. Several teams of engineers and contractors were hired to assess the situation, but all of them came back with the same answer - it might technically be possible to fill in the sinkhole and repair the damage, but it would be extremely expensive, time consuming, and the weight of the structure was such that more settling and more sinkholes were possible, especially once steam trains were introduced. The entire project went down in history as a prime example of why geologists should always be consulted during the planning of any large structure. They halted construction on the bridge and shifted their focus to a new location. Railroad magnate and business expert Cornelius Vanderbilt had been acquiring and merging railroads all over New York for a few decades now, and had built himself a railyard and depot in midtown Manhattan. It was in the midst of reconstruction after a devastating steam train crash in 1902, so it was the perfect place to redirect resources and build a new station. They updated the name from Grand Central Depot to Grand Central Station, constructed the North River Tunnels to connect trains from the mainland, and the rest is history. It opened for business in 1913 and is still open to this day, with only routine maintenance having been done on the building in the intervening century.
The piers later became part of the George Washington Bridge, abandoning the train tracks in favor of six additional lanes for automobile traffic on the lower level. The Highbridge station, intended to be the shining crown jewel of NYC’s state-of-the-art transit system, was condemned, abandoned, and forgotten.