I saw your posts about Steve's Brooklyn, subways, etc. I'm originally from NYC myself, but I don't know much about the history of the subways or of particular neighborhoods. What I've always wondered is how would Steve and Bucky have gotten from Brooklyn to Flushing Meadows Park for the Stark Expo / World's Fair as they did in Cap 1. If by subways/trolleys, do you know the exact route they would've taken, and would they have considered the fare expensive? Thanks! :)
Hello there!
So, short answer is that they pretty much would’ve taken the same route out to the World’s Fair that we would today. It’s not the same subway line: a spur on an existing line was built specifically for the 1939 fair, and then demolished immediately after. It would’ve been gone by the time Bucky shipped out in June of 1943, so we’ll pretend that the Stark Expo just extended the contract with the BMT/IRT companies until his fair was over. Today we take the 7 train out to the Mets’ Stadium, and then just walk across the street to get to the World’s Fairgrounds.
So, assuming they were in downtown Brooklyn (which is likely; if Steve has so many fond memories of getting beaten up around the Navy Yard then they were probably hanging out a lot in their own neighborhood), they had a few options. They could’ve hopped on a Manhattan bound BMT train at Dekalb, or an IRT at Nevins. (Please note these are not route names; BMT and IRT were the names of the privately owned subway companies at the time, which were later bought out by the city). They would have switched trains at Times Square or Grand Central, where was a free transfer between BMT/IRT trains and the World’s Fair-Flushing line (which was operated as a joint venture between the two companies).
Below is a terribly sketched out route map, taken from the 1939 system map.
The fare was a cool $0.05 per person. If they were taking the city operated Independent subway (IND), they would’ve been charged an extra nickel when disembarking at the World’s Fairground. They probably wouldn’t have considered it expensive, given that subway fare in NYC had been legally set at a nickel since 1913, which was one of the reasons why the BMT company eventually went out of business. I assume the extra nickel for riding an IND train would’ve been super annoying, though.
It probably would’ve taken about an hour or so, to get out there? Transit time from Times Square is quoted as thirty minutes, and it’s probably about the same amount of time to get from downtown Brooklyn up to midtown Manhattan.
The trolley would’ve been totally inefficient, and required a bunch of transfers. I did find a helpful article that was published by the New York Times in 1939 (it’s behind a paywall, otherwise I’d link to it), that recommends traveling by boat! How charming!
