Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

THE NEW YORK SUBWAY. Fig. 1.—VIEW OF THE MAIN FOUR-TRACK PORTION OF THE NEW YORK SUBWAY. A MUNICIPALITY’S RAPID TRANSIT ENTERPRISE. BY A NEW YORK ENGINEER. AMONG the works that have built up 2LX our twentieth-century world a place of respect must be accorded to the Rapid Transit Subway of New York City. High-capacity rapid transit is vital to the modern metropolis. Means must be provided for transporting the masses—not the föw —from far-distant dwelling- Why it was j10use cjty every morning constructed. 1 . and evening. That is, we re- quire cheap rapid transit of wide radial reach, and capable of handling large volumes of traffic. Up to the present the New York Subway remains the leading exemplar of achievement in this branch of enterprise. Added interest lies in the fact that it is a municipal undertaking. The city built it. Quick growth brought the need for more and better transit facilities ; private initiative would not provide it, and the organized public had to help itself by its own wealth and skill. What the Subway is, and how it was built, will therefore be recorded here in brief form. The imposing size and complexity of the work naturally debar us from treating of detail. The cost figures are significant. No less than $50,000,000 went into fixed construction ; and in addition almost half as much was spent for cars, power-house, engines, dynamos, sig- nals, etc. As the system covers 23 J miles, the expenditure averages over three million dol- lars per mile of road. When, in the middle ’nineties, the engineer- ing forces of the Rapid Transit Commission, acting on behalf of the city, took hold of the problem of providing an under- ground rapid transit line, they had little choosing to do before locating the proper route. The long, narrow shape of Manhattan Island (see map, Fig. 2) meant that traffic movement must be parallel to its length, north and south. The railway was to be close to the surface—that is, a shallow