I got to be a guest for WNYC’s feature yesterday on abandoned and never-built subway stations. It was a lot of fun, and you can check out the story here. The reporter, Jim O'Grady, expounds some more on the never-built ideas for provisions here.
The ideas for subway expansions that never came to be could fill a book. In getting that down to a short article, some nuance and perspective can get left out. From my viewpoint as a subway enthusiast (or foamer, if you prefer), working on this story was an interesting challenge, and resulted in some very comprehensive conversations with the reporter. I learned a lot about just how differently enthusiasts and laypeople view the system.
WNYC also has a good interactive map (this seems to work better in Chrome) showing some (not all) of these proposed extensions. Another good, mostly accurate, Google Map put together by Ego Trip Express is here.
There was no single “master plan” for a subway extension that never happened. Instead, there were several different proposals, ranging from comprehensive systems to single lines; and from designed, engineered, and partially built, to no more than an idea on paper. It’s tough to just overlay these on the system as it exists today to show a "what-if" system, because if some of these imaginary provisions had been built, the rest of the system as it exists today would be different.
For instance: WNYC's map shows an extension of the F line across 76th street into Queens, in addition to its current route across 63rd street. If the 76th street line had been built, the current F line across 63rd street, which serves the same purpose, just 13 blocks south, would almost certainly never have been built – the 76th street line should be looked at as a replacement, not an addition. The provision we visited for the story, under the Nevins street IRT, was built for a possible IRT extension under Lafayette Avenue. If this was built as planned in the 1900s, how would that have affected the Crosstown IND (G-train) which was built under Lafayette Avenue decades later? These are only a couple examples of how, even today, the New York City subway system has to be looked at as process, not a snapshot, and as a continual evolution over time.
Foamers will notice other minor errors and arguable claims, most notably about the train underneath the Waldorf. All I can say is that if you're the press, and you get one story from the governing agency's official press liaison, and a differing one from an amateur enthusiast, you will 100 times out of 100 report the former.
For a few great resources on the subway system, check out nycsubway.org, Joe Brennan's abandoned stations site, Joe's Subway Korner and, of course, our friends at subchat.
As for visiting these yourself: I certainly understand the appeal, and am about the last person in any position to tell anyone not to do what they want to do. But I will mention that, by the MTA’s own count, there have been at least 150 cases of worker deaths in the subway system since 1946. Those are the professionals. This is not a hobby that should be approached with any degree of casualness.
This was originally posted three years ago, but I've had a couple of requests for it again. I haven't been to Dyker Heights yet this season, but the houses that have the huge displays stay pretty consistent year-to-year. As such, I imagine this map is still pretty accurate. I'll update it if I notice anything different next time I'm there.
You don't have to go to Dyker Heights to see crazy Christmas displays – pretty much any neighborhood with the magic combination of detached houses and Italians will do the trick. Houses at Westervelt and Pelham Parkway in the Bronx, Beach 144th and Neponsit in the Rockaways, East 93rd street and Flatlands in Canarsie, and 81st street at Colonial in Bay Ridge all easily rival the big displays of Dyker Heights.
But Dyker Heights has quantity along with quality. I've included a handy-dandy map of the highlights below. The map is for the heart of the area - surrounded by 15th Avenue, 86th street, the Gowanus Expressway, and 79th street - but you'll find lights well beyond these borders.
Now, keep in mind that pretty much every block in this area has at least one house that would take the cake on whatever street you live on. With that being said, red blocks are streets that are especially worth a stroll down, while blue blocks are can't-miss. Green points mark exceptional displays, and bathrooms (Nathan's and Bklyn Pizza) are indicated by the familiar symbol. The area's about equidistant from the R at 77th street or 86th street on the west, or the D at 79th street or 18th Avenue on the east.
View Larger Map
As you walk around, the displays start to seem a bit repetitive. You notice the same sparkling reindeers, inflated ferris wheels, and Christmas Countdown clocks. For the really big boys (and some of the smaller guys) I'm pretty sure the lights remain a labor of love, but for others the yard signs proclaiming designs by B&R Decorators and V&J Lighting show that the Dyker Heights lights are mostly about the social pressure of keeping up with the customs of the neighborhood.
No, no pictures – go see them for yourself. If you can't take the schlep, check out Gothamist or Flickr.
Tracts Walked: B140, B144, B146, B148, B150 (every street in tract), B186, B184, B170
I'm really excited to be part of a seriously great panel put together by Nate Kensinger this Sunday with Kevin Walsh of Forgotten-NY, Nick Carr of ScoutingNY, and Cindy VandenBosch of Urban OysterTours. The topic is "Block by Block: New York Street Historians."
I probably should mention I don't consider myself a historian - street or otherwise - but I think all-in-all there'll be some pretty good discussions about seeing interesting stuff around town.
The panel is at Union Docs - 322 Union Street in Williamsburg. Panel begins at 7:30. $9 suggested donation, of which I get zero dollars.
There are many neighborhoods in New York where I'm reminded of my Grandparents - huge swaths of Southern Brooklyn, half of Queens Boulevard, a few scattered blocks of the east Bronx even. There should be. My grandparents are part of one of largest, and most culturally influential groups ever to hit New York - part of the great wave of immigrants and their children from the shtetels of Eastern Europe. Even today, almost 100 years after it ended, that culture has remained. The people who make it up may not be so numerous anymore, but it still has a while before it fades completely from the neighborhoods it once dominated
There are fewer neighborhoods where I'm reminded of my parents - middle-class liberal boomer Jews. You'd think that would be a big demographic in New York, one which has left a sizable imprint on the city as a whole. And it has - but it's an imprint that's not really rooted in specific geography, one where the residents have transmitted a character that's stuck to the streets. Most neighborhoods where you would think it might be encountered have either remained with that feeling of my grandparents' world, or been transformed into a kind of generic yuppiness. One of the few places (small parts of Flatbush being the only others that comes to mind right away) I've found it has been in Riverdale.
I never thought I'd like Riverdale - because the combination of its name, middle-class residents and relative suburbaness, it was always put out there in the public consciousness as kind of a souless and uninteresting contrast to the rest of the Bronx - a simplistic and inaccurate narrative for both sides of the divide, but one which I fell for.
It turns out I do like Riverdale, very much. Part of it is because it reminds me of a world I know and love, part of it is because it's one of those neighborhoods that feels like it retained its same basic character for the last 30 years as the city has changed dramatically around it -one of the few neighborhoods in New York where you don't feel like you're just seeing a snapshot of a state of flux. But most of it is because walking around it is interesting. It's one of the only neighborhoods where you can turn a corner and not really know what's next: a cliff, a high rise, a mansion, the Hudson River. Greater Riverdale - essentially the Bronx west of Broadway - looks small on a map but feels vast when you walk it. The topography is a big component of this - the area houses both the highest and lowest points in the Bronx. The lack of any real street grid is another part. But it's the variety of use that really does it. There are streets that would be at home in Scarsdale, and others that would fit right into Washington Heights. There are parks of the woodland variety and ballfield variety, two colleges in its borders, sleek highways and horribly maintained winding asphalt. The Bronx itself is like this - it's the borough that's most patchwork, where you're most likely to find a wood-frame house, 1970s concrete tower, pre-war art deco building, and recent Fedder-crap condo all inhabiting the same block.
But throughout all this physical diversity, a certain character to the neighborhood remains. A character where I'd be not the least but surprised to turn the corner and see my mother or father walking the dog or shlepping home a bag of groceries.
Neighborhods: Riverdale, Fieldston, Spuyten Duyvil
Tracts Walked: Bx285, Bx287, Bx289, Bx293, Bx295, Bx297, Bx301, Bx307, Bx317, Bx319, Bx323, Bx329, Bx333, Bx339, Bx341, Bx343, Bx345, Bx351
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