Subway Story on WNYC

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.