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Thursday, May 24, 2012

Manhattan's Post Office Streetcar Line

Source: B. Linder, New York Division Bulletin, Vol. 45, No. 1, January 2002, pp. 2-4.

  Where Park Row meets Broadway in Manhattan today is an extention of City Hall Park.  Previously on the spot, was a 19th Century Post Office in front of which various streetcars terminated.  One such line was called the Post Office Line that ran from a loop at Broadway, through the lower east side and across the Williamsburg Bride to Bridge Plaza in Brooklyn.  It was not battery operated but used conduits and what is interesting is that it used the North Side of the bridge because those tracks had conduits.  For BRT-BMT Brooklyn streetcars, power was supplied by overhead trolley on the south side of the bridge that lead directly to the underground Delancey Street Trolley Termininal.   Thus Bridge Plaza in Brooklyn had overhead and conduit trolley tracks for the various companies.   Some interesting points are:
  1. Line started on June 6, 1908 by the owner, Third Avenue Railroad Company but cars were operated by its subsidiary, Dry Dock, East Broadway & Battery Railroad Company.
  2. Dry Dock wanted to increase the fare around June 1928 but the case went to court.  See material compiled by Lawrence F. Hughes in the reference cited above.  The Transit Commission disapporoved the tariff request.
  3. The line was discontinued on January 21, 1932.

5 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    Replies
    1. Hi threestationsquare:

      I erased your comments by mistake. Send them again. Your maps look great. What software did you use to post the Manhattan Streetcar lines?

      My best: Tramway Null(0)

      Delete
  2. Based on information from your blog and a few other sources, I used Google's "my maps" feature to create maps of streetcar routes in Manhattan (including those routes that continued into other boroughs).
    1932: http://goo.gl/maps/M01n
    1942: http://goo.gl/maps/7AVF

    You might also be interested in this http://goo.gl/maps/YlcL map of the Brooklyn trolleybus system, though as it was based on the wire map at http://images.nycsubway.org/maps/trlybusm.jpg it may contain some segments never used in revenue service.

    ReplyDelete
  3. All streetcars in the city as of mid-1945, with abandonment dates: http://goo.gl/maps/qwdLU

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dear Threestationsquare:

      Your maps are awesome! I like your work very much. Sorry that I could not get to your research question. I saw a ERA Headlights edition of some years back showing the Brooklyn Ferry station and trackwork but I cannot find it. In it will have the answer to your question when service to that station ended. My best, Tramway Null(0)

      Delete