76 Street Station Mystery - Location of Subway Air Vents

A reader was interested in the location of subway air vents at Pikin Avenue and Eldert Lane which is about four blocks west of our mystery 76th Street station.  I looked at an recent aerial picture at the area and from my visual location (I did not go in person and the image does not show the south side of the street), I could not find any air vents between Eldert Lane and the 76th and 77th Street areas on Pitkin Avenue.  In the image above, I red circled what I believe is the furthest east air vents for the existing subway.  The fact that the 76th Street station area does not have air vents does not necessarily mean that the station does not exist.    I am not an engineer but it would be interesting to find out the effects of a non ventilated cut and cover subway section on iron and other materials after over sixty years.

Closer View of Street Construction on Pitkin Avenue, 1951

Is the construction on Pitkin Avenue between Elderts Lane and Forbell Street related to the 76 Street Station mystery? Lighter street surface circled by thin red line.

Can Pixels Solve the Area 51 Mystery at 76 Street?

In my previous posts, I presented in somewhat limited form, the 76 Street and Pitkin Avenue mystery.  Trackmaps show the presence of a four track subway station under that location.  At street level, there are no man hole covers or ventilation gratings hinting that a subway station lies below.  There are not too many people left who remember and are available to reveal eye witness reports regarding the construction.  Some of the signal boards show the 76 Street station, some do not.  The image above which comes from the internet, shows what appears to be 76 Street station.  Presently, in the New York City subway system, there is no 76 Street Station.  The picture appears to be not true, because in 1948, supposedly the date in which the station openned for a short time, the shown R-10 class subway cars did not have this white and blue strip paint scheme.  The transit authority has been quiet regarding this and will not allow anyone to go beyond the bulkhead and take a picture.  Can pixels solve the mystery?

   In my previous posts, I took a 1951 aerial photograph in bitmap format and added it to my ARCGIS ESRI map.  Since I do not have all advanced functions, such as spatial analyst, I could not rubbersheet the image to the correct x and y coordinates.  I tried my best.  The aerial photograph shows that at a few blocks to the left of the station, on Pitkin Avenue, the surface of the street appeals lighter.  Is this due to new asphalt or boards covering a construction pit?  At any rate, the area at 76 Street and Pitkin appears normal and the building footprint (not shown) appears normal.  If I had a better copy of ARCGIS, I would convert the bitmap file to raster and do a raster analysis.

My questions to the public are:

Are there any free programs on the internet that allow for bitmap to raster conversion and can analyze raster files?

Do you think in general that raster analysis can help here?  I am new at this and I would like some opinions from the public.

Respectfully,

Tramway Null(0)

New York City Transit Authority's "Area 51" - Not in Roswell but the 76 Street Station

This track diagram which comes from the New York Division Bulletin of July 2001   (Page 16) was drawn by David Rogoff and found in an article in the New York Divsion Bulletin written by Bernand Linder.  This track diagram is not of that of street railway but was drawn to show the trackage for the extension of the IND subway in Brooklyn.  Much has been written on this topic and the long and short of it is that the diagram shows a four track station in the right hand side of the diagram with two tiled platforms.  It seems that the unused station is blocked by a bulkhead and that no one can, or has permission to observe the station, if any.  Perhaps the station extends just a few feet behind the bulkhead?  My purpose here is not to find out if the station exists, but to see if any of the mapping techniques can reveal something.  Remember I do not have the deLuxe edition of ARCGIS and I cannot do a thorough analysis and I am not an expert on this matter.    It is ironic that the above trackage, shown on the left hand side of the diagram exists and is well used and was built almost at the same time of the Roswell incident in New Mexico.

To Be Continued...   Tramway Null(0)