Of Horsecars, Extinct New York Streets: The East Belt Line

Source: "East Belt Line" by B.Linder in "The Bulletin", New York Division, Electric Railroaders' Association, Vol. 46, No. 11, November, 2003, pp. 2-5.


  The information provided by Bernard Linder (op. cit.) tells us about a very long horse car line whose running time in 1888 was two hours and 16 minutes.  The exact starting date is not known but it was known that in 1869,   the line ran from South Ferry to East 59th Street and Fifth Avenue and was called the East Belt Line.  It was extended several times including west to West 54th Street and Tenth Avenue and in 1898 to East 125th Street and First Avenue.  In 1913, partial battery car operation was from East 59th Street to Grand Street.  On July 1913, the last horse car ran and the line was fully battery car operated.  In 1914, the line was divided into two parts; South Ferry to Grand and Goerck Street and Grand and Goerck Streets to East 59th Street and First Avenue.  In 1917 the line was again through routed and on June 3, 1919, after a cutback, the line was discontinued.  The line was one of the first to go in Manhattan and was never conduit operated.  Parts of the line ran in commercial districts where trucks  were used.  These heavy trucks damaged the tracks and the Third Avenue Railway could not afford to renew or upgrade the tracks to conduit operation.  Also the heavy trucking operation on many of  the streets caused running time to be slow and thus was not attractive to passengers.

  Goerck Street:  Where did I hear it before?  My father mentioned Goerck Street that existed in the lower east side, along with other strange streets such as Attorney Street.   According to the article above, the following streets on the attached map are no longer "on the map":  Cannon Street, Goerck Street, Corlears Street, Front Street, Oliver Street, James Slip and Burling Street.  Many of the old time lower east side streets were destroyed when urban renewal replaced these streets with new parks,  housing developments and highways.  Goerck Street kind of sounds nice.

 

 

Manhattan 1880 Typographic Map Georeferenced on Modern Subway Map ( Well, Almost)

Using ARCGIS, I took a 1880 historic typographic map of Manhattan, available at the map center at the University of Texas at Austin, and georeferenced it onto my available shapefile maps of the subway system and subway stops and current street names.  I also included open space data as well.  I could not georeference perfectly and my maps are off by about a block.  This may be due to using a 1880 map or because may reference projects were not consistent or due to other errors. At any rate, the map shows that much of the lower East Side was formerly a marsh area prior to 1880?  My mistake may have been that I used the southern boundry of City Hall Park in 1880 which may not have been the same as it is now. The map is still interesting to look at.

In the map below, I focused on the Harlem area.  I brought in the shoreline and I made it red.  Notice that the area around the 148th Street - Lenox Terminal was marshland and the river bank was in a different location according to the 1880 map.

Another map of lower Manhattan.  Notice that in 1880, at least shown on the map, that the shoreline was more inland than today.  It is hard to tell if this 1880 map is showing the typology of 1880 or what was before.  Notice the marsh land near Fulton Street.

In the map below of Harlem, see the yellow pencil line that I added that is near East 107th Street.  Is this a stream that followed East 107th Street and emptied into the East River?  Notice that it crosses 110th Street and runs further north diagonally.  Is this a stream or a depression?

In the map below, which I got off the web, is an ancient British invasion map of Manhattan Island.  I circled that mysterious water flow in Harlem near East 107th Street in Green.  Is this an accurate deduction?

Typographic Map Showing Transit Lines, Streets and Ice Cap Melt Scenario for Lower East Side and Williamsburg Brooklyn

In this map, I used a typographic shape file to show streets and other interesting details and included the 2080 Polar Ice Cap Map Scenario file.  This map shows parts of the Lower East Side and Williamsburg Brooklyn.

Manhattan's Avenue C Streetcar Line

Source: Linder, Bernard, " Avenue C Line - 1919 ", In  New York Division Bulletin, Electric Railroaders' Association, Vol. 31, Number 8, August, 1988, pp.4-5.

According to the material supplied by B. Linder, horse cars started running on this line in 1870.  There were many route changes to this line throughout the years, but it basically went from the Desbrosses Street Ferry on the Hudson River at West Street to First Avenue and 24th Street where there may have been a ferry to Long Island City.  In 1916, battery cars replaced horse cars and by September 21, 1919, the line was replaced by buses.  So we can see that this line was never equipped with conduit trackage.

Downflow direction, density for Lower East Side Manhattan

In the attached map I used GRASS 6.4.1. to build a hydrology map showing downstream flow from rain showing direction, density and flow using the street elevation file as a basis.  I cannot give an answer why the area around 14th Street on the Lower East Side has such a high density of flow since this area is relatively flat but of low elevation.  This is just an experiment and not a professional assessment.

Elevation of Roadway on Selected Bridges New York City

  Since many of my photo postings involve the Brooklyn or Manhattan Bridges, please find attached a map showing the elevations of the roadways connected with these bridges.  The color coding was constructed to show red as the highest elevation and this appears to be, of course, the middle of the bridge. In some places, the map will show the elevation in feet in numerials.  The green line on the southern shore line of Manhattan is the FDR Drive.  Map constructed using ARCGIS and City of New York elevation file of buildings and structures.

F Train the New Silicon Subway?

Hi Folks:  Please see the attached article. The F train in Brooklyn covers part of the original Culver Line route.  Who would think that part of the Culver Line would become fashionable?  Map drawn by myself to show New York City neighborhoods connected by the F train in Brooklyn and Manhattan.  Shapefile is not of the latest routing.  Tramway Null(0)

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20120729/REAL_ESTATE/307299984

Delancey Street Trolley Terminal - Part II

These great shots, taken by Docjayva were taken from the Manhattan Bridge facing south towards the Brooklyn Bridge and shows the New World Trade Center under construction and at Delancey Street at Orchard Street.  Even though the big picture shows the Brooklyn Bridge and not the Williamsburg Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge is still relevant to our discussion.  When the Williamsburg Bridge opened between Manhattan and Brooklyn in 1903, transit planners at this time wanted to build a loop transit line connecting all three lower Manhattan bridges, namely the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges.  It was not clear if the Manhattan portion of this loop would be elevated or subway and local politics delayed the decision.  Eventually, the Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges were linked by way of the Centre Street subway. Regarding the Brooklyn Bridge, plans were made to link the elevated train trackage to the Chambers Street station under the Municipal Building as well.  A concrete pathway was contructed south of the Chambers Street Station to link up to the Brooklyn Bridge but this construction was destroyed when the Nassau Street Loop subway was under construction.
     When constructed, the Williamsburg Bridge consisted of two separate vehicular roadways on the north and south sides of bridge and between the roadways were two sets of separate trolley tracks (four in all) that were separated by a two track elevated line. The northerly set of trolley tracks were used by Manhattan  streetcars using conduit trackage.  These cars ran from several starting points in Manhattan, such as the Post Office Line at Park Row and ended at the Brooklyn plaza of the bridge.  The southerly tracks were used by several Brooklyn trolley lines using overhead.  Since the Essex Street station did not open until 1908, for five years Brooklyn trolleys ended at a stub just east of Clinton Street on the bridge near the entrance.  According to Rogoff (1958), there was a double crossover and a single track connection to Manhattan trolleys on Delancey Street.
   Regarding elevated trains,   Brooklyn Rapid Transit elevated trains  running on Broadway (Brooklyn) did not use the bridge until 1908 when the Essex Street station opened.  Prior to this, elevated trains used a terminal at the foot of the East River which was the location of a East River ferry.  When the Essex Street station opened in 1908,  it was a stub terminal with two tracks with a center platform and two side platforms.  If you visit the station today, it looks a little out of alignment because it presently has three tracks with a center platform and one side platform for southbound trains coming off the bridge.  According to Rogoff, this station was built in 1908  with wide roof columns for future simple reconfiguration in case the line expanded, which it did.  Along the "elevated" train terminal at Essex Street is the huge trolley terminal for Brooklyn trolleys which I described in earlier post.  This terminal also opened in 1908?  and closed in 1950. The trolley terminal trackage was never connected to the subway\elevated trackage.  Currently, there are plans to convert this former trolley terminal into a underground park space.  In my humble opinion, since the "L" train is overcrowded and many districts in eastern Brooklyn have experienced recent population increases, a study should be made to see if trolleys going over the Williamsburg Bridge from different communities that have poor rapid transit coverage to the Delancey Street trolley terminal would be a help.
Tramway Null(0)

Delancey Street Trolley Terminal Brooklyn Streetcar Track Assignments

Source:  Rogoff, David, "Fifty Years Ago in the Electric Railway Journal - BRT Williamsburg Bridge Terminal", New York Division Bulletin, Electric Railroaders Assn., Vol. 1, No. 2, June, 1958, p. 3-4

Delancey and Essex Street on the surface as of June 11, 2012.  Photo by docjayva.

In the June 1958 edition of the Bulletin, one of the first issues published, there was an interesting article published by David Rogoff which itself was a review of a Electric Railway Journal article that appeared fifty years earlier, in 1908, describing the rapid transit facilities, both elevated line and streetcar at the Manhattan end of the Wiliamsburg Bridge.  While the bridge openned in 1903, as built, the rapid transit and trolley facilities were not ready at the Manhattan end.  In a future post, I hope to discuss this.   It appears in the article that the trolley terminal alongside the Essex Street subway station did not open until 1908.  For now, I just would like to add information from the article regarding the huge underground trolley terminal for Brookyn trolleys that crossed the bridge.  The trolley terminal had 8 loops plus a 2-car stub for disabled trolleys and a bumper.  The loops were numbered from 1 to 8 from west to east.  Although the Essex Street elevated/subway station was a few feet away from the trolley tracks, there was no track connection.

The original track plan was as follows:

1. #1 Nostrand Avenue and Belt Lines
2. #2 Reid Avenue
3. #3 Hamburg Avenue (renamed WILSON AVENUE during World War I).
4. #4 Ralph Avenue
5. #5 Bushwick Avenue
6. #6 Thompkins Avenue
7. #7 Bridge Local
8. #8 Grand Street & Franklin Avenue

More information regarding both the subway and trolley terminal to follow in the future.

Tramway Null(0)\

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.

Unusual Manhattan Streetcar Line - The Avenue B Line

Source:  B. Linder, "Avenue B Line", New York Division Bulletin, Vol. 44, No. 11, November 2001,  pages 2 -3.

I came across this interesting map about an obscure streetcar line in Manhattan called the "Avenue B Line".  According to what is in the fine article and map written by Bernard Linder, I found these interesting points dealing with electrified and non electrified street trackage that our readers may find interesting.

• The original franchise was dated April 17, 1860 but due to complications, horse cars have been running on a similar route since 1869.
• On October 1, 1911 battery cars replaced horse cars.
• From 1913 to 1924 there were many extentions and cut backs to the route.
• Buses replaced street cars on July 30, 1932 and on the next day, the Avenue B & E Broadway Transit Corporation took over.  I remember the smaller fishbowl GM private buses running on this route.
• On March 29, 1980, the Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority  took over this route ( part of the New York City Transit Authority).
• On September 13, 1987 the route was extended to W. Thames Street and South End Avenue near Battery Park City near the former World Trade Center.
• On the map, notice that non electrified track is indicated by a bolder black line.  This indicates that sections of the map where used by both traditional conduit - plow street cars and battery cars.  According to the article, Battery Cars 1152 to 1201 were built by Brill and were assigned to the Dry Dock Lines, of which, the Avenue B Line was a part in 1911.
• The Avenue B Line was always two-man operated cars and this implies that the othe battery operated lines were one man operated cars at some point.  On the Avenue B Line which shared trackage with conduit operated cars, a special procedure had to be followed.  At junctions, a special spring operated switch had to be set.  The default position was  for the operation of conduit cars.  If a battery car needed to switch unto non conduit trackage, the conductor had to leave the car and hold a lever as the battery car passed over the switch.  When the car passed the switch, he released the lever and the switch was reset for conduit cars.  If the procedure was not followed and the switch was not reset, a conduit operated streetcar would enter trackage where there was no conduit and the plow would have been sheared off causing a big interruption in service.
• The line had five owners between 1860 and 1932, the first was the Dry Dock, East Broadway & Battery Rail Road Company which I heard has an interesting history.