Spring at my Freshman year in High School, 1945, age 13. Two friends, Mark Steele and Leonard Rodwin joined me in a day of exploring the New York City subway and elevated system. I took an uptown Broadway 7th Avenue local from Broadway and 86th Street to 96th Street (one stop at 91st, as station dis-used for many years, when the 96th Street station platforms were extended south and new entrances built at 94th Street). The oldest “High-V” IRT steel subway cars, including the original “Gibbs cars” were used in this serivce. At 96th, Leonard and Mark joined me. We road the 7th Avenue Express (all stops above 96th) to E. 177th, West Farms Square, where we waited for the following train, a Lexington Avenue train to 241 St. White Plains Rd. (Av.). We always rode at the front of the train, looking out the front window in the train door next to the motorman’s cab. These were tthe usual “Low-V” cars, similar to those preserved as the A-Div. Nostalgia Train. We rode to the end of the line, but at E. 180th we noticed the two-car gate-car train on the old NYW&B tracks, the new service to Dyar Avenue, and decided we would some day soon return to ride that line. At 241st we boarded a southbound 3rd Avenue elevated train, but were told it was a pull-in, that it would only take us only to Fordham Road, where it would reverse to storage on the center track. It was an “MUDC”, multiple-unit-door-control. wood car converted from a gate car train. (These provided about 90% of the 3rd Av.Elevated’s service at the time.) At Fordham Road we boarded a South Ferry local, similar equipment, we were too late for express service, and it was close to noon. We noted the elevated shop complex off to the right at 3rd and 99th Street. At Canal Street we were told that for some reason there was no service on the City Hall branch. so we took the next So
Dave, it sounds like it was a great day all around. But what really amazes me is that three 13 year olds could ride all over the system without anyone bothering them or having their parents worried about their safety.
Truly a different time. But then, I’ve heard stories similar to this from Mom and others who remember New York City around the late Thirties and into the Forties.
Wayne
I started riding the subways and elevateds by myself at age 8. Dad had his main medical office on W. 29th Street (not far from where the Hudson River RR had its NY teminral, but I didn’t know that at the time). and Mom, one of the two first women registered pharmasists in the USA, was the nurse (and book-keeper, etc.), and after school, I would sometimes have to use tje subway to go downtown to meet them for dinner and eiither return with them or return by myself. I regularly used the M10 bus to and from 86th and CPW to and from 94th and CPW to and from Collumbia Grammar School, then later its Preparatory School. Age 10 began traveling by myself between NY and Charlottesville and/or Richmond, VA and between them.
Yep, another time, another city, another country for that matter.
What a lucky kid you were!
Thank you Dave!
I have learned something new from each of these memories. Please keep them coming.
Yes, you were lucky!
I, too, rode early and alone. At 7, my parents would put me on a Public Service bus in Leonia, NJ, to the terminal on W. 41st St. where an aunt would meet me and take the IRT downtown express to Clark St. Brooklyn where relatives lived. By age 8 I convinced them I could do it alone, which they honored, but the first time they “shadowed” me. There were no cousins in Brooklyn, my uncle was night manager of the old St. George Hotel, so I did a lot of travelling. I remember riding the Flatbush Ave trolley, passing a Dutch Reformed Church in the middle of farmland-in the middle of Brooklyn. I, too, preferred the front door/window of the subways. The Myrtle Ave line left from Boro Hall, Bklyn, and few believe me that they had the end gates and coal stoves for heat in the winter. The Coney Island interchanges and terminals were fascinating, as were the airports including the new Idlewild. The railroad stations and terminals were always a source of dreams, the B&O bus from Boro Hall and other NYC locations to trainside Jersey City made train travel easier and interesting. The Erie had its bus from Rockefeller Center, across the street from the NBC studio for the “Today” show with Dave Garroway and J. Fred Muggs (after the show, the ground floor studio was open to the public with one camera hooked to a tv monitor so you could see yourself on tv.) Riding the RR ferries was always exciting. The upper bay is so desolate now compared to the late 1940’s and 1950’s. You had the Jersey Central, Erie, DL&W, and New York Central ferries running about every 15 minutes from their NJ terminals to NYC slips from 42nd St. down to Liberty St. I used to feel that I could jump from ferry to lighter to barge to cargo ship and go clear across the Hudson. And seeing the varnish of the B&O, Reading (Crusader and Wall Street), Erie, and Lackawanna pull out of their Bush sheds sure beat Penn Station or (almost) Grand Central, whose 20th Century Limited departures from track 27 (in my time) with its roll
I think you are wrong about the coal stoves on BMT el cars. They all had electric resistor heaters from the day they were electrified. The STATIONS had the coal stoves. I remember that clearly. Or some did, not all. Ditto many Manhattan elevated stations.
And don’t forgate the “Old and Weary’s Timber Fleet” painted to look like a streamliner leaving frm Weehauken! NYO&W tickets were honored on the Central’s ferry of course, but much of the time one could ride those ferries for free, without anyone checking for tickets.
I don’t remember at what age my mother started putting me on my own on the LIRR Hempstead branch, but it was before I was 11 (when we moved off of Long Island.) It was the late 1950s. I would take the train to/from school if the school bus didn’t fit the schedule, or to go to the movies. I remember the fare was 15 cents, Garden City to Nassau Blvd. One time I went to Country Life Press station, because it was closer to my school. I asked a RR maintenance worker what the fare was, and he said he thought it was 18 cents. As my mother would only send me out with 15 cents, I walked to the next station at Garden City for lack of 3 pennies. I latter found out that the fare was 15 cents even for the extra distance.
The becoming of this is a little off topic. How many remember the Hudson River Day Line? I can remember their paddle wheeler(the Alexander Hamilton (?)) going past on the Hudson when I lives on Riverside Dr. My first memories of the subways were trips to the NY Worlds Fair. What made those trips were the then new On trips on the subways. My first great trip by myself at age 8 was taking the Pioneer bus to Kings Highway on the Brighton Line and then taking the subway to Stillwell Av. I spent a little while there taking pictures. My mom did not know about the trip at the time. And would not have known if I hadn’t asked her to develop my film. Mom developed film in the bathroom and used a contact printer to get prints. My antique box brownie was good for this. When my mom developed the prints she about hit the roof. WHAT was I doing at Coney Island by myself? A couple of years later she took me for the last nite of the Myrtle Av El. On my side it was nice to know I wasn’t to only railfan. For my mom she was (somewhere between fascinated and horrified, fill in the blank) Over the course of the next few years on weekends and during the summer months I managed to ride all the routes of the NYCTA subways. I also managed to get myself thrown out of school and for several years was in a private school in Forest Hills. In 1973 my mom and I moved to Berkeley, Ca. And that made for more adventures. Thx IGN
I need to proofread my replys a little better before hitting the post button. This is the 2nd paragraph. My first memories of the subways were trips to the NY Worlds Fair. What made those trips were the the then new Blue Birds. And the Broadway line down to Times Square from 125th St. The best rides were with the cars that had the big front door windows.(I always thought of these as the R-36’s) The reason as a little boy I could stand on my tippie toes and see out the front door. Later on my mom would bring a small wooden box for me to stand on. And of course the ride out to the World’s Fair. These early rides taught me my third word after mommy and daddy, TRAIN! Thx IGN
Hudson River Day Line! Wow. My Mother had worked for Avon, Inc. and her mother, my Grandmother still did in the late 40s into the 50s. Avon treated its employees to yearly summer company day trip by Day Line…and because of the number of employees both at the Rockefeller Center RCA Building offices and at the Suffern factory, it took more than one boat each time until toward the end. I remember several steamers taking us up to Rye Playland along the shores of Long Island Sound. The last time I remember one of these trips was on Alexander Hamilton up to Bear Mountain State Park on the Hudson and coming back down the River and under the George Washington Bridge after dark. I think the only other steamer I remember being on on these trips may have been George Washington, not sure.
The other boat still under steam at that time (other than the West Shore ferries by then) was the City of Keansburg from Manhattan to Keansburg, NJ. Did that once with family to visit cousins.
Boys, don’t worry about drifting a little off topic, anyone who doesn’t want to “listen” doesn’t have to.
See, I was born after all those glory days and I just LOVE hearing about them, whether it’s Mom’s tales of New York or Dad’s memories of the North Jersey 'burbs in the Thirties and Forties. Dad saw Balbo’s flying boats roaring up the Hudson from Alpine Lookout on the Palisades, by the way. Mom remembers seeing the “Hindenburg” on it’s last fly-over over Manhattan. It’s all your first-hand memories that keep them alive, so keep 'em coming!
Oh CTGuy, remember this? “It’s no trouble, it’s no fuss, take a PUBLIC SERVICE BUS!”
Yes, my Mom and Dad and I once, I was about age four, summeer 1936, did go to Albany and back on the Hudson River Day Line, and enjoyed the trip. Of course, my greatest pleasure was seeing the trains on both sides of the Hudson, and there were many.
In the summer of 1937, we went to visit my sisters who were couselors at Camp Wiko-Suta in the Bristol-Hebron area of New Hamphire. The next year I started as a “mdget” at the boys camp, wih departure from Grand Central Terminal via camp chartered Pullmans. But in 1937 we took the overnight boat to Boston, then taxi to North Station, and train to Concord or Plymouth, where we were met.
And of course I remember the ferriers. The East River 90th Street Ferry to Astoria (replaced by the Triboro Bridge) The 39th Street Brooklyn ferry to Staten Island The 125th Street ferry to Edgewater and the bus (formerly Public Service streetcar) up the steep road to Palasades Amusement Park And all the Jersey Shore railroad ferries, rode all but the PRR ferry. New York Central, Weehawken - 42nd St. Lackawanna Hoboken - Barcley Street and Courtland Street Erie Pavonia part of Jersey City - Christopher St. Central of New Jersey, also used by B&O and Reading passengers, Jersey City - near Canal Street, nearby, not the exact street location. There was no money saved using the PRR ferry, less expensive to ride the joint H&M-PRR sevice to Newark. I did ride the Tottenville (Staten Island) - Perth Amboy ferry, on a solo railfan excursion South Ferry Staten Island ferry, SIRT to Tottenville, and PRR back from Perth Amboy, age 15. The Perth Amboy ferry was a far more primitive affair, more like a powered barge than the floating castles that other NYC area ferries are and were.
The E. 90th St. Ferry to Astoria was accessed by the very last Green Lines (owned by GM at the time) streetcar route, the 86th St Crosstown, a