Rode it a lot in the 60s. Just wondering if anyone else ever rode it. It went from Mott Haven (?) to White Plains. I lived near Tremont and rode it both ways. Was a great little el. Too bad they tore it down.
Not being a New Yorker, I can’t say much about the 3rd Avenue and other Manhattan Els but I was surprised to find out that IRT subway equipment was too heavy for the Els and the same situation applied to the BMT with the Els in Brooklyn. As an outsider, I would guess that this imcompatibility issue was a factor in the abandonment of the Els. In Chicago, the subway was built to tie in with the rest of the L so except for wooden cars being barred from the subway, any equipment could run anywhere.
I am not sure if you are talking about NY, but if so, here is a great site that includes ELs, subways, other transit and trains.
Andrew
I remember when I was a young lad in brooklyn N.Y. we would ride an el that actually had wooden coaches with outside platform cars.although they did have air brakes,the cars still had there outside brake wheels in place. yeah,they don’t make em like they use to.
I grew up in the Bronx from 1950-1956 near 143rd and Morris Ave and rode the 3rd Ave El many times. Those were great times. I saw the " Projects" I lived in as a kid in some pictures in a NYC book that showed trains crossing the Harlem river into the Bronx. After moving to California I 've been back to NY several times but the only time I passed thru the Bronx was in 1999 on a train ride from Grand Cenral up to New England that passed by the 138th St. station
I remember Brooklyn in the 60`s around X-MAS ,the sounds and sights of the EL were the best…
The train you rode was the NY W & B. It was the New York, Westchester & Boston as I recall. May have been Bronx. I’m not sure. It was a separate Corp. from the NYC subway system. As I recall, there was a book , many years ago, which covered its rise and ultimate downfall. Look around. You may find it available somewhere.
If I remember my resources correctly, part of the NYW&B right-of-way did become part of the NYCTA.
The best place to find out is: http://www.nycsubway.org/
The Dyre Avenue LIne of the IRT (#5 train) runs on the remenants of the Old NYB&W railroad that were taken over by the City when the NYB& W ceased operations.
Points to clear up. The 3rd Avenue Elevated did not run to White Plains. That is outside New York City and is served today by Metro North on its Harlem Division line to Wasiaic, electrified to what was Brewster North and is now Northeast or Southwest or some such name. In the old days North White Plains was the north end of the electrification but the New York Central continued past Wasiaic to Chatham and a junction with its Boston and Albany line, and a few Haralem division passenger trains operated east on the B&A and then north to North Adams, with a junction with the Boston and Maine’s Hoosack Tunnel Boston - Troy line.
The 3rd Avenue elecated operated from South Ferry and City Hall (Paark Row) north to Est 241st Street and White Plains AVENUE (misnamed on all IRT metal signs White Plains Road for some obscure reason). From Gun Hill Road, not far from the Harlem Division’s Wakefield Station, to 241st Street, tracks were shared with subway trains off the Lexington Avenue subway and now and at times off the Broadway 7th Avenue subway. Generally, the only trains running the total length of the line were the nightime locals . Otherwise, trains from South Ferry ran north to the Bronx Park station, on a one-station branch off the main line at Fordham Road station, right at Forham University and at the present Harlem Line Metro North Fordham Station. Trains from City Hall ran to both Bronx Park and 241st Street. There was special rush hour service after the 2nd Avenue elevated connection to the Bronx was ended in 1940 under transit unification, from City Hall to Freeman Street on the Westchester Avenue elevated structure used by the Lexington Avenue and Bropadway 7th Avenue lines. Also during rush hour there were locals that ran north only to Treemont Avenue. All day weekday service was provided by locals running only north to 129th Street. These locals came from both City Hall and South Ferry. During weekdays some express service was provided, but since the elevated had mostly only three
And as a footnote to what daveklepper has chronicled so accurately, the reference to South Ferry really means “Staten Island Ferry” to those native to what used to be called the Borough of Richmond - an island larger than the Bronx and Manhattan in land mass. Anyway, I rode that El as a youngster with my “Gramps” many a Sunday. It was indeed a “treat” for a kid. Wonderful, wonderful memories back in the 1940s.
Thanx for bringin’ up the subject! [tup]
Tom[4:-)][oX)]
I must issue one correction, and this is the 2nd time I made the mistake, once in a letter to the NYC Mayor! The high elevated Gun Hill Road IRT station, still served by 2 (Broadway 7th Avenue) and 5 (Lexington Avenue) subway trains, and with two lower level tracks that are about the only remenants of the 3rd Avenue El existing, is near the Metro North ex-New York Central Williamsbridge Station, and Wakefield is further north, actually on the NYC - Westechester County line. Metro, the ex-NY Harlem devision has three stations in a row beginning with “W”: Going north: Woodlawn, Williamsbridge, and Wakefield.
New York City has two stations named 7th Avenue, one at West 53rd St,. in Manhattan, and one on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. The “B” train stops at both.
was the steel from the third ave el sold to japan pre ww2 or was it some other line
Steel from both the Sixth Avenue Elevated, a branch of the Ninth Avenue Elelvated south of 53rd Street, rejoining at Rector Street in the financial area, torn down in 1938-1939, and from the Ninth Avenue Elelvated itself, torn down south of 155th Street in 1940, was sold to Japan before Pearl Harbor.
Possibly the Third Avenue elevated also, but that was considerably later, wll ater WWII, and Japan today is considered part of the Free World and a Democracy. As is Germany.
Very interesting thread. One correction, if I may: the 3rd Avenue El south of 149th Street made its last run in May 1955, not 1953 as stated elsewhere here.
I went to Fordham Univ. in The Bronx in the 60s during the el’s last last years of operation there, and rode it many times — under duress!. It was a slow, annoying ride on crummy old equipment and I probably didn’t appreciate it as much as I would today! One thing I recall is that most if not all trains had some IRT low-V cars in the consist, and I believe this was the only remaining use of the Low V equipment (outside of an occasional fantrip) by the 1960s. The old center express track by that time had been abandoned. A short stub of the old Bronx Park branch remained just north of the Fordham Road station. I never saw any photos of the Bronx Park branch in service.
By thre way, didn’t the express stations on the 3rd Ave. in Manhattan have two levels with two tracks on a level, or am I thinking of something else?
We live on the upper west side and I am often on Columbus Avenue (for the uninitiated this is what 9th Ave. is called north of 59th St), which is beyond a doubt today, with its shops and cafes and meticulously preserved and renovated old buildings, one of the most pleasant stretches in Manhattan. Every time I’m there I try to picture what a dingy cruddy avenue this avenue must have been in its under-the-el days.
I understand that way uptown, around someplace like 110th, the 9th Ave. had a roller-coaster like piece in which it did a couple of 90 deg. turns high above the street. I guess this was done to circumvent Morningside Heights
The highest point on the whole elevated system was on 110th Street between Columbus ASvenue and Central Park West-8th Avenue, where the line made a huge S-curve with a straight center section to move from the 9th and Columbus Avenue alignment to use 8th Avenue north to 155th Street. The 110th Street station was attached to a building on the N. side of 110th Street, with one or more elevators. It was higher than any structure remaining the subway system except use of the Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges.
Hump Stations, as we called them, with the center track elevated above the local tracks, the center track having both uptown and downtown platforms over the respective local tracks with stairways to the local platforms, on the 3rd Avenue El, were located at 9th, 23rd, 42nd, 106th, and 125th Streets. At 129th Street, a small yard and terminal station were on the lower level, with the express track on the upper level without a station. At 133rd, 138th, and 143rd Streets, there was a center platform on lower leverl between two local tracks and one on the upper level between two express tracks. Express stations with two island platforms flanking a center express track, all on one level, were at Canal Street, Grand Street, Houston Street, 149th Street, Treemont Avenue, and Fordham Road.
That’s incredibly interesting!!! So there were three different configurations of express station platforms depending on where you were, huh? My dad took mr for a ride on the Manhattan part of the el not long before service ended, but being just a little kid at the time I wasn’t tuned into the structural details.
Another vote for a foray down memory lane.
My preschool home was about three blocks from the 163rd St. Station, and I was taken on several trips to South Ferry for the ride to Staten Island - a cheap day’s outing which included all kinds of fascinating sights, not the least of which was the huge copper kettles of the old Ruppert Brewery, which was right next to the tracks. (Even at age three, I had my priorities straight[}:)].)
Later my family moved to the Pelham Bay area, and the Lexington Avenue Local became my “local” IRT ride. I remember that, after seeing the spindly structure under the Third Avenue L, the Westchester Avenue steelwork looked indestructible.
While in high school, I took advantage of my subway pass to ride every line then part of the IRT, BMT and IND combined system, as well as prowl the seemingly endless underground corridors above the tracks. It was possible, if one knew the route, to walk from Grand Central to Penn Station without exposing oneself to either weather or traffic.
Fifty years ago I departed New York City. I haven’t been back.
Chuck