The Proposed Line Towards Upper Manhattan
North of this station are tunnel stub headings running straight from the local tracks for a proposed line under Central Park West or Morningside Avenue, that would have terminated at 145th Street or 155th Street.
When the BRT / BMT was building the Broadway line as part of the Dual Contracts, the company also wanted to be awarded the Central Park West / Eighth Avenue route, which was on the planning boards at that time. The company figured that if they built ramps from the Broadway line that could naturally be extended to an Eighth Avenue line, they would get a toehold on being awarded that line, rather than lose out to the IRT, the only other subway operator when the Dual Contracts were built. The BMT / BRT never built that line for various reasons including the bankruptcy of the company after the Malbone Street Wreck and Mayor Hylan's plan to include the Eighth Avenue / CPW route in the IND system. The ramps were built but never used for revenue service. They were eventually used for storage until the tracks were disconnected.
The disused trackways for the proposed line ramp up and run for about 500 feet.
The ramp on the northbound side has a Maintenance-of-Way shed built on it, and the trackway on the southbound side also has a storage shed sitting in it, just north of where the local tracks come in, but this shed is few hundred feet north of the shed on the opposite trackway of the other side of the tunnel.
Some of the actual track on the trackways remain, but are covered by many years of dirt. They can be seen from passing trains. The never-used trackways curve slightly west before ending.
Read more about this topic: 57th Street-Seventh Avenue (BMT Broadway Line)
Famous quotes containing the words proposed, line and/or upper:
“On the 31st of August, 1846, I left Concord in Massachusetts for Bangor and the backwoods of Maine,... I proposed to make excursions to Mount Ktaadn, the second highest mountain in New England, about thirty miles distant, and to some of the lakes of the Penobscot, either alone or with such company as I might pick up there.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I said: “A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Like many of the Upper Class He liked the Sound of Broken Glass.”
—Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953)