History of The New York City Subway - The First Subways

The First Subways

In 1898, New York, Kings and Richmond Counties, and parts of Queens and Westchester Counties and their constituent cities, towns, villages and hamlets were consolidated into the City of Greater New York. During this era the expanded City of New York resolved that it wanted the core of future rapid transit to be underground subways, but realized that no private company was willing to put up the enormous capital required to build beneath the streets.

The City decided to issue rapid transit bonds outside of its regular bonded debt limit and build the subways itself, and contracted with the IRT (which by that time ran the elevated lines in Manhattan) to equip and operate the subways, sharing the profits with the City and guaranteeing a fixed five-cent fare.

At this time, the original subway (Contract 1) was built from City Hall to the Bronx, with the first part opening in October 1904; an extension to Atlantic Avenue at the LIRR Flatbush Terminal (now Atlantic Terminal) in Brooklyn was built soon after as Contract 2.

The subway system began during the War of Currents when Thomas Edison and his opponent, Nikola Tesla, struggled over acceptance of direct current or alternating current as the standard way to deliver electricity. Alternating current became the standard for non-railroad purposes, but New York City Subway adopted direct current as more suitable for urban railroad purposes. To this day, the New York City Transit Authority converts alternating current to 600 volts direct current to power the trains, as do most earlier and later local transit railways around the world.

In Brooklyn, the various elevated railroads and many of the surface steam railroads, as well as most of the trolley lines, were consolidated under the BRT. Some improvements were made to these lines at company expense during this era.