New York City subway system turns 120 — here’s what it looked like in 1904
From guest starring in classic romcoms to backgrounding in our everyday humdrums, the NYC subway is an icon.
And in her 120-year service to the city, the ol’ gal has seen some wilds. She’s had modernized upgrades to her look, routes and reach, of course. But also, she’s had changes to the ever-evolving communities she’s zipped from one end of the metropolis to the other.
“We take it for granted,” Concetta Bencivenga, New York Transit Museum director, told The Post of the subterranean system, which opened to the public on October 27, 1904. The subway celebrates its 120th anniversary Sunday, recognized throughout the boroughs as “Subway Day.”
“But what happened 120 years ago was so shockingly novel and revolutionary,” continued Bencivenga, a native New Yorker. “The notion of asking people to get on an electrified vehicle, when electricity was still fairly new, and move around underground was completely mind-blowing.”
Straphangers today, however, aren’t all that fascinated by the trains’ functions.
Instead, it’s the outré encounters and experiences they’ve had while traveling about 100 feet beneath the concrete — like virally belting out Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” with a subway car full of strangers or witnessing a pair of Brookynites tie the knot on the L train — that stand out most.
But as New Yorkers reflect on their craziest, memorable moments, a below-ground stage for the Big Apple’s most uninhibited likely wasn’t what William Barclay Parsons had in mind when he began designing the railroad in 1894.
As the first chief engineer of the New York Rapid Transit Commission, Parsons, a Columbia University alum, curated the original plan for the Interborough Rapid Transit subway — the city’s first underground train system.
Chugging along as a novelty to Manhattanites of the early 1900s, the IRT traveled 9.1 miles through 28 stations. It went from City Hall to Grand Central, ran west on 42nd Street to Times Square and north between Broadway to 145th Street.
Bencivenga tells The Post that modern-day locals will get the chance to ride those pioneering routes this week.
“The museum has vintage Lo-V (low voltage) subway cars from 1917 that will travel those original lines for our special ‘Nostalgia Rides,’ ” she said before detailing the rarified run.
“We’ll start at the old South Ferry station, go up the West Side, turn around and come back down the East Side,” she explained. “We’ll end by looping through the old City Hall station, where everything got started.”
The Long Islander said the old-school cruise will give today’s tastemakers a time traveler’s glimpse at 20th-century commuting.
“We’ll get to see, hear and feel what it was like to be on one of those early iterations of a subway car,” Bencivenga said, adding that the museum is also featuring a historical, art-infused exhibit entitled “The Subway Is…,” which will be on display through fall 2025.
“No air conditioning, vintage ads, porcelain grab-holds,” she continued of the Nostalgia Rides. “It’s a fun way to travel back in time through Manhattan.”
She hopes the fun flashback to yesteryear inspires hope for the future.
“We want people to think about what the next 120 years look like,” said Bencivenga, forecasting that the subway will become even more inclusive, accessible and accommodating to citizens of Gotham as time rolls on. “The subway is for everyone. It’s the great social equalizer.”
“Whether your a billionaire or struggling to make ends meet, the subway is often the quickest way for a New Yorker to get around and to be exposed to so many great people and cultures,” she added of the less than $3 rides.
“For $2.90, you get to experience the whole world.”
