The New York City Subway recently celebrated 120 years of transporting straphangers.
“The subway system transformed New York City – 120 years and billions of rides prove it,” New York City Transit Demetrius Crichlow said in an announcement.
New York’s first underground rapid transit network, the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) subway, opened on Oct. 27, 1904, with 28 stations along a 9.1-mile line. The IRT expanded to the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens and was eventually joined by two competing companies, the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) and the city-owned Independent Subway (IND).
In 1940, these companies were unified, and today, they make up the current New York City subway system, which has 25 routes, 472 stations, 800 track miles and a fleet of over 6,000 passenger cars. Laid end to end, NYC Transit train tracks would stretch from New York City to Chicago.
“The subway is New York City’s heart and soul and what a special birthday it is to celebrate 120 years of serving this city we all love,” MTA Chief Customer Officer Shanifah Rieara said in an announcement.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the New York Transit Museum celebrated by hosting two vintage train rides along portions of the city’s first-ever subway route. The 1917 Lo-V subway cars departed from the decommissioned Old South Ferry Station and traveled north along the 1/2/3 line to the Bronx before returning via the Lexington Avenue 4/5/6 line.
“New York’s history and cultural identity are inextricably linked to our subway system,” New York Transit Museum Director Concetta Bencivenga said in an announcement.. “Nostalgia rides provide a unique opportunity to be transported to an earlier version of the subway and experience the system as those first riders would have in 1904. It is incredible to reflect on the transformational impact the subway has had on the city and on New Yorkers over the last 120 years.”
