It's scary how many transit options New York City could've had

This column originally appeared in the Halloween edition of On The Way, a weekly newsletter covering everything you need to know about NYC-area transportation. Sign up to get the full version, which includes answers to reader questions, trivia, service changes and more, in your inbox every Thursday.

Join us on a spooky journey through the graveyards of New York City transit history. Gaze at the sites where dreams were dashed and ambition went to die. You’ll be haunted by what could have been.

We’ll start our journey on the 1 train between 86th and 96th Streets. Riders may think they’re hallucinating, but that is in fact the ghost of 91st Street Station.

Back when trains had five cars, subways stopped there. But when trains doubled in length, the station’s platform was too short. On Feb. 2, 1959, the 91st Street Station became a transit tomb. Not that long ago, people could visit the dusty, dingy station on approved tours. But these days your best bet is to catch a glimpse of the ghostly station as you zoom past in a 1 train.

Next, let’s journey back to Brooklyn in the 1920s. The subway system was still expanding and there was high enthusiasm for a subway line to Staten Island. At several locations, workers began construction on portals for what would have been a new train line linking Bay Ridge to Arrietta Street in Tompkinsville on Staten Island’s North Shore. Author Joseph B. Raskin says one of the portals is still visible just south of 59th Street.

“This would allow work on the Staten Island branch to take place later, minimizing service disruption. The portals open to the railroad tracks running under the 4th Avenue line, giving riders their only glimpse of daylight along that line,” author Joseph B. Raskin wrote in his book “Routes Not Taken: A Trip Through New York City’s Unbuilt Subway System.”

At the time, there were hopes that both freight and passenger trains would use the tunnel. But the plan ultimately died due to lack of support from city and state officials. Instead, Staten Island got the Verrazzano Bridge in 1964.

Now, let’s travel to Lower Manhattan, where dreams of a subway line running up the East Side have turned acrid with age. A cavernous station for the Second Avenue Subway was built in Chinatown in the 1970s, but later abandoned when funding ran dry. The space was used for a bacchanal more than a decade ago, but today it is sealed to prying partiers.

Ponder this possibility and recoil in horror at the convenience you’ll never know.

If the city had simply left room for three miles of rail track when building the Van Wyck Expressway, the E or F lines in Kew Gardens could have been extended to JFK Airport.

The line could also have allowed a connection to what is now the A line, which would’ve linked central and northern Queens to Downtown Brooklyn, addressing two of our most ghastly transit gaps.

In this case, Robert Moses — the Grim Reaper of public transit projects — is to blame. As reported in Robert Caro’s frighteningly long tome, “The Power Broker,” Moses rejected requests to leave room for tracks to run in the middle of the Van Wyck Expressway for a future train link. Project planners argued that it would cost less than $2 million to add 50 feet of right-of-way for a future train line, according to Caro’s reporting.

“He did not give the slightest indication of understanding that his transportation policies were doomed to failure,” Caro wrote of Robert Moses.

That fateful decision has condemned millions of New Yorkers to horrible traffic and exorbitant AirTrain fares. Moses’ ghost still haunts the city.

Curious Commuter

Have a question about subway cars (or literally anything else NYC transit-related)? Use this form to submit yours and we may answer it in a future newsletter! But note that Curious Commuter questions are exclusive for On The Way newsletter subscribers. Sign up for free here.

Question from Alexander in Manhattan

For many months there have been two large crane barges "parked" in the middle of the Hudson River at about West 30th Street. It's quite noticeable at night as one of them is always lit up, although it doesn't appear active. Are these part of the new rail tunnel work, or repairs for the existing tunnels? Or is this entirely unrelated?

Answer

Unlike the abandoned infrastructure described in this week’s newsletter, those are not ghost cranes. They are active and part of the Gateway project to build a new tunnel under the Hudson River. Those cranes are now building a cofferdam, which is a dry enclosure in the water where 2,000 columns will be added to stabilize 1,200 feet at the bottom of the river. The columns will create a strong foundation in the riverbed for the boring machines that will dig a new Hudson tunnel.

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