From guest starring in classic romcoms to the backdrop in our daily mood, the NYC subway is an icon.
And in her 120 years of service to the city, the little girl has seen some wild ones. It has had modernized improvements in its appearance, roads and layout, of course. But it has also brought about change in the ever-evolving communities it has brought together from one end of the metropolis to the other.
“We take it for granted,” Concetta Bencivenga, director of New York’s Transit Museum, told The Post of the subterranean system, which opened to the public on Oct. 27, 1904. The subway celebrates its 120th anniversary Sunday, known in all circles as “Subway Day.”
“But what happened 120 years ago was so shockingly new and revolutionary,” continued Bencivenga, a native New Yorker. “The notion of asking people to get into an electrified vehicle, when electricity was still quite new, and drive underground was completely shocking.”
Straphangers today, however, aren’t as enamored with train functions.
Instead, it’s the outdoor encounters and experiences they’ve had while traveling about 100 feet under the concrete — like belting out Celine Dion’s viral “My Heart Will Go On” to a subway car full of strangers or being witnessed by a couple of Brookinites. there’s the knot on the L train — that stands out the most.
But as New Yorkers reflect on their craziest and most memorable moments, an underground scene for the most uninhibited Big Apple 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 City Rapid Transit Commission, Parsons, a Columbia University student, curated the original plan for the Interborough Rapid Transit subway—the city’s first underground train system.
Taking off as a novelty for Manhattanites of the early 1900s, the IRT traveled 9.1 miles through 28 stations. It ran from City Hall to Grand Central, went west on 42nd Street to Times Square, and north on Broadway to 145th Street.
Bencivenga tells The Post that modern-day locals will have a chance to walk those pioneer roads 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 rare run.
“We’re going to start at the old South Ferry Station, go up to the West Side, come back and go back to the East Side,” she explained. “We’ll end up going through the old City Hall station, where it all started.”
The Long Islander said the old-school cruise will give today’s tasters a glimpse of the time traveler in 20th-century travel.
“We’ll get to see, hear and feel what it was like to be in one of those early iterations of a subway car,” Bencivenga said, adding that the museum is also showing a historic, art-filled exhibit titled “The Subway Is” which will appear until the fall of 2025.
“There’s no air conditioning, no vintage ads, no china grips,” she continued on Nostalgia Rides. “It’s a fun way to travel back in time through Manhattan.”
She hopes last year’s fun comeback inspires hope for the future.
“We want people to think about what the next 120 years look like,” Bencivenga said, predicting that the subway will become even more inclusive, accessible and convenient for Gotham’s citizens over time. “The metro is for everyone. It’s the great social equalizer.”
“Whether you’re a billionaire or struggling to make ends meet, the subway is often the fastest way for a New Yorker to get around and be exposed to many people and great cultures,” she added of the less than 3 dollars.
“For $2.90, you can experience the whole world.”
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Image Source : nypost.com