Transportation

32. Omnibus at Union Square, 1908.

The first public transportation on 14th Street was the omnibus, or horse powered coach, which established a line along Broadway in 1829. Shortly after, omnibus lines cropped up all over Manhattan (Figure 32). The omnibus was incredibly hard on horses and incredibly slow because the animals were forced to carry extremely heavy loads of people over uneven streets. In order to solve the problem of the frequent death of horses due to exhaustion, a rail was constructed along the street, which allowed the horses to smoothly carry loads of passengers with less difficulty (Figure 33). The first rail line was established in 1832 and ran along Fourth Avenue, by 1855, rails were running along Sixth Avenue, and Third Avenue as well, and by 1866, as many as twelve rail car lines had been established. The growth in population during the nineteenth century and the problems associated with complete reliance upon horses for transportation led to massive congestion on Manhattan’s most relied upon longitudinal thoroughfare.

33. Railcar line, c. 1930.

Because of its convenient port, New York was quickly rising in economic activity. Job opportunities abounded, as did the amount of immigration into New York. The number of people moving to New York was constantly multiplying and filling the demands of labor needed by the growing city. Most of the available jobs were located on the waterfront and required manual labor. Many immigrants and the poor people ended up residing near the waterfront in packed tenements so they could easily get to work. The wealthier citizens tended to live further up-town where land was available for singlefamily houses. In order to get to work from the upper regions of Lower Manhattan, down to the waterfront, the majority of travelers had to catch a streetcar or omnibus down Broadway. The narrowness of the island limited the ability of travelers to move quickly lengthwise along Manhattan. Access to the pier became so difficult that some wealthier citizens of New York City began relocating to Staten Island, Connecticut, and Brooklyn because they found that traveling to work by train or boat took less time and trouble than traveling down Broadway to get to their jobs. The teeming population inhabiting the space created a huge bottleneck and this began to stifle New York’s development potential.

Reliance upon horses for transportation resulted in streets covered in fecal matter. The lifespan of the horses were typically short as they were forced to pull extremely heavy loads of people. In 1872, the Episodic Horse Flu killed 18,000 horses. This outbreak totally halted transportation until the city began hiring immigrant laborers to pull the cars throughout the city. This event was the catalyst that spurred the development of New York City’s first intracity form of public transportation in 1876.

34. Charles T. Harvey, 1868.

The first elevated railroad was invented by Charles T. Harvey and constructed on Ninth Avenue from Dey Street to Cortland Street and reached 14th Street by 1870 (Figure 34). Within the next six years, three more elevated tracks were built on First Avenue, Third Avenue and Sixth Avenue, each with a stop on 14th Street. These four lines spanned the entire island of Manhattan. The presence of the elevated train first played a role in the conversion of the west side of 14th Street from undeveloped land used for the storage of raw materials, to factories that employed hundreds of people. In 1881, when the Sixth Avenue elevated track was open, 14th Street experienced a golden age of commerce (Figure 35). Major stores were easily accessible by the elevated as it was located at the southern tip of Ladies Mile. Further down 14th Street, at its Third Avenue stop, the elevated provided easy access to the developing theater district around Union Square and at its First Avenue stop, the surrounding neighborhood continued to develop and prosper.

35. Sixth Avenue elevated, 1916.

By the early 1900s, the problem of congestion had not been solved and the city had experienced a boom in population. Many people complained of pollution, noise, and darkness created by the elevated train. In order to address these complaints, the trains were modified to run on electricity. Following the blizzard of 1888, which froze all of the elevated lines and halted transportation, the City realized that they needed to develop a more efficient mode for commuting within the city.

36. Subway construction in Union Square, 1904.

37. Bus, c. 1920.

In 1904, the city’s first subway line was completed. The line ran from City Hall to 145th Street, along Broadway and included a stop at 14th Street. The subway, The Interborough Rapid Transit or IRT line allowed for a greater network of travel throughout New York City (Figure 36). In 1918, a line was constructed that ran along Seventh Avenue and in 1924 the L line began construction, opening a line along 14th Street from Sixth Avenue to Montrose, Brooklyn. In 1931, the L line was extended westward to begin at Eighth Avenue to Canarsie, Brooklyn. A year later, the Independent line (IND) was constructed down 8th Ave and in 1940 the subway beneath Sixth Avenue began service.

During construction, the subway lines replaced most of the elevated tracks. The last elevated track to be torn down was Third Avenue in the1950s. Today there are six subway entrances on 14th Street located at Eighth Avenue, Seventh Avenue, Sixth Avenue, Union Square, Third Avenue and First Avenue. The only subway line that serves solely 14th Street is the L line, which connects Eighth Avenue to Brooklyn. During the construction of the first subway, surface mode transportation was being upgraded as well. In 1904, the first motorized omnibus, or autobus line opened along Fifth Avenue. The Fifth Avenue Coach Company, or FACCo., was responsible for establishing the first motorbus (Figure 37). FACCo. was acting in response to the Fifth Avenue residents barring a rail from being constructed down their road. Although the rail car was the most highly utilized mode of surface transportation in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, the residents objected to the noise that they made and their unsightly appearance in the street. FACCo. developed a gas-powered omnibus and opened the line along Fifth Avenue. Ultimately, the autobus allowed FACCo. to retire the use of rails and horses. By 1907, motorized bus transit was expanding and offering cross-town trips. Today, there are as many as nine lines connecting to 14th Street offering both cross town, uptown and downtown routes.