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- A law enacted in 1875 authorized the Mayor of New York City to appoint a Board of Rapid Transit Commissioners to decide whether the city actually needed rapid transit, to select the route or routes, and, if found expedient, to organize a company to build the lines.
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A law enacted in 1875 authorized the Mayor of New York City to appoint a Board of Rapid Transit Commissioners to decide whether the city actually needed rapid transit, to select the route or routes, and, if found expedient, to organize a company to build the lines.
The plans were drawn up by a team of engineers led by William Barclay Parsons, chief engineer of the Rapid Transit Commission. The city government started construction on the first IRT subway in 1900, leasing it to the IRT for operation under Contracts 1 and 2.
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By the late 1880's and the early 1890's a subway for New York was anidea whose time had come. The surface and elevated railways hadcreated more traffic than they could handle, and neither existing modeof mass transportation was able to provide rapid transit service topromote development of upper Manhattan and the Bronx. Real estateinterests and man...
At the top of the stairs leading to the Great Hall of the Chamber ofCommerce of the State of New York, there is a life-size white marblestatue of Abram S. Hewitt. This statue, commissioned posthumously,and a gold medal presented to the former Congressman and Mayor nearthe end of his life,1 are the two tangiblesymbols of the Chamber's debt to the ma...
Abram Hewitt lost two battles in 1888; his rapid transit bill wasdefeated, and ha failed to be re-elected Mayor of New York. He atfirst declined to stand for a second term, but finallyran1 on an Independent ticket against theTammany candidate, Hugh Grant,2who soundlydefeated him. Patrician reformers then and afterwards would claim that the Tammanyh...
At the end of 1901 the Rapid Transit Commission established by the Actof 1894 prepared for the Mayor of New York "a detailed and authenticaccount" of the long process which culminated in the construction ofthe IRT. The report was written by Edward Shepard, the Brooklynreform leader and counsel to the Commission; who then sent it on tothe members of...
In January 1900 everything that had once stood in the way of subwayconstruction had been overcome. Technology was no longer a problem:Frank Sprague had perfected his multiple-unit control system forelectric motive power, and tunnel construction was long beyond theinnovative stage. Subways in Boston, London, Paris and Budapest, haddemonstrated that ...
Planning for the system began with the Rapid Transit Act, authorized by the New York State Legislature on May 22, 1894, which created the Board of Rapid Transit Railroad Commissioners. The act provided that the commission would lay out routes with the consent of property owners and local authorities, either build the system or sell a franchise ...
Jun 15, 2020 · IRT and BMT were acquired by the city in 1940 and merged along with IND into the city transit commission known as the New York City Board of Transportation (NYCBOT). The New York State legislative measure replacing NYCBOT with NYCTA was signed into law by Governor Thomas E. Dewey in March 1953.
By 1920, the idea of unifying the subway under city administration – buying out both the IRT and the BMT to create a city-owned transit system – had become popular, and in 1921 the New York Transit Commission was created to solve the overcrowding and other problems that had arisen in the privately-owned subways.
Just six years before (1894), the Chamber of Commerce had discovered the key to the solution of the problem of rapid transit with municipal ownership, and through the efforts of its members had prepared the way leading to successful.achievement.
