Third Avenue El - 1955 film

Courtesy of the Vanishing NY Photo Pool on Flickr:



This is a clip from a wonderful short film showing a run of the Third Avenue El, one of the elevated trains that used to travel up and down Manhattan. It gives the viewer a terrific view of the streets of New York of 1955, the year the train was shut down in Manhattan.

The harpsichord, incidentally, is played by Wanda Landowska, probably the most famous harpsichordist of the 20th century.

From Wikipedia:

In the 1930s and '40s, as part of the integration of the different subway companies in New York City—the IRT along with Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit (BMT) and Independent Subway System (IND)—the Third Avenue El and its counterparts on Second, Sixth, and Ninth Avenues came under criticism from New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia and his successors. The Els were regarded as blights to their communities and obsolete, given that subways were being built or were on the drawing board to replace them.

The IND Sixth Avenue Line and the IND Eighth Avenue Line did indeed render the Sixth and Ninth Avenue Els obsolete. Save for a small shuttle service for the Polo Grounds on the Ninth Avenue Line, they were closed by 1940 and demolished by 1941. The Second Avenue El was also gradually demolished from 1940 to 1942, leaving only the Third Avenue El, which was intended to stay in use until the Second Avenue Subway was built to replace it. However, government bureaucracy and pressure from private developers, eager to redevelop Third Avenue, forced the closure of the El prematurely with no adequate subway replacement, leaving residents on the East Side of Manhattan with the overcrowded IRT Lexington Avenue Line as the only subway east of Fifth Avenue.

The system was closed in sections from 1950 to 1973. First, the South Ferry spur was closed in 1950, which connected South Ferry to Chatham Square in Manhattan. This forever closed the South Ferry elevated station, which had serviced all four IRT El lines that originally ran in Manhattan. Next to close was the City Hall spur in 1953, which started at Park Row in Manhattan and then connected with the South Ferry spur at Chatham Square. On May 12, 1955 the main portion of the line from Chatham Square to East 149th Street in the Bronx closed, ending the operation of elevated service in Manhattan. The removal aided property values along the East Side, and the head of the Real Estate Board of New York suggested that Third Avenue be renamed "The Bouwerie" to symbolize the transformation.

In the 1960s, the remaining service was named the 8. Finally, the remaining portion of the line in the Bronx from East 149th Street to Gun Hill Road closed in April 1973.

In the Bronx, the line was replaced by the Bx55 Limited bus route making only the stops the former line made. This bus route was one of the first to have free transfers with the subway with the transfer points at the 3rd Avenue-149th Street and Gun Hill Road White Plains Road IRT stations. With the introduction of free bus to subway transfers systemwide, the Bx55 lost its special status.