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Chapter 14. Metropolitan Company Compels Merger with Subway

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Fifty Years of Rapid Transit · James Blaine Walker

Chapter XIV

Metropolitan Company Fights For Franchise and Compels Merger With Subway.

WHEN the first subway was begun the street railway interests of New York City were controlled by two separate and distinct companies, the Manhattan Elevated Railway Company and the Metropolitan Street Railway Company. The former was owned principally by the Gould and Sage interests. It operated the elevated lines in Manhattan and the Bronx. These consisted of the Ninth Avenue line, running up and down the West Side of the city from the Battery to 155th street and Eighth Avenue; the Sixth Avenue line, running from the Battery mainly up Sixth Avenue to 53d street and through 53d street to a junction with the Ninth Avenue line; the Third Avenue line running from the Battery mainly up Third Avenue to and across the Harlem River to Fordham; and the Second Avenue line running from the Battery mainly up Second Avenue to 129th street and a junction with the Third Avenue line. As told in a previous chapter all these lines were leased by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, the operator of the subway.

The Metropolitan Street Railway system embraced practically all the surface car lines in Manhattan and the Bronx. It was controlled by Thomas F. Ryan and the late William C. Whitney, formerly Secretary of the Navy in the cabinet of President Cleveland. They and their associates had consolidated several surface car properties into one system by means of leases or outright purchases until they finally controlled all the main north and south and crosstown lines. They believed in free transfers as a means of stimulating traffic, and with each new line acquired the transfer privilege was extended until it covered the whole island.

The consolidation was accompanied by much watering of securities and the making of some extravagant leases. Expenditures were made on a grand scale for electrification of tracks, new equipment, etc., and the earnings did not increase sufficiently to provide needed revenue.

Before the subway was completed it was apparent to men in the business that it would prove a great traffic getter, and with the elevated lines paying well the Belmont consolidation promised to become a most successful one. It was probable that for a time the street surface lines would lose traffic when the subway opened, and they were in no condition to surrender any. In such circumstances, therefore, the astute managers of the Metropolitan system, formed a bold plan to meet the situation. The plan was to get the Rapid Transit Commission to give the Metropolitan company a franchise for a competing subway, or at least for the company to apply for such a franchise. With such a grant the Metropolitan would be in a position not only to sell out to Belmont but to make him buy or merge.

The scheme was a masterly one and it was masterfully carried on. Ryan's company entered upon an energetic campaign to influence public sentiment and through it the Rapid Transit Commission. This campaign was an epoch in the transit history of New York. To carry it on Ryan detailed one of his ablest lieutenants, Lemuel E. Quigg, a well educated, clever man who had begun life as a newspaper reporter, gone into politics, been elected to Congress where he served one term, become an ally and lieutenant of Thomas C. Platt, the Republican leader and under him had acted as president of the Republican County Committee of New York County. Later Quigg studied law and became a member of the bar.

Ryan's first open move was made in December, 1903, nearly ten months before the subway was opened for traffic. He informed the Rapid Transit Commission that, if it would lay out routes for another north and south rapid transit railroad, independent of the one under construction, and so devised as to supplement the surface car lines, his company would be a bidder for the franchise, provided the terms exacted by the city would not be too onerous. The news, which quickly got into the newspapers, caused a tremendous sensation. Rapid transit certainly was "looking up". Here it was only four years ago that none of the transportation managers wanted to have anything to do with a city-owned rapid transit line, and nobody but Belmont could be found to finance one, and he was blamed by many for his adventurous leap into strange waters. And now, before the first city-owned subway was completed, here were the rich and influential traction kings of the Metropolitan system actually petitioning for a chance to build and operate another and competing road.

The city gasped. So did Belmont. The press raved about it, and all New York could talk of nothing else for months. The Rapid Transit Commission openly exulted and in its report for 1903 congratulated the city upon the alluring prospect. The commission, however, was not content with verbal promises. It politely requested Mr. Ryan and his associates to put their offer in writing. This they promptly did, and on February 25, 1904 Ryan and H. H. Vreeland, then president of the Metropolitan company, submitted their written proposals. Mr. Vreeland's letter contained the formal proposal; Mr. Ryan's his endorsement thereof.

In brief the proposal was that the board should lay out a route beginning at about 135th street and Third Avenue in the Bronx and extending thence southward under the Harlem River to Lexington Avenue, down Lexington Avenue to Fifteenth street, under Fifteenth street and Union Square to Broadway, down Broadway to Chambers street, through Chambers street to William street and down William street, through Hanover Square, Coenties Slip and South street to the Battery; thence turning through the Battery to Greenwich street, up Greenwich street, West Broadway and Hudson street to Eighth Avenue, up Eighth Avenue to Thirty-fourth street, and through Thirty-fourth street to a junction with the line in Lexington Avenue.

Under the proper terms the Metropolitan company agreed to build such a line for the city and to operate it under lease in connection with its surface lines, to and from which it proposed to give free transfers for a uniform rate of five cents a passenger. "By utilizing the surface lines for local traffic", wrote Vreeland,

"and for carrying long-distance passengers to and from the nearest subway stations, it would be possible to very greatly reduce the number of subway stations which would otherwise be necessary, thus materially increasing the speed and efficiency of the underground service.

"The transfer system which we propose, by which the underground lines and the surface lines would be operated as one system, would establish means of expeditious communication between all parts of Manhattan island for a five-cent fare. Such a comprehensive result is, of course, possible only with underground lines operated in connection with a complete network of surface lines."

The letter also set forth that the Metropolitan company had in operation about three hundred miles of surface lines, and that the plan would relieve congestion on many overcrowded roads. In the course of time the West Side underground line could be extended from Thirty-fourth street up Eighth Avenue to the Harlem River. The proposed terminus in the Bronx was the point at which most of the surface lines converged, and the new line, therefore, would bring rapid transit facilities "within easy reach of a much larger proportion of the population of the Bronx than can be served by the rapid transit line about to be opened."

Ryan in his letter said:

"Under the transfer system which we propose, by which the underground lines and our three hundred miles of surface lines on Manhattan Island would be operated as one system, almost every person on Manhattan Island would be able to ride from his place of residence to his place of business for a single fare of five cents and at a rate of speed which would be possible only with underground lines operated in connection with a complete system of surface lines. In other words, our plan would practically bring rapid transit to the door of every citizen."

This proposal was taken under consideration by the Rapid Transit Commission, which proceeded to study the entire situation and to devise a comprehensive plan which would not only insure proper rapid transit development for the present but also provide logical extensions for the future. It will be remembered that the Chief Engineer had been called upon to report to the board a system of routes to serve these purposes. These reports were submitted in 1904 and 1905, and in May of the latter year the board began adopting routes and general plans and continued to do so until the map of the city had been grid-ironed with routes for rapid transit railroads. The first lines laid out were those in Third, Lexington, Seventh and Eighth Avenues in Manhattan; then followed various loop lines connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn, a line in Fourth Avenue, Brooklyn, one in Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn and another in Jamaica Avenue, Brooklyn, to Jamaica in Queens.

In the same month, May, 1905, a new law went into effect depriving the Board of Aldermen of the authority to give the municipal consent to the construction of rapid transit lines and conferring that authority on the Board of Estimate and Apportionment. The passage of this law had been forced by public sentiment which was aroused by the frequent delays of such matters in the Board of Aldermen, its long dalliance with the Pennsylvania tunnel franchise in 1904 having brought about a crystallization of this sentiment. On July 14, 1905, the Board of Estimate gave consent to the new routes.

Meanwhile the Metropolitan interests prosecuted their campaign to enlist public sentiment in behalf of their proposal. The newspapers teemed with articles pointing out the desirability of competition in the rapid transit field and the benefits to be conferred on the general public by the Metropolitan's proposal to transfer from rapid transit to surface lines and vice versa. Civic associations in all parts of Manhattan and the Bronx met and passed resolutions favoring the proposal, which were duly forwarded to the newspapers and the Rapid Transit Commission. Delegations from such societies haunted the corridors of No. 320 Broadway, where the Rapid Transit board had its offices, and clamored for hearings. Many such hearings were held and the representatives of the most congested parts of Manhattan and the most undeveloped sections of the Bronx lifted their voices to acclaim the Metropolitan scheme.

While the Metropolitan interests thus sought to array public sentiment on their side, the Rapid Transit board was engaged in studying the whole problem and considering the extension of rapid transit from the standpoint of the needs of the whole city. When the Metropolitan proposal was submitted it was referred to the plan committee of the board, which in due time reported. This report favored the laying out of a system of routes which would embody the best of the Metropolitan suggestions as well as the logical extensions of the first subway favored by the Belmont company. Such a course was followed by the board, and the engineers were set to work to draw plans.

Suddenly the community was electrified by the news that the Interborough Rapid Transit company and the Metropolitan Street Railway company had merged, and that the two immense transportation systems were hereafter to be controlled by one new company entitled the Interborough-Metropolitan Company. For a second time the community gasped. It seemed impossible that the rival traction interests which had been at each other's throats in competition for the new rapid transit lines, should come together. Yet such was the fact, and it was not long until the cat was let out of the bag and the financial district rang with the story of how Ryan had forced Belmont into the merger by the threat of constructing a new subway to be operated in competition with the underground road into which Belmont had put his millions.

The new company was incorporated as a business, not a railroad corporation, in January 1906, with a capital of $155,000,000, 55 preferred, 100 common. It was to hold the stock of both the Interborough Rapid Transit and the Metropolitan Street Railway companies. Its first directors were: Walter G. Oakman, James Jourdan, John B. McDonald, Morton F. Plant, all of New York, and Peter A. B. Widener, of Philadelphia.

In a conversation with Mr. August Belmont in June, 1914, before quoted, he was asked about this merger. "You remember how the street car people talked about building a system of subways and giving transfers to the surface lines", he said.

"Well, we couldn't stand that kind of competition, and so we combined with them. I admit that we didn't know the exact condition of the surface car system -- the interlacing of companies etc. It took us some months to get to the bottom of it. I got Shonts to do it. But when we got down to the bottom of things they were worse than we expected. But now there is hope. The old system has been reorganized, improved and put into shape where it ought to develop into a fine property. Everything will work out all right, I think."

In a Legislative investigation of the Public Service Commission, held several years later, namely in 1915-1916, it was brought out that the merger had cost the Interborough interests about $40,000,000. This loss was practically written off in 1915, when the Interborough-Consolidated Company was formed to take over the stock of the Interborough company and the old Metropolitan Securities Company, which held the stock of the surface lines taken in by the merger and later, after going through receiverships, reorganized under the name of the New York Railways Company.

Public resentment followed quickly upon public surprise. The press denounced the merger and the over-capitalization of the new company. The Rapid Transit Commission saw in the merger the collapse of competition, but nevertheless continued the laying out of routes and the preparation of plans for additional subways. In December, 1906, several of these routes had been legalized, plans for some of them made and those for others were under way. Whether to advertise for bids for construction alone, or for both construction and operation was a question on which the Commission asked the advice of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment. This course was made necessary by the Elsberg amendments to the Rapid Transit act, passed by the Legislature of 1906, which not only provided for alternative means of construction, but also limited the life of any lease of a city-owned rapid transit railroad to twenty years, with the privilege of twenty years' renewal. The Board of Estimate and Apportionment on December 7, 1906, adopted a resolution in response to the Commission's request, recommending that alternate bids be invited, first for construction alone, and second for construction, equipment and operation. The routes covered by the resolution were: Seventh and Eighth Avenue route. Lexington Avenue route. Third Avenue route. Jerome Avenue route. Fourth Avenue and Bensonhurst route in Brooklyn. Tri-borough route, embracing the Third Avenue route, a route over the Manhattan Bridge to Brooklyn and part of the Fourth Avenue route in that borough. West Farms and White Plains route.

Accordingly the Rapid Transit Commission ordered the contracts prepared so that the work might be put up for public bidding. These routes embraced nearly 100 miles of road, and the estimated cost of construction was more than $181,000,000. Of the seven routes the Commission selected the Lexington Avenue route as the one to be first advertised. This route began at the Battery and ran up Greenwich street, Trinity Place, Vesey Street, Broadway, Fifth Avenue, 35th and 36th streets and Lexington Avenue to the Harlem River, where it was to divide into three branches, one through Park Avenue and 153d street to 164th street, another through Park Avenue to 156th street and the third through Morris Avenue to 149th street. There was also to be a spur connection from Lexington Avenue through 42d street to the first subway in Park Avenue. The total length was about fourteen miles and the cost of construction was estimated at about $30,000,000. On account of the narrow width of Lexington Avenue, it was decided to make the subway in that thoroughfare a double-deck structure, with the express tracks on the lower and the local tracks on the upper level, and plans were made accordingly. The board located the stations along the line, and by the opening of the year 1907 everything was in readiness to solicit proposals.

During the years 1905 and 1906 the Rapid Transit Commission devoted a great deal of time and work to "legalizing" various rapid transit routes, in other words to obtaining the consents of the city authorities and the abutting property owners required by the statute. This involved canvassing the property owners, and as these are numerous on every route it was a considerable task to interview them all. In many cases it was a bootless task, for often the required number of consents could not be obtained and then the work of canvassing went for naught and the board had to apply to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court for the appointment of Commissioners to investigate and report whether the proposed line should be built and for the determination of the Court to that effect in lieu of the property owners' consents. The wonder is that so many routes were legalized by the Commission. The difficulty attending the procedure is thus described in the Commission's annual report for 1906:

"The fundamental conditions of rapid transit are such as inevitably to invite the opposition of property owners to every plan which promises extensive relief. The rapid transit situation can never be dealt with in a large way except by railways which will bring passengers to the places where their daily business is carried on; that is to say, in nine cases out of ten, to the lower part of Manhattan. In this locality the streets are crooked and often comparatively narrow. The value of property is generally extremely high. The necessity for easy and cheap transportation to the outlying parts of the city does not appeal to the selfish interests of property owners. And, therefore, while it has generally been easy to secure the requisite consents in Queens, the Bronx and Brooklyn, in Manhattan it has always proved impossible, in the case of any extended rapid transit road, to obtain voluntary consents, and applications to the courts are frequently opposed. In three such cases this Board has had to encounter the most earnest and prolonged opposition to its plans."

The laying out of new routes was undertaken by the board as soon as the contracts for the Manhattan-Bronx subway and the Brooklyn extension had been let. Within six months after the subway was opened to traffic the board adopted and submitted to the city authorities plans embracing nineteen separate routes, reaching every borough of the city except Richmond. It took two years more before the constitutional consents for these lines were obtained. The proposed system was characterized by the Court as "the most stupendous scheme of municipal improvement and expenditure ever undertaken, and without a parallel in its ultimate bearing upon the destiny of the people of what we have reason for thinking will be the greatest city in the world."

With the opening of the year 1906 Herman A. Metz succeeded Edward M. Grout as Controller and therefore supplanted him in the Rapid Transit board. Metz lived in Brooklyn and he quickly undertook to forward the transit interests of that borough. He brought before the board the project for the construction of an elevated railway loop on the Manhattan side of the East River to connect the Brooklyn, Williamsburg and Manhattan bridges and facilitate travel to Brooklyn. This project had been considered by the board the year before, but no action had been taken because the board believed that the problem of communication between the bridges could be settled by the building of subways, and that the sentiment of Manhattan was firmly and irrevocably opposed to the erection of any more elevated structures in the streets.

Controller Metz, however, held that the bridges should be connected by an elevated railroad in addition to such subways as might be built, and in July, 1906, brought the matter before the board. He urged an elevated road merely as a temporary expedient, to be torn down "as soon as the subway connection is completed and the congested points at the bridges are relieved". At a later date in July the Board of Estimate and Apportionment adopted a resolution asking the Rapid Transit Commission to consider whether it was for the interest of the public that an elevated loop be built, or whether the desired result could be obtained without placing any further elevated structures in the streets. The matter was referred to the Chief Engineer of the Commission, who reported a route for an elevated connection and also a subway route. Although the elevated plan was pressed by many, the board refused to change its attitude and finally adopted plans for a loop subway, running from the Brooklyn bridge up Centre street to Delancey street extension and through Delancey street extension to the Williamsburg bridge, with a spur at Canal street connecting with the Manhattan bridge. The routes adopted also provided for a line from Brooklyn bridge down William street to Wall street, another in Grand and Desbrosses streets from Centre street to Washington street, a third in Liberty and Washington streets from William to Desbrosses street, and a fourth in Washington street, Greenwich street, Fourteenth street, University Place, Washington Square East, Wooster street and Canal street to Centre street.

On the Brooklyn side of the East River the loop subway was to run from Brooklyn bridge through Washington street to Fulton street, through Fulton, Willoughby streets and Flatbush Avenue Extension to Fulton street again, through Fulton to Lafayette Avenue, through Lafayette to Bedford Avenue, through Bedford Avenue and its extension to the Williamsburg bridge.

It being impossible to obtain consents for the Manhattan portion of the loop line, the board applied to the Appellate division and obtained a determination in lieu of such consents. It was decided to advertise for bids for construction only, leaving the question of operator for later decision. Bids for the Manhattan sections were received and the contracts awarded to the lowest bidders in the spring of 1907.

It was in June, 1907 that the last of these contracts were awarded, and the Commission went out of existence on June 30.

During the year 1906 the subway tunnel under Washington Heights was completed and in March was placed in operation from 157th street and Broadway to the banks of the Harlem Ship Canal. Here the terminus remained while the old bridge at that point was replaced by a double deck structure, as described in another chapter. The replacement was effected in June, 1906, when the subway trains were operated across it. The station on the north side of the bridge, known as 225th street, remained the terminus for nearly two years, or until the Van Cortlandt Park extension was built. This extension carried the line nearly a mile further north. It was built by the Rapid Transit Subway Construction Company as extra work under its contract. The route was approved by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in July, 1906, although the formal order was not entered until the following October. The Rapid Transit Commission and the company agreed on the amount of $675,000 as the cost of the extension, and this was approved by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment on November 23, 1906. Work was begun immediately and completed in the early part of 1908, when the extension was opened to traffic.

Before the subway had been in operation one year complaints as to inadequate service were made to the Commission. As traffic grew these complaints increased in number, and in March, 1906, the Commission appointed a sub-committee, of two members and the Chief Engineer to investigate the question of service. The contract with the city provided that the operating company should "meet all reasonable requirements of the public in respect of the frequency and character of its railway service to the full limit of the capacity of the railroad." This committee found the service defective in certain particulars and so reported on March 22, 1906. It is interesting to note from this report that the company was then running eight car express trains in the rush hours and five car express trains in the middle of the day and late at night. The committee found that the express service was inadequate on Sundays and recommended that the company operate seven or eight car trains instead of five car trains during the whole day; also that eight car trains be operated on the express tracks on week days all day long, and that the local train service during the rush hours should be increased. These suggestions were transmitted to the company, which at once put them into effect.

Additional means of ventilating the subway along the trunk line from Brooklyn Bridge to 96th street were provided during the year 1906. In the summer of 1905 many complaints were made of the excessive heat and poor air. The Rapid Transit Commission retained Professor George A. Soper, of Columbia University, to make a further study of air conditions. He made an investigation covering the last five months of 1905 and reported that, while the air in the subway was hotter than the air in the streets in summer, it was not deleterious to health and would not have any bad effects if proper sanitary precautions were taken to keep the subway free from dust and odors. The engineers of the Commission made a careful study of the ventilation problem. They found that before operation began the subway was cooler in summer and warmer in winter than the streets. After trains began running the opposite condition was found to prevail in summer, the air in the subway being from five to ten degrees warmer than that in the streets above. This increase in temperature was caused by the friction of train movement, the grinding of brakes etc. and to a small degree to the animal heat thrown off by the many passengers. While the air was renewed often enough to be sanitary, it was believed that more frequent renewals would improve it as well as the ventilation. Accordingly the engineers, with the consent of the Commission, caused a number of additional ventilating chambers to be constructed between stations, fourteen between Brooklyn Bridge and Fifty-ninth street. In these and in the existing chambers constructed when the subway was built they installed blowers and louvres, for the purpose of facilitating the escape of air from and ingress of fresh air into the subway. The louvres were simply large iron shutters hung on axles so that they normally remained closed but were forced open by the rush of air caused by the passage of trains. At stations, too, some of the vault lights were removed and replaced by ventilating gratings. The effect of these improvements was felt during the next summer, when the heat in the subway was found to be much less than in the previous year.

An experimental cooling plant also was installed in the Brooklyn Bridge station. Two artesian wells were sunk and the water from them was pumped into a series of pipes installed on each side of the station. Air is pumped through these pipes in counter current to the water, becoming cooled in the passage, and is then delivered to the station platforms by ducts overhead. This device worked satisfactorily, and tests in warm weather showed that it kept the temperature in the station about five degrees lower than it was on the street, whereas it had been seven degrees higher during the previous summer.

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