Third Avenue El: "Manhattan Landmarks" circa 1954 Pathe 7min

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• published: 21 Jan 2012
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more at http://travel.quickfound.net/ "Two Pathé News Magazine of the Screen shots of various Manhattan sights." Public domain film from the Library of Congress Prelinger Archive, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied. The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and equalization. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRT_Third_Avenue_Line The IRT Third Avenue Line, commonly known as the Third Avenue El, was an elevated railway in Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City. Originally operated by an independent railway company, it was acquired by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) and eventually became part of the New York subway system. The first segments of the line opened in Manhattan in 1878. Service in Manhattan was phased out in the early 1950s and closed completely in 1955, and ended in the Bronx in 1973. The Third Avenue El was the last elevated line to operate in Manhattan, and was a frequent backdrop for movies filmed in the city. Service on the Second, Sixth and Ninth Avenue El lines was terminated in 1942, 1938 and 1940, respectively. In 1875 the Rapid Transit Commission granted the New York Elevated Railway Company the right to construct the railway from Battery Park to the Harlem River along the Bowery and Third Avenue. The New York Elevated Railway Company at that time already operated the Ninth Avenue Elevated which it acquired in 1871 after the bankruptcy of the West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway. The Manhattan Railway Company took control of the New York Elevated Railroad in 1879. In 1886, the Suburban Rapid Transit Company commenced operations with a railway line over the Harlem River from the Manhattan Railway's northern terminal at 129th Street to 133rd Street in the southern Bronx—known then as the "Annexed District." The Manhattan Railway assumed operations of the Suburban in 1891 as an extension of the Third Avenue Line and through service between the Bronx and Manhattan began in 1896. A 999-year lease of the Manhattan Railway was brokered by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company in 1902, for which rapid transit services in the Bronx, of which the Third Avenue Line was part of, would eventually be coordinated alongside the new subway. As part of the Dual Contracts, this line was triple-tracked, which allowed for express service. The center track of the Bronx portion opened on January 17, 1916; in Manhattan it was opened on July 9, 1917. 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 on their communities and obsolete, since the subways were being built or were planned 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. Pressure against the El from real estate interests soon began, with creation in 1941 of the Third Avenue Elevated Noise Abatement Committee, which consisted of what the New York Times described as "men in the real estate business." The committee initially sought a decrease in train service, saying the noise from the El "constitutes a menace to health, comfort and peaceable home life." [7] At the time the El was closed in Manhattan in 1955, the East Side was left with only the overcrowded IRT Lexington Avenue Line as the only subway east of Fifth Avenue, which is how the system has run to this day. The system was closed in sections from 1950 to 1973...