USA > New York > Bronx County > The Bronx and its people; a history, 1609-1927, Volume II > Part 37
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The Harlem Railroad and the New York and New Haven, the latter being the lessee, were supposed to have equal rights in the freight station which both occupied at Centre, White, Franklin and Elm streets, upon the site now occupied by the Criminal Courts Building, north of the Tombs prison. The New Haven road had a regular passenger station at Broadway and Canal Street, at that time (1840-50) near the heart of the city; while the Harlem road transported its passengers in its own street cars to Twenty-seventh Street and Fourth Avenue, where the locomotives of both roads were attached, the heavy coaches of the New Haven road being hauled from Canal Street by teams of four or six horses. About July, 1857, the block bounded by Fourth and Madison avenues and by Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh streets became the joint passenger station of the two railroads, and continued so until the erection of the Grand Central Station on Forty-second Street. For a number of years previous to the removal, the use of steam locomotives
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was forbidden below Forty-second Street, and both roads were obliged to haul their coaches by four and six-horse teams up Fourth Avenue, through the Park Avenue tunnel to its upper end, where the trains were made up and the locomotives attached.
The first trunk-line railroad to enter the city and to exert an ap- preciable influence on its commerce and prosperity was the Erie, which was opened to Dunkirk, on Lake Erie, in 1851. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, and the benefits derived from it, showed how valuable to New York was the trade of the great West. The successful introduc- tion of railroads into England and into this country opened the eyes of the shrewd merchants and other business men of New York to the importance of yoking the new genius to its car and forcing him to contribute to their interests. The legislature of New York at the session of 1825 directed a survey of a "State Road" through the southern tier of counties from the Hudson to Lake Erie, following the general course of that "public road to the west" to construct which the assembly of New York "in the time of Queen Anne" had appropriated five hundred pounds, and which was to be to the southern tier what the Erie Canal was to the northern. The report of this survey, when made, proved unfavorable, and there were so many rival and conflicting interests in- volved that the project for a time was abandoned. The beneficent results of the canal, however, becoming more and more apparent, and the utility of the railroad as a common carrier more and more demon- strated, the scheme was revived, and on April, 1832, the New York and Erie Railroad Company was chartered "to lay a single, double, or triple track from the city of New York to Lake Erie, to transport prop- erty or persons by the power of steam, or of animals, or any other power," or the combination of the above. The capital stock was limited to ten millions of dollars and the charter was to expire after fifty years.
During the summer of 1832, a preliminary survey was made by Colonel De Witt Clinton, Jr., under authority of the National Govern- ment, and his report was so favorable that a complete and accurate instrumental survey was decided upon. By 1833, one million dollars of the capital stock had been subscribed, and in August, officers and directors were appointed. The Legislature of 1834 made an appro- priation for a survey of the route under State authority, and Governor Marcy appointed Judge Benjamin Wright to conduct it. He began operations on May 23, 1834, dividing the work into two grand divisions -- the eastern, extending from the Hudson River to Binghamton, under the direction of James Seymour, and the western, from Binghamton to Lake Erie, conducted by Charles Ellet, Jr. Judge Wright reported on January 20, 1835, that the survey had been finished, and that the complete maps, profiles, and estimates had been deposited with the Secretary of State. The whole route from Piermont on the Hudson
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to Dunkirk on Lake Erie was four hundred and eighty-three miles in length, though this was later reduced to four hundred and forty-six. In his report the engineer spoke of the vast and acknowledged benefits of the Erie Canal to its commercial emporium, and said that in selecting the route of the railroad he had considered economy of construction, passenger traffic, cheapness of transportation, connection with lateral branches, accommodation of the inhabitants, and development of resour- ces. The report aroused much opposition to the proposed road in the Leg- islature. The project was denounced as "chimerical, impracticable, and useless." It was said that the road could never be constructed, and if it could, would never be used, as the southern counties were sterile, mountainous, and thinly populated, yielding but few marketable products, which could easily find their way to market through their natural channel, the Mohawk Valley and Erie Canal. The friends of the project, however, were strong enough to overcome this opposition, additional subscriptions were secured, the State granted a loan of three million dollars, and in September, 1836, the company advertised for bids to construct a section of forty and one-half miles from Delaware to Callicoon Creek. Construction of a section of ten miles nearest Pier- mont on the Hudson was begun at about the same time. On September 23, 1841, the first section of forty-six miles from Piermont to Goshen was put in operation. The company then becoming embarrassed, its affairs were placed in the hands of receivers, by whom the road was completed to Middletown, and opened to traffic January 3, 1843.
It is to be noted that none of the great trunk lines entering The Bronx were originally projected as such, but have been formed by the consolidation of connecting lines constructed under separate charters, and managed by different corporations. For instance, the second great trunk-line between New York and the West in point of time, the New York and Hudson River Railroad, was organized as recently as No- vember 1, 1869, by the consolidation of the New York Central and the Hudson River Railroad companies. The New York Central had then had a corporate existence of sixteen years, having been organized by special act of the Legislature passed April 2, 1853, authorizing a con- solidation of the various railroads then existing between Albany and Buffalo, viz., the Albany and Schenectady, the Schenectady and Troy, the Utica and Schenectady, the Syracuse and Utica, the Syracuse and Utica Direct, the Rochester and Syracuse, the Buffalo and Lockport, the Mohawk Valley, the Rochester, Lockport, and Niagara Falls, and the Buffalo and Rochester roads, before that time operated by different boards at increased and useless expense. The Albany and Schenectady, it is interesting to note, was the first railroad built in the State of New York, having been chartered in 1826 as the Mohawk and Hudson, and opened for traffic September 13, 1831. The Hudson River Railroad
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Company was chartered May 12, 1846, to construct and operate a rail- road between New York and Albany, and was opened to East Albany, October 3, 1851. This great system, since the consolidation, has four tracks between Albany and Buffalo, and, besides numerous branch lines, operates the Harlem Railroad between New York and Albany under a lease for four hundred years dating from April 1, 1873, and the West Shore trunk-line between New York and Buffalo.
It was in 1869-70 that the Legislature authorized the erection of the Grand Central station and the tunnel work on Park Avenue. In the summer of 1870, the Harlem and the Hudson River railroads took possession of the new station; but, owing to differences between them and the New Haven road, the last continued to use the Twenty-seventh Street station for about a year and a half longer; then the site was taken for the Madison Square Garden. The freight station at Frank- lin Street was used for several years after this, the freight cars being hauled through Fourth Avenue and the Bowery by means of horses until the lease of the premises expired, when the Harlem freight went to the old Hudson River yards at Thirteenth Street and Tenth Avenue and to St. John's Park, and that of the New Haven went to the water- front on South Street and to the yards at North New York and Port Morris, both within The Bronx.
In this way the passenger station worked its way uptown. The con- gestion of trains in the Park Avenue tunnel and the enormous pas- senger traffic concentrated in the Grand Central station called forth the best efforts of the engineers of the railroads and a scheme of im- provements, involving the spending of many millions of dollars, finally was set under way at the Grand Central Terminal. Yet, despite the magnitude of the work and the expenditure of money there are ob- servers who believe that these great improvements will be compara- tively temporary, and that the station will have to be moved eventually above the Harlem River. In view of this fact the North Side Board of Trade submitted a scheme to the proper authorities in the autumn of 1902, before work was begun at the terminal, for a grand union station on the Harlem River, with Third and Fourth avenues and East 138th Street as its other boundaries. This site would be convenient for all the existing trolley lines on Third Avenue, for the Suburban branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad, for the Westchester and Boston electric road, and for the completed and proposed subways, while connections could be made with the Second and Third Avenue elevated roads at a comparatively small expense.
The Harlem Railroad was a single-track road originally, but its bus- iness increased to so great an extent that, in 1852, it was double-tracked for the first seventeen miles of its length. The enormously increasing business of both the Harlem and the New Haven roads below Wood-
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lawn, compelled the Harlem road to quadruple its tracks from that station to the Harlem River. This was accomplished in the fall of 1891 by the widening of the roadbed, the sinking of the tracks, and the building of retaining walls at an expense of about $2,000,000. The Port Morris branch was practically completed at the same time, though there had been a single track for upwards of forty years. The great steel bridge over the Harlem River, carrying four tracks, the first ever so constructed, was erected at the same time at a cost of $951,398.17. The length of the bridge is 706 feet; its width is fifty-six feet, and the draw has a length of 389 feet. In addition to its more than one hundred miles of track within The Bronx the Central road has a great yard at Melrose, containing fifty-five acres, for the storage of extra cars and motors, as well as a freight yard for Bronx freight. The maximum passenger rate under the general railroad laws of 1848 and 1850 was three cents a mile.
On May 12, 1846, the Hudson River Railroad was chartered by the State; but work did not begin until the following year. The plan was for the road to follow very closely the east bank of the Hudson River from the station at Thirtieth Street and Tenth Avenue, Manhattan, to the towns of Greenbush and East Albany, opposite the capital city. By November, 1847, the contractors had begun work on the various sections of the roadbed; but the difficulties of waves and tides from the river and the hard cutting through the rocky promontories on the line of the road caused numerous delays. The work was pushed with energy, but the contractors could not get their men to work at night, and these difficulties caused considerable delay. As planned and built the road was double-tracked as far as Poughkeepsie. Travel began to Peekskill on September 29, 1849, and to East Albany, October 13, 1831. The New York Central Railroad was authorized April 2, 1851, and its organization perfected August 1, 1853. Its charter was issued for the purpose of consolidating all the roads between Albany and Buffalo and Suspension Bridge. Among these minor roads was the Mohawk and Hudson, the oldest railroad in the State. On November 1, 1869, the Hudson River and the New York Central railroads were con- solidated under the name and title of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad company.
On April 24, 1867, the Spuyten Duyvil and Port Morris Railroad was chartered. Its length is 6.04 miles, and it connects the Harlem Railroad at the Melrose yards with the Hudson River Railroad at Spuyten Duyvil. Its cost was $989,000; and it was leased by the Central road on November 1, 1871, until December 31, 1970, at an annual rental of eight per cent on its cost. It was necessary for the lessee to have control of this road in order to get to the Grand Central station in 1870. It was about the same time that the Central secured control of
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the Harlem Railroad. For many years, the passage of the railroad through Kingsbridge on the surface made several of the most dangerous road and street crossings in the State. The course of the roadbed was very tortuous and twisting. In order to overcome this the route was changed in February, 1906, so that the roadbed now crosses Spuyten Duyvil Creek on a causeway and then follows the ship-canal to the Hudson River, its bed being on a shelf blasted out of the northern side of the canal.
In 1905 work was begun to change the motive power of the Harlem road from steam to electricity. The first train propelled by the new power ran from New York to Wakefield on January 28, 1907. The third rail system is used. The construction of these roads, while giving access to the western part of The Bronx, has had no such effect in increasing population as had the building of the Harlem road through the middle of the borough. Private estates and domains of considerable size prevail in Riverdale, Spuyten Duyvil, and Kingsbridge, which still keep their rural character, though the march of improvements and the real estate operator will soon divest them of this characteristic.
The next railroad to be constructed within The Bronx was the New York and New Haven Railroad, which was chartered in Connecticut. Work was begun at this end of the road in 1847; and on December 25, 1848, the first train, filled with directors and their guests, passed over the road between its termini. The road comes from New Haven, joins the Harlem road at Wakefield, and continues over the Harlem tracks to the station in New York City. Its only station within The Bronx is Woodlawn, so that it has not done much in developing this portion of the borough. It was consolidated with the New Haven and Hart- ford Railroad in 1872, under the name of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad.
In 1872 the Harlem River and Port Chester Railroad was incorporated, with a right of way from the Harlem River to Port Chester, the last village in the county of Westchester on the Sound. It was immediately leased by the New York and New Haven road, and its construction begun. It is usually spoken of as the Suburban, or Harlem, division of the New York, New Haven and Hartford. Speaking generally, its route follows the shore of the Sound to New Rochelle on the main line. Its station and yards at the Harlem River occupy the site of the house, barns, and home farm of Jonas Bronk, and the manor-house of the Morrises; and on the East River they occupy Oak Point, known in earlier days as Leggett's Point .. Access is had to Manhattan by means of the elevated railroad. The length of the road is eleven and one-half miles, but with sidings and other tracks the entire trackage runs well over one hundred miles. The possession of this branch gives the New York, New Haven and Hartford an outlet for its freight bus-
ELEVATED TRANSPORTATION
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iness, as the length of water-front controlled by it on the East River gives ample space for its car floats and freight yards. In addition several through passenger trains are run on board large steam ferry- boats and transported to the connecting lines in New Jersey without putting travelers to the inconvenience of transfers through the city of New York. In recent years the road has been connected with the Long Island Railroad and has thus been given access to Pennsylvania Station. This has been done by means of a bridge across the East River to Queens Borough by way of Randall's and Ward's islands. The corpo- ration constructing the bridge and road was the New York Connecting Railway. The American Bridge Company, the contractor, began the work in the fall of 1911, and about $20,000,000 was expended.
While the construction of the Hudson River Railroad required a good deal of blasting and cutting down, that of the Suburban branch required the reverse; as owing to the low lands and meadows abounding on the eastern side of the borough a great deal of the Suburban roadbed had to be filled in. Its construction has been one of the factors in the development of the eastern part of The Bronx. Beginning in 1903, the work was begun to increase the road to six tracks and to install electric traction. This has entailed an enormous amount of work and the construction of numerous heavy steel bridges to carry the streets across the tracks.
The mutations of the Putnam division of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad have been numerous. On July 3, 1877, the New York, Westchester, and Putnam Railroad Company was organized as a successor in part of the New York, Boston, and Montreal Railway, organized in 1871. On February 18, 1878, the New York City and Northern was organized, and acquired under lease the property of the above-mentioned road. On July 21, 1879, the West Side and Yonkers Railway was organized. On July 8, 1880, the Yonkers Rapid Transit Railway Company was organized. On June 4, 1881, the Yonkers Rapid Transit Company, New York division, was organized. On October 11, 1887, the New York and Northern Railway was organized after the sale under foreclosure of the New York City and Northern Railway Company, and by consolidation with the above last-mentioned roads, May 1, 1890, it also acquired under lease the West Side and Yonkers Railway. Under judgment of foreclosure against the New York and Northern Railway Company, its property and franchises were sold December 28, 1893, and conveyed January 12, 1894, to J. Pierpont Morgan, J. Hood Wright, and Charles H. Coster as joint tenants. The same day, they organized the New York and Putnam Railroad, under two acts of the Legislature of June 7, 1890, and May 12, 1892, and conveyed all property and franchises to the new company. On January 30, 1894, the New York and Putnam Railroad was leased by the New
Bronx-49
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York Central and Hudson River Railroad at an annual rental of four per cent on first mortgage consolidated gold bonds to the sum of $5,000,000 of principal, and upon $1,200,000 to be issued to retire the five per cent bonds of the New York and Northern Railway Company. After all these vicissitudes the road has become the Putnam division of the leasing company.
It was the purpose of the original projectors of the road to connect at Brewster's in Putnam County with roads for Boston and Montreal. Its southern terminus was at High Bridge; but the West Side and Yonkers Railroad was organized to build an extension of one and one- sixteenth miles to the Harlem River to connect with the elevated rail- roads by means of a bridge at 155th Street. As early as 1871, a con- siderable portion of the right of way was purchased, and some grading done, but owing to financial difficulties and reorganizations the road was not opened to traffic until the spring of 1881. A branch from Van Cortlandt Park connects with Yonkers by means of half-hourly rapid transit trains. The Putnam road has opened up High Bridge, Morris Dock, Morris Heights, University Heights, Kingsbridge, and Van Cortlandt Park. Though run at a loss during its earlier years, it is now paying more than its expenses under its present lessee. The cost of the road has been $11,700,000, an average of nearly $206,000 for every one of the 58.88 miles to Brewster's, in spite of the fact of its being a single track.
The last one hundred years in The Bronx have indeed worked a revolution in the matter of transportation. In 1820 the highways were mere trails, the two most considerable thoroughfares intersecting the region were the Albany Post Road and the Boston Post Road, on neither side of which, outside of the cities, was there a foot of pave- ment of any sort. In fact nowhere in The Bronx was there a general system of roads for local accommodation for travelers. The railroad was in its purely experimental stages. Within a few years a few miles were in operation in the Mohawk Valley, at Schenectady, and the Boston & Albany had been begun in Massachusetts. It was twenty years thereafter that The Bronx was invaded by the steam locomotive. With the advent of the iron horse the early steam vessels on both the Hudson River and the Sound were seriously affected and the smaller sailing craft, schooners and sloops, were all driven from the adjacent waters. How rapid have been the changes. Power driven craft pre- dominate upon the waterways, steam has been superseded by electricity, and where were formerly cinders, dust and gas, there are now clean accommodation, steel cars, and a dustless roadbed, supplemented by ideal lighting facilities and increased speed. Our former trails have become macadamized or concrete boulevards from which the horse-drawn vehicle has been driven and in its place has come the high-powered
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horseless propelled automobile which in its turn is fast transforming transportation methods. Where the team of horses used to draw one or two tons, the modern electric truck will transport with ease from five to fifteen tons, and these added to the pleasure machines that now crowd our main avenues of traffic are fast bringing to pass a condition that will ere long prompt the building of great traffic subways for the exclusive use of trucks employed to convey materials and produce demanded by the busy outside world. The air, too, is filled with planes that also have a commercial value and no one living can conceive the changes that are to come along this line which will transform the ways and means of the present to the practical and useful within the space, possibly, of the next decade.
Fifty years ago there were often winters during which traffic was all but closed for weeks at a time. Things are very different at the present time. During the first hour in which snow-storms settle on this region tractors are placed in commission and within a few hours all highways are opened up, if indeed they have as much as been closed at all. Truly, we are living in a wonder-working day and age. To have the will to do and enjoy is to receive benefits impossible to our forebears, and every hour can be made more alluring than all that have gone before. Our capacity to enjoy has also been increased a hundredfold. To live in this year of Our Lord is indeed a blessing for which all should be truly thankful. One of the local newspapers of Westchester County not long ago had the following concerning early days of railroads and of the objections offered against the construction of such highways : "In the early forties, when the railroads were first extended to this section, the locomotives used were small affairs little less than a crude toy. The fuel used to generate the steam was wood cut in long lengths and piled within easy reach of the fireman who was compelled to 'juggle' the long pieces, veritable logs, at frequent intervals in order to maintain the necessary pressure of steam. At the outset of railroad construction in this territory the farmers strenuously objected to the innovation for fear the smoke from these diminutive engines would kill their potatoes and corn and the telegraph would kill all the birds."
Street Car Lines-Under the State Railroad Act of 1870, a number of street car lines were formed and articles of association filed, but nothing seems to have been done until later. Among these later ones were the New York and Westchester Railroad Company, September 24, 1859; the New York and Yonkers Railroad Company, October 17, 1859; the Union Railroad Company, of Westchester, December 15, 1859; the Port Morris and Westchester Railroad Company, April 2, 1861; and the Third Avenue and Fordham Railroad Company, on the same date. The president of all these companies was David Milliken, and
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the leading name of each of the boards of directors was Gouverneur Morris. The last of these companies was incorporated under Chapter 143 of the laws of 1860, to authorize the construction of railways and tracks in West Farms, Westchester, Eastchester, New Rochelle, Yonkers and Morrisania. The road was to extend from Harlem Bridge to Fordham, via Third Avenue, but as the road was not completed by December 11, 1862, its charter became extinct. The rest of the com- panies held on to their charters, and were built more or less sub- sequently.
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