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Third Avenue Railway A Cityscape of Manhattan and the Bronx by Kramer Soft Cove
Third Avenue Railway A Cityscape of Manhattan and the Bronx by Kramer
Third Avenue Railway
A Cityscape of Manhattan and The Bronx
Frederick A. Kramer
Soft Cover
80 Pages
Copyright 2001
CONTENTS
In Manhattan
Broadway Line 5
42nd Street Crosstown 10
59th Street Crosstown 12
Tenth Avenue 15
3rd & Amsterdam Avenues 18
125th Street Crosstown 22
Kingsbridge 24
North-South in The Bronx
University Avenue 27
Webster & White Plains Avenue 29
Bailey Avenue 32
Ogden Avenue 34
Boston Road 36
Westchester Avenue 40
Saint Ann's Avenue 43
Sound View Avenue 44
Southern Boulevard 46
Crosstown in The Bronx
138th Street Crosstown 50
149th Street Crosstown 52
163rd Street Crosstown 54
167th Street Crosstown 56
180th Street Crosstown 60
Sedgwick Avenue 62
207th Street Crosstown 64
Williamsbridge 69
Tremont Avenue 72
Bronx & Van Cortlandt Parks 76
Last Glimpses 79
Inside
This book is a pictorial review of the Third Avenue Railway, but in a more general sense it is a pictorial review of street scenes in Manhattan and The Bronx during the late 1940s. There is a virtual feast of signage for undertakings both large and small, movie marquees with legends more familiar to us as cable TV shows than as theatre memories, streets sparsely filled with traffic and sometimes none at all in sight, clothing styles not seen in a half-century... all these sights combining to impart the feeling of those times.
All of the images are from the postwar 1940s. All are from the inexpensive folding and box cameras of amateurs who happened to be rail fans. Thousands of pictures of the Third Avenue property were taken as the streetcars went about their daily duties against this scenic backdrop. It is estimated that at least 5000 photographic negatives of this specialized subject survive to this day.
How then should a suitable portrayal of this potent cityscape be organized? Illustrations by each type of car would certainly be valid. So too would illustrations strictly by geographya process that would have Third Avenue Railway's profusion of car lines tumbling in confusingly. Arbitrarily, the choice for this review will be by snapshots along each postwar route.
The book opens with scenes around the Crossroads of the World, followed by a look over the shoulder to downtown, then northward often under the mighty elevated rapid transit system, and through the incredibly varied ethnic neighborhoods of Manhattan and The Bronx. Our pictorial jaunt will reveal that Third Avenue Railway was indeed a colossusa vast streetcar empire important to the metropolitan communities that it served.
The vast system began as the Third Avenue Railroad Company, a horse car route between City Hall and 61st Street. The venture was quite prosperous, for it provided the up-and-down the island mobility that was the key to further city development and, by 1870, was extended up to and across 125th Street. Even with a stable of over 1700 horses to operate the service, the shortcomings of animal power were obvious to everyone. The only practical alternative available at that time was the costly system of using an underground moving cable to propel the cars.
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