IRT Lexington Avenue Line

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Services that use the IRT Lexington Avenue Line through midtown and downtown have been colored green since 1979. The original IRT numbering system provided for 4, 5 and 6 on the line.

The Lexington Avenue Line is one of the lines of the IRT division of the New York City Subway, stretching from Downtown Brooklyn or Lower Manhattan north to 125th Street in East Harlem.^[1] The portion in Lower and Midtown Manhattan was part of the first subway line in New York. The line is served by 4, 5, and 6 trains, with limited rush hour 2 service (two trains heading to Brooklyn and four trains heading to the Bronx) to clear congestion.^{[citation needed]} The line is also known as the IRT East Side Line, as it is the only line in Manhattan to directly serve the Upper East Side and East Midtown; this four-track line is the most used rapid transit line in the United States. Its average of 1.3 million daily riders is "more than the combined ridership of San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston's entire transit systems" (Second Avenue Subway FEIS, p. 1–6). Its ridership also exceeds that of the 614,000 daily trips on the entire Washington Metro (SAS FEIS, p. 1–5). The Second Avenue Line has been proposed to alleviate the severe overcrowding caused by the Lexington Avenue Line's high usage.

The south end of the Lexington Avenue Line is near the East River, but its exact location is unclear. As of 2007, emergency exit signs label the two parts of Borough Hall as being along the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line and IRT Lexington Avenue Line. The chaining designations "K" (Clark Street Tunnel) and "M" (Joralemon Street Tunnel) join and become "E" (Eastern Parkway Line) at Borough Hall.

Several stations along this line have been abandoned. When platforms were lengthened to fit ten cars, it was deemed most beneficial to close these stations and open new entrances for adjacent stations. For example, 14th Street–Union Square has an entrance on 16th Street, and 23rd Street has an entrance on 20th Street, so 18th Street station was abandoned.

[edit] Extent and service

Services that use the Lexington Avenue Line are colored green. The following services use part or all of the Lexington Avenue Line:

The Lexington Avenue Line begins at the inner loop at South Ferry station, which is currently used to turn 5 trains at all times except rush hours. North of the station is a merge with the tracks of the Joralemon Street Tunnel from Brooklyn, which become the express tracks. These run north under Broadway and Park Row to Centre Street. At the south end of Center Street, directly under New York City Hall, is the abandoned City Hall loop and station, which was the southern terminus of the original IRT subway line. The loop is still used to turn 6 service; the Lexington Avenue local tracks, which feed the loop, rise up to join the express tracks just south of Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall station.

From Brooklyn Bridge, the line continues northward in a four-across track layout under Centre Street, Lafayette Street, Fourth Avenue, and Park Avenue South until 42nd Street. At this point, the beginning of Metro-North Railroad's Park Avenue tunnel in Grand Central Terminal forces the Lexington Avenue Line to shift slightly eastward to Lexington Avenue; its 42nd Street–Grand Central station is located on the diagonal between Park and Lexington. Just south of Grand Central, a single non-revenue track connects the IRT 42nd Street Shuttle to the southbound local track; this was part of the original IRT subway alignment.

Under Lexington Avenue, the line assumes a two-over-two track configuration, with the local tracks running on the upper level and the express on the lower, although it briefly returns to a four-across layout between 96th Street and 116th Street stations. 125th Street station maintains this two-over-two layout, although here the upper level is used by northbound trains (both local and express) and the lower level by southbound trains (again, both local and express). North of 125th Street, a flying junction marks the end of the line, where it splits into the IRT Jerome Avenue Line (4 and 5) and the IRT Pelham Line (6 and <6>).

[edit] History

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The part of the line from City Hall to just south of 42nd Street was part of the original IRT line, opened on October 27, 1904. An extension to Fulton Street opened at 12:01 a.m. on January 16, 1905. The next station, Wall Street, was opened on June 12, 1905.[1]

The first revenue train on the South Ferry extension left South Ferry at 11:59 p.m. on July 9, 1905; the extension of the IRT White Plains Road Line to West Farms opened just after. The first train ran through the Joralemon Street Tunnel to Brooklyn about 12:45 a.m. on January 9, 1908.

The original plan for what became the extension north of 42nd Street was to continue it south through Irving Place and into what is now the BMT Broadway Line at Ninth Street and Broadway. Contracts awarded on July 21, 1911 included Section 6 between 26th Street and 40th Street; at the time, the IRT had withdrawn from the talks, and the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT) was to operate on Lexington Avenue. The IRT submitted an offer for what became its portion of the Dual Contracts on February 27, 1912,^[2] and contsruction was soon halted on Section 6.^[3]

The rest of the line, north to 125th Street, opened on July 17, 1918. However, until the evening of August 1, 1918, it ran as a shuttle on the local tracks only, terminating at 42nd Street and at 167th Street on the IRT Jerome Avenue Line (where the connection from the elevated IRT Ninth Avenue Line merged). On August 1, service patterns were changed, and the Lexington Avenue Line became a through route. The IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line also switched from shuttle operation at that time, and the IRT 42nd Street Shuttle was formed along the old connection between the sides. Due to the shape of the system, it was referred to as the "H system". Also on August 1, the first section of the IRT Pelham Line opened to Third Avenue–138th Street.

[edit] Station listing

	Station	Tracks	Services	Opened	Transfers and notes
begins as a merge of the IRT Jerome Avenue Line (4 always, 5 all but late nights) and the IRT Pelham Line (6 always, <6> rush hours in peak direction)
	125th Street	all	4 always, 5 all but late nights, 6 always, <6> rush hours in peak direction	July 17, 1918	connection to Metro-North Railroad at Harlem–125th Street
	116th Street	local	4 late nights, 6 always	July 17, 1918
	110th Street	local	4 late nights, 6 always	July 17, 1918
	103rd Street	local	4 late nights, 6 always	July 17, 1918
	96th Street	local	4 late nights, 6 always	July 17, 1918
	86th Street	all	4 always, 5 all but late nights, 6 always, <6> rush hours in peak direction	July 17, 1918
	77th Street	local	4 late nights, 6 always	July 17, 1918
	68th Street–Hunter College	local	4 late nights, 6 always	July 17, 1918
	59th Street	all	4 always, 5 all but late nights, 6 always, <6> rush hours in peak direction	July 17, 1918	free transfer to N R W (BMT Broadway Line) free MetroCard transfer to F (IND 63rd Street Line) Roosevelt Island Tramway
	51st Street	local	4 late nights, 6 always	July 17, 1918	free transfer to E V (IND Queens Boulevard Line)
	42nd Street–Grand Central	all	4 always, 5 all but late nights, 6 always, <6> rush hours in peak direction	July 17, 1918	free transfer to 7 (IRT Flushing Line) free transfer to S (42nd Street Shuttle) connection to Metro-North Railroad at Grand Central Terminal originally Grand Central Station
merge on southbound local track from IRT 42nd Street Shuttle (S)
	33rd Street	local	4 late nights, 6 always	October 27, 1904
	28th Street	local	4 late nights, 6 always	October 27, 1904
	23rd Street	local	4 late nights, 6 always	October 27, 1904
	18th Street			October 27, 1904	closed November 7, 1948
	14th Street–Union Square	all	4 always, 5 all but late nights, 6 always, <6> rush hours in peak direction	October 27, 1904	free transfer to L (BMT Canarsie Line) free transfer to N Q R W (BMT Broadway Line) originally 14th Street
	Astor Place–Cooper Union	local	4 late nights, 6 always	October 27, 1904
	Bleecker Street	local	4 late nights, 6 always	October 27, 1904	free transfer between downtown platform and B D F V (Sixth Avenue Line)
	Spring Street	local	4 late nights, 6 always	October 27, 1904
	Canal Street	local	4 late nights, 6 always	October 27, 1904	free transfer to N Q R W (BMT Broadway main line) free transfer to N Q (Manhattan Bridge) free transfer to J M Z (BMT Nassau Street Line)
	Worth Street			October 27, 1904	closed September 1, 1962
local tracks split from express tracks (6 always)
	Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall	all	4 always, 5 all but late nights, 6 always, <6> rush hours in peak direction	October 27, 1904	free transfer to J M Z (BMT Nassau Street Line) originally Brooklyn Bridge, then Brooklyn Bridge–Worth Street
local train short turn (6 all times)
	City Hall			October 27, 1904	closed December 31, 1945 Lexington Avenue Local trains stopped at station from 1904 to 1945 except late nghts when trains continued to South Ferry
express trains continue (4 always, 5 all but late nights)
	Fulton Street	express	4 always, 5 all but late nights	January 16, 1905	free transfer to A C (IND Eighth Avenue Line) free transfer to J M Z (BMT Nassau Street Line) free transfer to 2 3 (IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line)
	Wall Street	express	4 always, 5 all but late nights	June 12, 1905
	Bowling Green	express	4 always, 5 all but late nights	July 10, 1905
IRT Eastern Parkway Line splits into Brooklyn via the Joralemon Street Tunnel (4 always, 5 rush hours)
	South Ferry		5 mid-days, evenings and weekends (express train short turn with no station stop)	July 10, 1905	Inner platform closed February 12, 1977 Lexington Avenue Line trains used the outer platform from July 10, 1905 to July 1, 1918 and from 1950 to February 12, 1977

[edit] External links

• nycsubway.org — IRT East Side Line

[edit] References

1. ^ MTA Capital Construction, Second Avenue Subway, Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement, Chapter 5B: Transportation—Subway and Commuter RailPDF (317 KiB)
2. ^ James Blaine Walker, Fifty Years of Rapid Transit, 1864-1917, published 1918, pp. 230-233
3. ^ New York Times, Petition for Subway in Lexington Ave., May 22, 1912, page 11

• "Fulton St. Trains Monday," New York Times, January 14, 1905, p. 5
• "Subway at Fulton Street Busy," New York Times, January 17, 1905, p.9
• "Subway Trains Run Again This Morning," New York Times, June 13, 1905, p. 1
• "Subway Trains Running from Bronx to Battery," New York Times, July 10, 1905, p. 1
• "Subway to Brooklyn Opened for Traffic," New York Times, January 9, 1908, p. 1
• "Lexington Av. Line to be Opened Today," New York Times, July 7, 1918, p. 13
• "Open New Subway Lines to Traffic; Called a Triumph," New York Times, August 2, 1918, p. 1
• "Old City Hall Station of IRT to Close Monday," New York Times, December 27, 1945, p. 24
• "IRT Station to be Closed," New York Times, November 6, 1948, p. 29
• "New Platform for IRT Locals at Brooklyn Bridge to End Jams," New York Times, September 1, 1962, p. 42
• "M.T.A. Expected to Save Franklin Avenue Shuttle, Once an Austerity Target," New York Times, February 10, 1977, p. 27