IRT Lexington Avenue 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 6 <6> trains.

The line is also known as the IRT East Side Line, as it is currently 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 and Boston's entire transit systems" (Second Avenue Subway FEIS, p. 1–6). Its ridership also exceeds that of the 798,456 daily trips on the entire Washington Metro.^[2] Construction has started on the IND Second Avenue Line to alleviate the severe overcrowding caused by the Lexington Avenue Line's high usage.

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 22nd Street, so the 18th Street station was abandoned because of the proximity to both 14th Street – Union Square and 23rd Street.

As of January 2010, the 4's fleet is both R142 and R142A cars. The 5's fleet uses R142 cars and the 6's fleet uses R142A cars.

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 in lower Manhattan at the inner loop of the abandoned South Ferry station. 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 City Hall Loop and its abandoned station, which was the southern terminus of the original IRT subway line. The loop is still used to turn 6 and <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 Grand Central – 42nd Street 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 returns to 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>).

History

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.^[3] 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.^[4]

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,^[5] and construction was soon halted on Section 6.^[6]

The rest of the line, north to 125th Street, opened on July 17, 1918.^[7] 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.

Station listing

References

External links

• nycsubway.org — IRT East Side Line

Further reading

• "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