This Day in History: 27 October 2020
27 October 1904
116 years ago, today, the New York City subway opened. The first line, operated by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, travelled 9.1 miles through 28 stations. It ran from City Hall in lower Manhattan to Grand Central Terminal, before heading west to Times Square. The line finished by travelling north to Harlem. New York City's Mayor George McClellan took the controls on the subway and stayed at them all the way through City Hall to 103rd Street. More than 100,000 people paid a nickel to take their first ride under Manhattan when the subway opened to the general public at 7pm that evening.
While London's underground train network is the oldest, opening in 1863, and America's first subway opened in Boston in 1897, the New York subway soon became the largest American system. In 1905, the service expanded to the Bronx, to Brooklyn in 1908, and to Queens in 1915. The subway now has 26 lines and 472 stations. Every day, around 4.5 million passengers take the subway, and is one of the only rapid transit systems that runs 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, with the New Jersey PATH train being the other.
Want to find out more about the history of the New York subway? Click here for more information.
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