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All Aboard, New York City!

By Nicole Iorio

In 1904, downtown New York City was crowded, noisy and dirty. New Yorkers got around on foot or by riding in horse-drawn carriages. Travel was slow, and the city was hungry for change. The transformation of the city came in the form of a speedy underground train when the first subway line opened on October 27, 1904.

Joe Cunningham, a transportation historian who leads tours at the New York Transit Museum, says life "changed virtually overnight." Suddenly, people could travel easily and quickly between their jobs and their homes. Many New Yorkers moved to distant areas of the city that had once seemed too far away.

The first subway line, which took more than four years to build, was nine miles long, reaching from City Hall to West 145th Street. A ride cost only five cents. The subway was an instant success. "It was overcrowded by the next day," Cunningham told TFK.

Soon, subway tracks were built in other parts of the city, and more trains were added. Today, the subway system's 26 lines cover 230 miles and stop at 468 stations. Trains run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The price has jumped to $2 a ride. Still, many busy New Yorkers think the convenience is worth every penny. More than 4.5 million people ride the trains each day. "During the last 100 years, the subway has made great strides," says Peter S. Kalikow, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which runs the subways.

Travelling Back in Time
Events to mark the subway's centennial, or 100th anniversary, have been going on all year. The New York Transit Museum has been giving tours, talks and workshops. Kids have written poetry and created mosaics similar to those that decorate many subway stations. Some riders have even had a chance to travel into the past on old train cars. On October 27, there will be a birthday party, and a Ms. Subways 2004 will be crowned.

To celebrate the big day, Paul Dubois Jacobs and his wife, Jennifer Swender, wrote the book My Subway Ride. Jacobs says traveling on a subway car that sways as it hugs the curves of the tracks "is like riding a bus made of Jell-O."

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