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Inventor
and engineer Robert Fulton launches the first steamboat. His ship, the
North River Steamboat, which cruises the Hudson River between New York
City and Albany, New York, is the first commercially successful passenger
steamboat in the world. A
steam ferry arriving at Fulton Ferry Slip, |
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Cornelius Vanderbilt starts a ferry service from Staten Island to Manhattan. Dewitt Clinton proposes the grid system for New York City streets. |
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New York celebrates the opening of the Erie Canal, a transportation link between the eastern seabord and the American interior. As a result New York becomes the busiest port in the U.S. |
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Abraham Brower organizes the first horse-drawn omnibus service in New York City.
Advertisement for omnibuses manufactured by John Stephenson, 1856. Gift of Luke Vincent Lockwood. |
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Alfred Ely Beach demonstrates the first "subway" in New York City: a pneumatic subway on 312 feet of track built illegally under Broadway near City Hall in Manhattan. Lack of legislative support and a stock market crash prevent investors from backing Beach's invention, and the project proves a failure.
Elevated railroad track, with inventor Charles Harvey testing experimental cable car at Greenwich St., 1867 |
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The Brooklyn Bridge, a steel cable suspension bridge, opens across the East River, the first bridge to link Brooklyn and Manhattan. The new bridge, which at 1,596 feet had the longest span in the world, provided two lanes for carriages, two tracks for streetcars, and a broad walkway for pedestrians. |
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The first recorded aircraft flight takes place on Long Island when a Lilienthal-type glider flies along Long Island's north shore. |
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Streetcars are converted to electricity.
Cover of the October, 1908 edition of the McGraw Publishing Company's Electric Railway Journal. McGraw's light rail magazines had advocated a shift from horse power to electric power as early as the 1890s, over the protests of the established streetcar operators. |
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The tunnels for the first subway line in the City, the Broadway Line of private Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) are constructed through the rocky center of Manhattan from City Hall to the northern tip of Manhattan, beginning in 1900. The first segment opens to great praise in 1904.
Curve of elevated roadway in Lower Manahattan from Pearl St. to the Erie Railroad Freight Line at Pier 8, ca. 1879 |
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The Board of Rapid Transit Commissioners announces plans for an additional nineteen subway lines.
The Staten Island Ferry is taken over by the City, and the toll remains 5 cents until 1974.
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Wilbur Wright makes the first powered airplane flight over Manhattan, flying from Governors Island in New York Harbor up the Hudson River to Grants Tomb (Riverside Drive and West 122nd Street) and back, in an airplane outfitted with a red canoe for emergency water landings. | ||||
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The first transcontinental flight occurs when Cal Rodgers flies from Long Island to California in 49 days. Also in this year, an aviation meet is held at the Nassau Boulevard air field in Garden City.
Cal Rodgers(right) and his Wright Model EX Vin Fiz at the conclusion of the first transcontinental flight, 1911. |
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New York City approves a dual system under which the rapid transit lines controlled by the Independent Rapid Transit Company and the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company are expanded and organized as two networks. The $302 million project will add 123 miles of routes and more than double the capacity of the rapid transit system. |
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Planes fly daily between New York and Washington, D.C., becoming the first regular airmail route in the country. | ||||
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To ease growing traffic congestion, New York City installs the first semaphore, a crude electric traffic signal borrowed from railroad technology, to aid police officers directing traffic. The device is installed in a control tower at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. The first flight across the Atlantic Ocean is made by the NC-4, a Navy Curtis flying boat built in Garden City, Long Island. The plane flies from Long Island to England with two stops in between. Congestion on West St., lower Manhattan, (undated) |
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The first nonstop flight across America is made from Long Island to California. |
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Groundbreaking for the Independent Subway System (IND) begins, financed by the City of New York. The IND, consisting of routes built solely underground -- except for a portion of its line in Brooklyn -- adds 59 additional miles of routes to the New York area. The first line, which opens in 1932, provides faster and more convenient service than other rapid transit lines in the city, and begins to attract more passengers. Like the IRT and BMT, the IND encourages development in the areas it serves. | ||||
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Aviator Charles Lindbergh flies his monoplane, the Spirit of St. Louis from Roosevelt Field on Long Island to Paris, the first one-man flight across the Atlantic Ocean. This event revolutionizes aviation.
Charles
Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic |
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The Holland Tunnel - the City's first underwater tunnel for motor vehicles - opens, connecting lower Manhattan and New Jersey. Its ventilation system becomes a model for vehicular tunnels worldwide. | ||||
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Aircraft manufacturer Grumman is founded. Grumman would become famous for many things, among them the construction of the Lunar module used for the Apollo program. Republic Aircraft Co. is founded the following year. Republic would become famous for construction of P-47 Thunderbolts used during World War II and considered one of the outstanding fighters in Europe. |
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The Queen Mary, the transatlantic passenger liner owned by the Cunard Line that for many years held the transatlantic speed record, makes her maiden voyage to New York City.
The Queen Mary at Dock, 1936 |
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The first regular commercial transatlantic airline service in America begins at Port Washington, Long Island. | ||||
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The unification of the subway system occurs when New York City, which already operated the Independent Subway System (IND), purchases the financially troubled BMT and IRT rapid transit lines. The New York City Transit Authority is formed 13 years later by the State of New York to operate the subway and public bus system.
View from the F or G Train, (undated). WPA Photos |
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Groundbreaking for the Second Avenue Subway in Manhattan; the project remains incomplete. |
