Unbuilt Stuff

[DJ MC]

Please, watch the Nazi Banksters Crimes Ripple Effect at http://jforjustice.co.uk/banksters

[Roadcruiser1]

I would love for them to restart some of these projects. Like for example the IND Utica Avenue, and IND Worth Street Line. The portal to these tunnels have already been dug, and South Fourth Street a station that would have existed on this line exist. It's above the Broadway station at the Crosstown Line. There are 4 platforms, and 6 tracks right up there. Plus Utica Avenue is completely not served by any subway. This would help the residents that live in Mill Basin.

[CenSin]

I would love for them to restart some of these projects. Like for example the IND Utica Avenue, and IND Worth Street Line. The portal to these tunnels have already been dug, and South Fourth Street a station that would have existed on this line exist. It's above the Broadway station at the Crosstown Line. There are 4 platforms, and 6 tracks right up there. Plus Utica Avenue is completely not served by any subway. This would help the residents that live in Mill Basin.

It'll take a lot more reasons than benefits for the residents of Mill Basin to get anything started. The Second Avenue line is only being constructed because of:

• …safety. It's arguably safer if there are less people jostling around on the platforms. That can only happen if they have an alternative means to get where they are going.

• …added service. The Lexington Avenue line is the only line serving the east side of Manhattan and people must walk further east to reach their destinations.

• …crowding and capacity problems on the Lexington Avenue line which affects 338 million people annually. Tell me how that compares to benefiting Mill Basin.

 

Let's not forget that the project is happening despite NIMBY opposition!

[Joel Up Front]

I ****ing hate NIMBYs so much. They should run the trains through all their ****ing homes and buildings...

[Roadcruiser1]

Hey now that would be Robert Moses talking there. Robert Moses would be someone that would threaten someone out of house, and home.

[bigrene18]

South 4th Street pictures:

 

About 20 years ago I had a chance to walk down the closed mezzanine leading to South 4th Street shell at the IND Broadway station. There was a wide stairway at the other end. I walked up there and I saw a passageway going into the dark distance. I took a flash picture but it didn't come out. Someone told me they were up there once and found a light panel switch and it lit up the station. From what I remember from my visit (an employee was with me just in case of a problem), this photo was taken from one of the South 4th Street station platforms. If one were to shimmy down the roughed-in stairway, then hang a sharp left in the passageway below, you would be heading toward a door. Unlock that door, and you're on the North end of the Northbound platform. Both platforms have false walls at the North end; about a third of South 4th extends N of the platform limits.

 

Even though it is a mere station shell and only as long as the Broadway station beneath it is wide, it is still immense. There is no lighting, and no amount of flash would provide enough illumination.

 

 

When seeing this photo, and some of the others, you can almost picture the columns painted up, with "S4" signs on them, some tiles on the walls, waiting for a train that will never come. The platforms do look distinctively "IND".

 

http://ltvsquad.com/Missions/Tunnels/Subways/2ndSys/Various.php

 

http://ltvsquad.com/Missions/Tunnels/Subways/2ndSys2/index.php

 

 

Proposed Brooklyn Bridge trackways:

 

This picture was taken just south of the Chambers Street station. This was for the proposed Brooklyn Bridge connection. It may have been, though from where the cliff leaves off to the J/Z below, it would hae been quite a steep grade to climb (I'm a bad estimator of height, but it had to be a 50 to 100ft. drop off). My guess was that perhaps the brooklyn bridge el tracks had an 'underground' terminal, like that of the tracks which went over the 59th Street Bridge. Towards one end was what seemed like a loading dock - with another set of steps up to it. By climbing the steps and ducking down along a truely low ceiling (3, perhaps 4 feet at some spots), you'd reach the cliff overlooking the J/Z stop.

 

 

The location in this pic was supposed to be for a proposed diamond crossover leading to/from the Bklyn Brdge. Short of the 'loading dock', 2 tunnels meet: one comes in on a curve, and the other (which has the steps in from the wine cellar) is straight. In the dirt where there 2 tunnels meets, you could clearly see some type of rail switch track. The truely puzzling part is that perhaps 10, 20 feet from this switch, the track runs directly into the 'loading dock', pointing in the direction of the cliff and J/Z station.

 

Utica Ave/Fulton St station shell:

 

Classic IND Green & White paint.

 

One of the platforms.

 

More of the station.

 

The trackways between Hoyt Street and Nevins Street:

 

This picture was taken east of Hoyt St, where the trackway ramps down to the Nevins St station lower level.

 

This was taken below the curve of the Brooklyn IRT Subway from under Fulton Street to Flatbush Avenue. This is where the trackway curves under the southbound local track, and is joined by a bellmouth heading north along Flatbush Avenue for a proposed Manhattan Bridge connection which was later built for the BRT/BMT.

 

Classon Avenue Trackway:

 

[bigrene18]

That is a lot of projects that never got done.

 

Yep, and most of them is on the Queens Blvd Subway.

 

I've noticed in several trips along this route tunnels that branch off the local tracks in several spots that dead-end. It is evident that the IND Queens Blvd line was intended to be a trunk route.

 

The things built in are:

 

1- At Roosevelt Avenue, a two-track terminal-- an island platform between

two trackways-- was built on the upper level starting at the east end

of the main station mezzanine and extending east. East of Roosevelt Ave, observe bellmouths for the local tracks to connect up to the same line. This route was to run southward to Ridgewood/Glendale and connect to other unbuilt line there. Land was acquired for the line, which was to run under private property here, in the first block south of Broadway, now occupied by a playground.

 

 

2- At Woodhaven Blvd, the local station was convertible to an express

station at a future date. Observe bellmouths for the local tracks to

spread away from the express track at both ends.

 

 

3- East of 63d Drive, observe again bellmouths for the local tracks to

run up into another unbuilt route to the south, to the Rockaways.

 

 

4- North of Van Wyck Blvd (Briarwood), bellmouths between the express and local tracks ran down for a route to South Jamaica. This provision is now in use for the Archer Ave line. Did you wonder how they built that junction in

so seamlessly? It was already there from the beginning.

[bigrene18]

At the Bedford-Nostrand Avenue station on the is a 600 foot BRT subway tunnel that crosses under the at this point. Through extensive research I found out the end of the Franklin Avenue Shuttle was supposed to connect to Queensboro Plaza & this section of tunnel was built in anticipation of the G line being built.

 

Well this is true, and I have proof:

(Note: Look for the Green dashed line which was for the proposed BRT Crosstown El.)

 

So, the BRT was toying with plans to extend a crosstown el from Franklin Avenue and Fulton Street in Brooklyn across Greenpoint to tie in at the huge Queensborough Plaza terminal. This projected line was never formally part of the Dual System and, in fact, never materialized.

 

The BRT/BMT Crosstown Elevated, which was later built as today’s line Subway (although not exactly along the same route).

[bigrene18]

I found another few more: The Public Service Commission planned a new platform for the 42nd Street Shuttle, and ending close to the Grand Central-42nd Street station on the Lex Ave Line. The platform was constructed, but it was never used. The wall and roof of the old subway were removed at the curve just south of the old Grand Central station, and trackways were built continuing east under 42nd Street, to bring those two tracks into the new station, which was a narrow island platform between the two tracks. The unused trackways of the proposed shuttle platform were covered with wooden flooring, and the width of the station was finished up as a passageway between the Lexington Avenue Line and Shuttle stations. The wooden flooring in the unused station platform was replaced by concrete in the mid 1940's. The space of the proposed platform is now used as a walkway that continues to the Lexington Avenue Line station.

 

I heard from someone (not from here) that north of the Steinway Street IND station, a walk into the tunnel on the catwalk, there is a door. A look through the door will reveal a lower level tunnel. The never-used tunnel was built for the IND Second System. A line would have split away from the mainline tracks just north of the station, and would have run across the East River and into Manhattan. I don't know if this is also true, because this is the first time I ever heard of this. Just look for yourself in this map.

[Far Rock Depot]

Nice pics!!!!!!! Ive never got to see the shell of Utica/Fulton before!!!

[INDman]

Nice pics!!!!!!! Ive never got to see the shell of Utica/Fulton before!!!

 

Most of them came from LTV Squad.

[Trainmaster5]

I've been in the Utica-Fulton shell station when I was a RR Porter back in the day. My mother and grandmother told me where to look and the RR Clerk showed me which key to use to gain entry. I went in with a Transit cop who had also heard about it from his parents. In my family it was a mantra that anytime the T.A. proposed a bond issue for the Second System, or any other expansion, that the bond issue would be approved but the $$$ would disappear and nothing would get built. Hell, I've got relatives in southern Brooklyn and Queens who've waited through a Depression and WW II and still haven't seen a track laid in their neighborhoods after a few bond issues passed after the war.

[bigrene18]

Nice pics!!!!!!!

 

Thanks. Some of those pics are from here: http://ltvsquad.com/.

 

Ive never got to see the shell of Utica/Fulton before!!!

 

At 2nd Avenue/Houston St, East B'way, Broadway on the , and Utica/Fulton stations, an unbuilt IND subway was to cross over lines that were built, and so sections of stations that were never finished were built within the construction limits to simplify work later.

 

Most of them came from LTV Squad.

 

Umm, yes I know that. Thats where I got a few of those pics from.

[bigrene18]

The Concourse line does not immediately turn east north of the 145th Street station toward the Polo Grounds as most think, rather the line continues northward a bit as indicated on "Sanborn" or "Bromley" maps made after the subways were built and also shown on such maps up until the 1990's. The Concourse line extends a bit, while it is the St. Nicholas Avenue branch of the Washington Heights line that turns at a bit, and begins the descent of the express tracks for the 155th Street station. When I worked in the planning office on 125th Street in Harlem, I looked at and reviewed the Sanborn maps of Harlem/northern Manhattan on a daily basis. The open space is simply the roof of the Concourse line in the subway structure below it.Mike

 

Look to the right as the C train leaves 145th Street at the 3:30 - 3:36 mark in this video to see what I'm talking about:

 

 

[INDman]

Look to the right as the C train leaves 145th Street at the 3:30 - 3:36 mark in this video to see what I'm talking about:

 

 

 

It's just open space on top of the Concourse Line. If it was meant to be a tunnel, who would trains platform at 145? The curve away from the 8th Av line starts well in side the station limits, but follows the track way down stairs perfectly. It is not a bell mouth or anything.

[bigrene18]

It's just open space on top of the Concourse Line. If it was meant to be a tunnel, who would trains platform at 145? The curve away from the 8th Av line starts well in side the station limits, but follows the track way down stairs perfectly. It is not a bell mouth or anything.

 

Ummm, I never even said it was a bellmouth. I said "the so-called bellmouth", because that what many people assume it is. If you read my posts, you would know what I said about that.

 

Of course it not a bellmouth, because the track-side wall at the north end of the 145th Street (Upper level) "moves" away from the tracks inside the station, and continues about 70-90 ft into the tunnel.

[MikeGerald]

I understand and I know exactly what you are describing - there are several instances where simply for construction purposes - the subway tunnel is wider than or does not exactly follow the train tracks like a glove. These instances does not mean that there was an intention to create a new subway line from that point but simply about fitting the tracks into something like a rectangular box - the structure of the tunnel itself.

 

Plenty of fans have talked about the space left over from the south-bound 8th Avenue local train at 14th Street, as the train curves off to Greenwich Street, or the north-bound R-local train entering the City Hall station. In all of these cases, the tunnel walls are either in place from their support of trackways on a lower level (City Hall, 145th Street), or it is the joining of one rectangular box (the subway structure) meeting another rectangular box (the other subway structure).

 

The 145th Street station was my home station through-out my entire time at City College - CCNY in the 1970's. So yes, I know the station well. I was a city planner based in Harlem for more than a decade, who looked over the property maps of the entire area - 96th Street to 155th Street on a daily basis and up to 178th Street fairly frequently - all of this Hudson River to East and Harlem Rivers. And I am a transit nut. So yes, I KNOW exactly what you are talking about.

 

As an example - on an elevated transit line - one does not count every extension of the steel-work structure as evidence of a proposed extension or an un-built line. Much of the steel-work structure for an elevated line has to exist over a street that has traffic lanes, sidewalks and other buildings to consider - so plenty of times - a kind of bridge work is created, especially on curves. Yes, it is true that there are instances where the steel-work remains does mean there was an elevated pathway now no longer in existence, but not EVERY TIME.

 

Subway Tunnel Walls Do Not Always Fit The Tracks Like A Glove.

 

Mike

[INDman]

Ummm, I never even said it was a bellmouth. I said "the so-called bellmouth", because that what many people assume it is. If you read my posts, you would know what I said about that.

 

Of course it not a bellmouth, because the track-side wall at the north end of the 145th Street (Upper level) "moves" away from the tracks inside the station, and continues about 70-90 ft into the tunnel.

 

I've read your posts and at one point you did insist it was a bellmouth. Even referring to it as a so called bellmouth is misleading.

[bigrene18]

I've read your posts and at one point you did insist it was a bellmouth. Even referring to it as a so called bellmouth is misleading.

 

Well, it was a mistake. That is just an open space due to that fact that the middle level at 145th Street is a four track line that at the northern end the A-train express tracks are about to start lowering, and that the Concourse tracks are about to start turning toward the Polo Grounds. In addition the Concourse line is a three-track line housed in a structure that also has to accomodate a four track line. If you even cared to read that last sentence of that post, I said : "The so called "bellmouth" N/O 145 St U/L on A-2 track is just a vagary of the construction in that area and was never intended for any expansion use."

 

I understand and I know exactly what you are describing - there are several instances where simply for construction purposes - the subway tunnel is wider than or does not exactly follow the train tracks like a glove. These instances does not mean that there was an intention to create a new subway line from that point but simply about fitting the tracks into something like a rectangular box - the structure of the tunnel itself.

 

Thank you, and yes the "These instances does not mean that there was an intention to create a new subway line from that point but simply about fitting the tracks into something like a rectangular box - the structure of the tunnel itself" describes that open space north of 145 St Upper Level on the A2 track.

[INDman]

 

Well, it was a mistake, and if you even cared to read that last sentence of that post, I said : "The so called "bellmouth" N/O 145 St U/L on A-2 track is just a vagary of the construction in that area and was never intended for any expansion use."

 

Wow, people just like jumping to conclusions.

 

Relax dude, it's just an internet forum. It's not that serious.

[bigrene18]

Relax dude, it's just an internet forum. It's not that serious.

 

You should of read the last sentence of that post then.

[pelhamlocal]

South 4th Street pictures:

 

About 20 years ago I had a chance to walk down the closed mezzanine leading to South 4th Street shell at the IND Broadway station. There was a wide stairway at the other end. I walked up there and I saw a passageway going into the dark distance. I took a flash picture but it didn't come out. Someone told me they were up there once and found a light panel switch and it lit up the station. From what I remember from my visit (an employee was with me just in case of a problem), this photo was taken from one of the South 4th Street station platforms. If one were to shimmy down the roughed-in stairway, then hang a sharp left in the passageway below, you would be heading toward a door. Unlock that door, and you're on the North end of the Northbound platform. Both platforms have false walls at the North end; about a third of South 4th extends N of the platform limits.

 

Even though it is a mere station shell and only as long as the Broadway station beneath it is wide, it is still immense. There is no lighting, and no amount of flash would provide enough illumination.

 

 

When seeing this photo, and some of the others, you can almost picture the columns painted up, with "S4" signs on them, some tiles on the walls, waiting for a train that will never come. The platforms do look distinctively "IND".

 

http://ltvsquad.com/Missions/Tunnels/Subways/2ndSys/Various.php

 

http://ltvsquad.com/Missions/Tunnels/Subways/2ndSys2/index.php

 

 

Proposed Brooklyn Bridge trackways:

 

This picture was taken just south of the Chambers Street station. This was for the proposed Brooklyn Bridge connection. It may have been, though from where the cliff leaves off to the J/Z below, it would hae been quite a steep grade to climb (I'm a bad estimator of height, but it had to be a 50 to 100ft. drop off). My guess was that perhaps the brooklyn bridge el tracks had an 'underground' terminal, like that of the tracks which went over the 59th Street Bridge. Towards one end was what seemed like a loading dock - with another set of steps up to it. By climbing the steps and ducking down along a truely low ceiling (3, perhaps 4 feet at some spots), you'd reach the cliff overlooking the J/Z stop.

 

 

The location in this pic was supposed to be for a proposed diamond crossover leading to/from the Bklyn Brdge. Short of the 'loading dock', 2 tunnels meet: one comes in on a curve, and the other (which has the steps in from the wine cellar) is straight. In the dirt where there 2 tunnels meets, you could clearly see some type of rail switch track. The truely puzzling part is that perhaps 10, 20 feet from this switch, the track runs directly into the 'loading dock', pointing in the direction of the cliff and J/Z station.

 

Utica Ave/Fulton St station shell:

 

Classic IND Green & White paint.

 

One of the platforms.

 

More of the station.

 

The trackways between Hoyt Street and Nevins Street:

 

This picture was taken east of Hoyt St, where the trackway ramps down to the Nevins St station lower level.

 

This was taken below the curve of the Brooklyn IRT Subway from under Fulton Street to Flatbush Avenue. This is where the trackway curves under the southbound local track, and is joined by a bellmouth heading north along Flatbush Avenue for a proposed Manhattan Bridge connection which was later built for the BRT/BMT.

 

Classon Avenue Trackway:

 

How did you get a TA worker show you around down their?

[bigrene18]

How did you get a TA worker show you around down their?

 

I asked an worker (a friend of mines) permission to go to these areas. BTW, these aren't my pictures.

[2Line1291]

Its sad that these provisions and tunnels were built was were never finished

[bigrene18]

Its sad that these provisions and tunnels were built was were never finished

 

Yep, it's sad alright. You have to give the builders credit for planning ahead as they did. It's a shame the proposed lines never came to fruition.