New York City is a city like no other.  It has huge skyscrapers, flashing lights, endless taxicabs, and lots of people—lots and lots of people.  Of course, the great city is also known for its enormous and efficient subway system.  Without the subway, the population of over eight million certainly couldn’t travel, commute, and function as easily as it does today.

 

Today, there are nearly 500 subway stations operating on twenty-eight different lines throughout New York City.  Every week, approximately 4.8 million people hop into over 6,000 subway cars and ride to different destinations across the city.  The number of daily subway riders today exceeds the entire population of the city when the lines first opened in 1904.  Wow!

 

New York City’s subway system wasn’t always so impressive.  While the city was booming by the early 1800s, there wasn’t enough reliable technology to build an underground transportation system.  But the city kept on growing.

 

The United States became an industrial powerhouse over the course of the 19^th century, and New York City was the center of it all.  Immigrants were literally coming by the boatload to find work in Big Apple, and Americans living in small, rural towns were also leaving the farm to live in the fast-paced city.

           

By the mid-1800s, the streets of New York City were becoming overcrowded with no sign of slowing down.  The idea of an underground transportation system was first proposed in 1868.  Unfortunately, any time a brave soul took on the task, he was inevitably defeated by a slew of financial, legal, and logistical problems.  How could you build an entire network of tunnels and railways under a city without disturbing the day to day life of the citizens?  The answer—it wasn’t easy. 

 

In 1900, with the streets growing more crowded everyday, the construction started again on the underground tunnels.  Millions of man-hours were spread out over four years to create the cutting edge subway system for New York City.

 

The climax of the project came on October 27, 1904, when New York Mayor George B. McClellan took the first subway train ride in New York.  McClellan even insisted on taking the controls for a few miles. 

 

The first New York subway wasn’t what we think of today.  There were just slightly over nine miles of track (as opposed to the 685 miles that there are today).  The original subway trains traveled much slower, and the riders did not have many options about where to get on and off.  Nonetheless, the subway quickly caught on and immediately helped the city operate more smoothly. 

 

As the popularity of the subway increased, so did the miles of track, number of stations, and frequency of stops.  Today, the subway system is a staple of the city, and it continually expands to make room for a growing market.