6. A Woman Was the First Person to Buy a Ticket for the NYC Subway
At 7 pm on October 27, 1904, the subway officially opened for paying fares. The New York Times points out that men had nickels and “lone women” had their “inevitable five pennies.” But despite the nickels of the men, the first person to buy a ticket was a “middle aged woman from Brooklyn,” writes the Chicago Tribune. She waited at the front of the line for two hours, shorter than the wait for cronuts on some days. However, the New York Times says the first green ticket was sold to H.M. Devoe, a Deputy Superintendent in the Board of Education, but maybe given his title he got some special treatment.
