The New York City subway system is old. But it's also constantly evolving. It's an efficient way to get around the city. But it's also plagued by delays and areas that are under-serviced. The subway is a microcosm of New York City itself, illustrating the best and worst of urban life. Today, as the subway marks 120 since opening, we celebrate that system's vibrancy, diversity, and innovation by taking a deep dive into our archives and exploring 100 of our favorite fun facts and secrets about the sprawling subterranean system!
Opening Day
Photo of the Beach Pneumatic Transit line. Image in public domain, from New-York Historical Society via Wikimedia Commons
Before the Interborough Rapid Transit System, there was Alfred Beach's Pneumatic Subway—a one-block, single-track, single-car line below Broadway from Murray Street that ran from 1870 to 1873.
The original subway line had just 28 stops. Today there are 472 subway stations.
Tiffany & Co. (founded 1837), Controller handle, New York City, 1904, Silver, steel, ebony. New-York Historical Society, Gift of George B. McClellan, 1922.103
New York City Mayor George B. McClellan refused to give up control of the silver handle as he piloted the subway all the way from City Hall Station to 103rd Street!
The video below is the earliest footage of the New York City subway, shot on opening day in 1904. Seven months later, another film captured the ride from 14th to 42nd Street.
Roughly 150,000 people rode the subway on opening day, compared to today's daily ridership of 3.6 million!
It originally cost just five cents to ride the subway.
The first crime committed in the subway system (on opening day) was the theft of a diamond horseshoe pin worth $15,000 in today's money.
The three curved Guastavino & Co. skylights of City Hall Station were tarred over during World War II as a safety precaution. You can see the signature tiled arches of Guastavino all over New York City.
An ornamented oak ticket booth once stood on the station's mezzanine.
There were originally three separate subway systems: Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT-1904), the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Company (BMT-1923), and the Independent Subway System (IND-1932). The city consolidated these systems into one in 1940.
The oldest part of the subway system is an elevated structure between Alabama Avenue and the Cypress Hills station on the J, Z line. This stretch of elevated track dates to the 1880s.
The newest stations opened in 2017 as part of the Second Ave line at 72nd Street, 86th Street, and 96th Street.
The deadliest subway car crash in history, the Malbone Street Wreck, took place inside a tunnel beneath the intersection of Empire Boulevard, Flatbush Avenue, and Ocean Avenue in 1918.
If you're late for work or school due to a train delay, the MTA can back up your story. Request a delay verification letter online.
Untapped New York tour guide Mandy Edgecombe met one of the voices of the subway, Charlie Pellett...on the subway!
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Video Courtesy of Mandy Edgecombe
Celebrities like Jerry Seinfeld, Whoopi Goldberg, and Awkwafina have lent their voices to special subway announcements.
Subway Car Secrets
The MTA operates 13 Maintenance Shops and two Overhaul Shops where workers take care of the system's 6,500+ cars.
Over 2,000 decommissioned subway cars were dropped into the Atlantic Ocean off the coasts of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina to become artificial reefs. Other items like crushed toilet bowls, tires, and sunken ice cream trucks have also been used for reef creation!
Women-only subway cars, nicknamed "Suffragette Cars” or “Merry Widow Cars," ran briefly in the early 1900s...and again in the 1950s.
Those tiny thermometer stickers on subway car ceilings are target-temperature decals. MTA employees scan these stickers with a laser to find out the temperature of the subway car.
The temperature should always fall between 58 and 78 degrees Fahrenheit.
The first air-conditioned subway car was introduced in July 1967.
August Belmont, Jr., President of the IRT and one of its main financiers, had his own private subway car to travel from Grand Central to his racetrack at Belmont Park.
During the 1960s, riders could enjoy a glass of champagne and a pretzel or bagel on the short-lived "bar car" which ran between Times Square and South Ferry.
Massimo Vignelli's beloved 1972 subway map is in the Museum of Modern Art’s postwar design collection. Remnants of a Vignelli map posted in the subway were uncovered in 2017 at the 57th Street/6th Avenue station.
You can own a piece of the subway! The MTA hosts an annual pop-up sale of memorabilia and collectibles such as station signs and fixtures, vintage tokens, and bits of equipment like doors, seating, grabholds, and stanchion poles...even a station garbage can.
There is a hidden meaning behind the colors used for subway lines. The colored tiles inside stations are the remnants of a coded system from the IMD. Before the 1970s when a unified color coordination system was adopted, things were a bit complicated. New York Transit Museum curator Jodi Shapiro helps us break it down for you here!
Untapped New York by Michelle Young
Subway globes help identify different types of stations. Full green and half-green globes indicate that a station entrance is open while a red or half-red globe signifies that the station is exit-only, permanently closed, or a privately-owned easement entrance.
All subway stairs are labeled with a code that identifies their location within the station. An “M,” “S,” or “P” are always the first letters to appear in the code. “M” stands for mezzanine, “S” stands for street, and “P” stands for platform. Decode the rest here!
Why do MTA conductors point up when the train stops? They are indicating that the train is lined up with the “zebra board” in the middle of the platform which shows where the train should stop.
We're looking into a portion of subway map tile recently uncovered on the floor of Grand Central Terminal. Do you know anything about it? We think it's from the 1990s.
Lost Subway Routes, Abandoned Stations, and other Forgotten Remnants
The basement of the Woolworth Building was once connected to the City Hall Station of the BMT line via a passageway under Broadway.
The subway almost connected to trolley routes over the Brooklyn Bridge. While this connection was never complete, remnants of the partially built rail route still exist within the bowels of the subway.
Courtesy of Undisclosed Photographer
Did the 76th Street station in Queens, the "Roswell" of the NYC subway system, ever exist? It's a hot transit debate.
The music video for Michael Jackson's “Bad” was shot on the abandoned platforms of the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station. Do your best moonwalk on our Brooklyn Underground Subway Tour!
Pieces of the original 1970s World Trade Center subway concourse, including a door marked by 9/11 first responders, are still intact at the entrance to the E and C platforms.
Near the current Times Square Shuttle platform, you used to be able to see a clear view of active tracks and vestiges of the original 4, 5, and 6 lines that ran from the City Hall Station through Grand Central and Times Square. This view was covered by a staircase after renovations to the station, but you can still see a glimpse of the old tracks if you know where to look.
A door that once led to The Knickerbocker Hotel's lowest level can also be seen near the shuttle to Grand Central Terminal, along with other remnants of the original station!
A special subway line was built to transport riders from Manhattan to Queens for the 1939-40 World's Fair. The two-mile spur was demolished once the fair ended.
For the 1964-65 World's Fair, 430 aqua-blue subway cars were commissioned to shuttle visitors to the fairgrounds. Discover more lost subway routes!
Near the turnstiles on the downtown platform of the 6 train, you can see a bricked-in doorway that once led to a corridor connecting the subway station to Clinton Hall, a building that is still standing at the triangle of Astor Place on East 8th Street and Lafayette Street. It's one of many forgotten subway entrances!
You can ride through the abandoned Worth Street Station on the 6 train between Canal Street and Brooklyn Bridge City Hall.
The best way to capture video of abandoned stations as you ride through is to turn on your flash, put your camera phone flush against the car window, and shoot in slow motion!
The abandoned portion of the Bowery Station on the J/Z line is a popular location for special events like runway shows and television shoots. The NYPD used the abandoned space for a counter-terrorism training drill.
The New Yorker Hotel was once connected to the subway via a now-hidden tunnel to Penn Station. The private tunnel was featured in many hotel advertisements through the 1950s but was closed in the 1960s.
There are more than 400 works of art spread throughout the New York City transit system.
Over 100 new pieces of art have been added since 2015.
An interactive musical instrument hides in plain sight at the 34th Street-Herald Square N/R train platforms. You can activate the installation by reaching up and covering the openings on the green metal bar pictured above.
Roy Lichtenstein's Pop Art mural inside the Times Square station includes a nod to the 1964 World’s Fair, as you can see what looks like the Unisphere and one of the New York State Pavilion Observation Towers in the background.
Ornate original tile mosaics can be found throughout the system at stations like Fulton Street (IRT), Astor Place, and Borough Hall.
Graphic designer Milton Glaser (creator of the I Love NY Logo) was inspired by the original terra cotta art at Astor Place for his subway art installation, one of the first to be installed in 1985.
Tiny red question marks in the animal mosaics at the 81st Street subway station mark endangered species.
Artist Mary Miss's installation at Union Square frames architectural remnants of the original 1904 station in red.
Peek out the window as you ride the Q train from the DeKalb station towards Manhattan (through the abandoned Myrtle Avenue subway station) for a glimpse of the Masstransiscope, a 300-foot-long animated mural created by Bill Brand in 1980.
Listen for sounds emanating from the ground in Times Square as you walk over subway grates that are part of an auditory art piece installed by percussionist, artist, and “sound sculptor” Max Neuhaus in 1977.
103 street artists created original works for The Underbelly Project, a hidden exhibition inside an abandoned and off-limits station beneath Williamsburg at South 4th Street—a never-opened station built for the IND line.
Workers keep subway tracks clean with a fleet of 600-horsepower vacuum trains known as VakTraks. The cars travel up to 10 miles per hour and suck up garbage.
Though usually a 24/7 service, the subway has shut down multiple times for blackouts, hurricanes, disinfection during the COVID-19 pandemic, and worker strikes.
The former power station for the Brooklyn Rapid Transit system, decommissioned in 1950, is now Powerhouse Arts, a multidisciplinary arts center with manufacturing, exhibition, and educational spaces.
Subway tracks are inspected manually twice a week, and analyzed by a fleet of four track-geometry cars with a variety of lights, sensors, and cameras designed to spot defects and track rail conditions.
From 1904 to 1920, riders accessed the subway with paper tickets that were shredded by a ticket-chopping machine. You can see one at the New York Transit Museum!
Subway tokens were introduced in 1953 when fares were raised to 15 cents because there are no 15-cent coins.
Mace was sprayed on subway token slots to prevent the practice of "token sucking."
The New York Transit Museum has a display of "slugs," fake subway tokens riders used to avoid fares.
The hole on MetroCards and the slanted edge serve a purpose.
Underground NYC Subway Tour
Ride through the oldest stations, uncover hidden art, and more!
