The IRT Sixth Avenue Line, often called the Sixth Avenue Elevated or Sixth Avenue El, was the second

elevated railway An elevated railway or elevated train (also known as an el train for short) is a rapid transit railway with the tracks above street level on a viaduct or other elevated structure (usually constructed from steel, cast iron, concrete, or bricks ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, following the Ninth Avenue Elevated. The line ran south of

Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West Side, Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the List of New York City parks, fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban par ...

, mainly along

Sixth Avenue Sixth Avenue – also known as Avenue of the Americas, although this name is seldom used by New Yorkers, p.24 – is a major thoroughfare in New York City's borough of Manhattan, on which traffic runs northbound, or "uptown". It is commercial ...

. Beyond the park, trains continued north on the Ninth Avenue Line.

History

The elevated line was constructed during the 1870s by the Gilbert Elevated Railway, subsequently reorganized as the Metropolitan Elevated Railway. The line opened on June 5, 1878 between Rector Street and 58th Street. Its route ran north from the corner of Rector Street and Trinity Place up Trinity Place / Church Street, then west for a block at Murray Street, then north again on

West Broadway West Broadway is a north-south street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, separated into two parts by Tribeca Park. The northern part begins at Tribeca Park, near the intersection of Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue), Walker Street a ...

, west again across West 3rd Street to the foot of Sixth Avenue, and then north to 59th Street. The following year, ownership passed to the

Manhattan Railway Company The Manhattan Railway Company was an elevated railway company in Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, United States. It operated four lines: the Second Avenue Line, Third Avenue Line, Sixth Avenue Line, and Ninth Avenue Line. History 19 ...

, which also controlled the other elevated railways in Manhattan. In 1881, the line was connected to the largely rebuilt Ninth Avenue Elevated; it was joined in the south at Morris Street, and in the north by a connecting link running across 53rd Street. And it ran 24/7. Due to its central location in Manhattan and the inversion of the usual relationship between street noise and height, the Sixth Avenue El attracted artists; in addition to being the subject of several paintings by

John French Sloan John French Sloan (August 2, 1871 – September 7, 1951) was an American painter and etcher. He is considered to be one of the founders of the Ashcan school of American art. He was also a member of the group known as The Eight. He is best known ...

, it was also painted by

Francis Criss Francis Hyman Criss (1901 - 1973) was an American painter. Criss's style is associated with the American Precisionists like Charles Demuth and his friend Charles Sheeler. Biography Criss was born in 1901 in London and immigrated with his family ...

and others. As of 1934, the following services were being operated: * 6th Avenue Local - South Ferry to 155th Street all hours, extended to Burnside Avenue via Jerome Avenue Line weekday and Saturday evenings. * 6th Avenue Express - Rector Street to Burnside Avenue via Jerome Avenue Line - weekday and Saturday peak hours. Trains ran express on Ninth Avenue southbound in the morning and northbound in the evening, and made all stops in the reverse direction. As with many elevated railways in the city, the Sixth Avenue El made life difficult for those nearby. It was noisy, it made buildings shake, and in the line's early years, it dropped ash, oil, and cinders on pedestrians below. Eventually, a coalition of commercial establishments and building owners along Sixth Avenue campaigned to have the El removed, on the grounds that it was depressing business and property values. In 1936, work started on the underground Sixth Avenue Line, operated by the city as part of the

Independent Subway System The Independent Subway System (IND or ISS), formerly known as the Independent City-Owned Subway System (ICOSS) or the Independent City-Owned Rapid Transit Railroad (ICORTR), was a rapid transit rail system in New York City that is now part of th ...

(IND). As part of the plan, three of New York City's private subway companies (the IND; the IRT; and the

Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation The Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) was an urban transit holding company, based in Brooklyn, New York City, United States, and incorporated in 1923. The system was sold to the city in 1940. Today, together with the IND subway s ...

, or BMT) would be combined into one system, and the IRT Sixth Avenue elevated would be demolished. The city of New York acquired the line from the bondholders of the

for $12,500,000, of which the city recovered $9,010,656 in back taxes and interest, in 1938. Subsequently, the El was closed on December 4, 1938. It was razed during 1939 to make way for the IND line. The section of the IND line that was located under Sixth Avenue opened in December 1940. The footings for the elevated were rediscovered in the early 1990s during a Sixth Avenue renovation project.
Stereograph_of_6th_Avenue_at_Waverly_Place_in_New_York_City

Stereograph_of_6th_Avenue_at_Waverly_Place_in_New_York_City

Allegations demolition scrap was sold to Japan

In order to alleviate any concern that the scrap metal might be exported to the

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

, demolition contractor Tom Harris, who had received $40,000 to demolish the structure provided affidavits to the New York City Council that none of the iron would leave the United States.The Minneapolis Star Tribune, Feb. 18, 1938, p.18 The inaccurate rumors were later included within the lines of

E. E. Cummings Edward Estlin Cummings, who was also known as E. E. Cummings, e. e. cummings and e e cummings (October 14, 1894 - September 3, 1962), was an American poet, painter, essayist, author and playwright. He wrote approximately 2,900 poems, two autobi ...

's 1944 poem "plato told." Twenty thousand tons of scrap metal from the El was sold to a dealer on the west coast who was in the export business. ''The New York Times'' pointed out in December 1938 that even if the scrap did not go directly to Japan, for possible use against China, such a large amount of scrap metal arriving on the market would free up metal to be sent to Japan. At a meeting of the

New York City Board of Estimate The New York City Board of Estimate was a governmental body in New York City responsible for numerous areas of municipal policy and decisions, including the city budget, land-use, contracts, franchises, and water rates. Under the amendments effec ...

in 1942, Stanley M. Isaacs, the Manhattan Borough President, denied that steel from the El was sold to Japan. Isaacs said that when the demolition contract was drafted in 1938, "at my insistence the contract provided that not one ounce of that steel could be exported to Japan or to any one else." Isaacs said that the contractor was prohibited from exporting the steel from the El, and carried out his obligation to the letter. Reports of the supposed sale of the scrap to Japan persisted. In 1961, an attorney for the Harris Structural Steel Company, which was involved in the demolition, told syndicated columnist

George Sokolsky George Ephraim Sokolsky (1893–1962) was a weekly radio broadcaster for the National Association of Manufacturers and a columnist for the ''New York Herald Tribune'', who later switched to ''The New York Sun'' and other Hearst newspapers. He was ...

that continued reports of the sale of steel from the El to Japan were not accurate. The attorney said that none of the steel from the El reached Japan directly or indirectly.

Station listing

All trains ran local, express trains utilized the Ninth Avenue express stations north of 53rd Street.

References

External links

nycsubway.org - The 6th Avenue El

1920 track map
{{DEFAULTSORT:Irt Sixth Avenue Line

6th Avenue Sixth Avenue – also known as Avenue of the Americas, although this name is seldom used by New Yorkers, p.24 – is a major thoroughfare in New York City's borough of Manhattan, on which traffic runs northbound, or "uptown". It is commercial ...

Railway lines closed in 1938 Sixth Avenue

History

Allegations demolition scrap was sold to Japan

Station listing

References

Further reading

External links