The Park Avenue Tunnel, also called the Murray Hill Tunnel, is a tunnel that passes under seven blocks of

Park Avenue Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Avenu ...

in Murray Hill, in the

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 ...

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle Ag ...

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 ...

. Traffic currently goes northbound from 33rd Street toward the

Park Avenue Viaduct The Park Avenue Viaduct, also known as the Pershing Square Viaduct, is a roadway in Manhattan in New York City. It carries vehicular traffic on Park Avenue from 40th to 46th Streets around Grand Central Terminal and the MetLife Building, th ...

. The tunnel is under the jurisdiction of the

New York City Department of Transportation The New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) is the agency of the government of New York City responsible for the management of much of New York City's transportation infrastructure. Ydanis Rodriguez is the Commissioner of the Departm ...

, and carries one lane of northbound car traffic from East 33rd Street to East 40th Street; from 40th Street north, traffic must follow the

around

Grand Central Terminal Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to as Grand Central Station or simply as Grand Central) is a commuter rail terminal located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Grand Central is the southern terminus ...

to 46th Street. The vertical clearance is . The

IRT Lexington Avenue Line The IRT Lexington Avenue Line (also known as the IRT East Side Line and the IRT Lexington–Fourth Avenue Line) is one of the lines of the A Division of the New York City Subway, stretching from Lower Manhattan north to 125th Street in East H ...

of the

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October 2 ...

, carrying the , runs parallel to the Park Avenue Tunnel in two tunnels below it.

History

The tunnel once carried the

New York and Harlem Railroad The New York and Harlem Railroad (now the Metro-North Railroad's Harlem Line) was one of the first railroads in the United States, and was the world's first street railway. Designed by John Stephenson, it was opened in stages between 1832 and ...

and later, that company's

streetcar line A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...

. It was then called the Murray Hill Tunnel. The tunnel was originally built as an open rock cut, completed in 1834, after which the NY&H Railroad was opened as far as Yorkville, to

85th Street 85th Street is a westbound-running street, running from East End Avenue to Riverside Drive in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. At Fifth Avenue, the street feeds into the 86th Street transverse, which runs east–west through Central P ...

. The first trains to use the cut were horse-drawn, but it carried steam trains from the beginning of New York & Harlem steam service in 1837 until steam locomotives were prohibited south of 42nd St in 1858.New York and Vicinity Railroad Map from 1860 (BrooklynRail.net)
/ref> In 1850, the cut was roofed over using granite stringers from the original railroad bed south of 14th Street, thus creating the present tunnel. In 1870 an underground station for local horse-drawn streetcar service was added at 38th St along with stations at the portals at 34th St and 40th St. After the completion of

Grand Central Depot Grand Central Terminal is a major commuter rail terminal in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, serving the Metro-North Railroad's Harlem, Hudson and New Haven Lines. It is the most recent of three functionally similar buildings on the same ...

in 1871 the tunnel was used exclusively by local streetcars. The streetcar line was electrified with underground conduit power in 1898. In 1913, there was a plan to move the southern portal of the Park Avenue Tunnel one block north. This would have been accomplished by lowering 34th Street to the height of the existing tunnel. Lloyd Collis of the Fourth Avenue Improvement Association said the plan would have minimal impact on surrounding buildings, such as the then-new

Vanderbilt Hotel 4 Park Avenue (formerly known as the Vanderbilt Hotel) is a 22-story building in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Designed by Warren and Wetmore, the structure was built for Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt and opened in 191 ...

, and would allow passengers at the 33rd Street station to cross Park Avenue without having to detour to 32nd or 34th Street. Several prominent businessmen and property owners including

J. P. Morgan Jr. John Pierpont Morgan Jr. (September 7, 1867 – March 13, 1943) was an American banker, finance executive, and philanthropist. He inherited the family fortune and took over the business interests including J.P. Morgan & Co. after his father J. P ...

and Charles D. Wetmore opposed the plan. Some residents alleged the plan would damage nearby properties, while others objected that a flattened 34th Street would allow the construction of a

moving walkway A moving walkway, also known as an autowalk, moving pavement, moving sidewalk, people-mover, travolator, or travelator, is a slow-moving conveyor mechanism that transports people across a horizontal or inclined plane over a short to medium distan ...

, "ruining" the residential character of the neighborhood. The plans would have allowed a subway line to be built under 34th Street as well, though the Public Service Commission canceled a planned subway line under 34th Street in May 1913. Mayor

William Jay Gaynor William Jay Gaynor (February 2, 1849 – September 10, 1913) was an American politician from New York City, associated with the Tammany Hall political machine. He served as the 94th mayor of the City of New York from 1910 to 1913, and previously ...

vetoed the portal proposal the next month. In 1919 the ramp to the

around Grand Central Terminal was built directly above the northern streetcar ramp (which sloped upward from a portal north of 40th St to street level at 42nd St). In 1935 streetcar service was discontinued and the tunnel converted for roadway use. At that time the north end was reconstructed with a steeper approach, reaching street level south of 40th St and allowing continuous car travel from the tunnel onto the viaduct. The tunnel reopened as a roadway in 1937. Prior to August 3, 2008, the tunnel carried two-way traffic, one

lane In road transport, a lane is part of a roadway that is designated to be used by a single line of vehicles to control and guide drivers and reduce traffic conflicts. Most public roads (highways) have at least two lanes, one for traffic in each ...

for each direction; on that date, it was made northbound-only to increase safety for pedestrians crossing Park Avenue at 33rd Street. In February 2017, the Park Avenue Tunnel was closed for a $24 million rehabilitation. It reopened in 2019.

Art installations

In 2013, the tunnel was open to pedestrians for the first time in coordination with the annual Summer Streets event, which shuts down part of Park Avenue to vehicular traffic between 7:00 am and 1:00 pm for three Sundays every August. During the August 2013 event, the interior served as an art space containing

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (born 1967 in Mexico City) is a Mexican-Canadian electronic artist who works with ideas from architecture, technological theater and performance. Lozano-Hemmer lives and works in Montreal and Madrid. Biography Rafael Lozan ...

's ''Voice Tunnel'' installation, in which visitors could record a short message that would be played back continuously from speakers along the tunnel walls. In the 2014 Summer Streets, the tunnel temporarily reopened to pedestrians, this time featuring ''DIVE'', an installation by Jana Winderen that incorporates aquatic soundscapes. Both art projects were commissioned by the New York City Department of Transportation.

In popular culture

Parts of the 1998 movie ''

Godzilla is a fictional monster, or '' kaiju'', originating from a series of Japanese films. The character first appeared in the 1954 film ''Godzilla'' and became a worldwide pop culture icon, appearing in various media, including 32 films produc ...

'' were filmed in the tunnel. Toward the end of the film, Godzilla chases the film's main characters into the tunnel, but is later lured back into the open toward the

Brooklyn Bridge The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/ suspension bridge in New York City, spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East River ...

Gallery

File:Inside Park Avenue Tunnel during Summerstreets uncut jeh.jpg, Interior with ''Voice Tunnel'' art installation (2013) File:Murray Hill Tunnel.jpg, North end, before the tunnel was converted to one-way northbound

References

Notes

External links

Abandoned Stations - 38 St
{{NYC Bridge, state=collapsed Tunnels in New York City

Tunnel A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...

New York Central Railroad tunnels Tunnels completed in 1834 - Road tunnels in New York City