Posts Tagged ‘7 line’
hath forgotten
It’s 99 for the 7’s original 11.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On April 21st, 1917 – the original 11 stops of the IRT Subway line in Queens opened for business. We call the IRT Flushing line the 7, of course. The first stops on the line in Queens – Vernon/Jackson, Hunters Point Avenue, Court Square, and Queensboro were completed a couple of years earlier – but the stretch along Queens Blvd. and Roosevelt Avenue from 33rd Rawson to 103rd Corona Plaza is 99 years old today.
The NY Times was along for that first ride – leaving Grand Central at 3 p.m. and visiting the first 11 stations of the so called Corona Extension. Check out their reportage here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The original names for these IRT Flushing line stops were Rawson street (33rd), Lowery street (40th), Bliss street (46th), Lincoln street (52nd), Flake street (61st), Fiske Avenue (69th), Broadway (74th), 25th avenue (82nd), Elmhurst avenue, Junction Blvd., and Alburtis avenue (103 Corona Plaza). Willets Point came online in May of 1917, and Main Street in Flushing would open in February of 1928.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I actually spent my afternoon yesterday visiting and photographing all of these locations, but was unable to deliver the finished product in time for the anniversary this year, so archive shots of the 7 – some of which have been presented before – are here in their stead.
The historical development of western Queens from a community of farmers and dairymen to the bustling and crowded community of modernity is tied back to several watershed moments in the early 20th century. The opening of Queensboro in 1909, Sunnyside Yards in 1910, and the Steinway subway tunnels opening for business in 1907.
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Walking Tour – Saturday, April 23rd, 2016 –
First Calvary Cemetery Walk.
Join Newtown Creek Alliance historian Mitch Waxman at First Calvary Cemetery, found in LIC’s Blissville neighborhood along Newtown Creek. Attendance limited to 15 people.
Click here for more info and ticketing.
iron gray
More meeting reportage, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recently, I joined up with another community group – Access Queens – an organization which got its start as a Facebook group called the “7 Train Blues.” I’ve been invited onto the steering committee of Access Queens, which seeks to improve communications between the communities found along the “international express” and the MTA, and to advocate for the riding public. All the history projects I’d been working on in 2014 involving the Sunnyside Yards, and Queens rail in general, has gotten me pretty interested in the Subways.
A recent meeting – on Tuesday, the fifth of April, in fact – was organized by Access Queens in conjunction with Councilmember Van Bramer’s office over at the Sunnyside Community Services facility on 39th street, and the MTA sent out a group of its officers for an “Ask the MTA” session wherein the ridership of the aforementioned IRT Flushing Line could express their frustrations and interact with the agency.
Since I’m the new kid on the block, I kept to the sidelines and took pictures rather than running my mouth for a change. Access Queens had a seat at the table with MTA, in the person of one the group’s leaders – Sunnyside’s Melissa Orlando – and believe you me, I don’t have to say a word when Melissa is present – she’s the real deal.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An interesting facet to this effort, one that I found particularly novel and kind of fascinating, was that both Van Bramer and Orlando were advancing questions to the transit officials which were being live posted on Twitter and on the 7 Train Blues Facebook group. MTA assured all present, and those in other realms, that their “CBTC” switching conversion work was on schedule. Completion of the project would ultimately allow them to increase the hourly frequency of trains on the already “at capacity” line. Overcrowding on platform and train alike were described by the petitioners from the community. There was also a shed load of media in the room.
A recurring theme emerging from the community was that given the ridiculous amount of real estate mega development occurring all along the Queens side of the 7 – Flushing Commons, Willets Point, and Hunters Point were mentioned in particular – NYC’s infrastructure is being badly strained and pushed to the breaking point.
One of the more interesting things that emerged from the community comments was a request to synchronize the timing of the bus system to coincide with the 7 train delays so as to avoid the “wagon train” phenomena of one full then two empty buses all traveling together. A sight commonly observed by Queensicans.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator, of course, seldom has the “7 Train Blues” given that one dwells upon the IND R line along Broadway in Astoria rather than the IRT 7 along Queens Blvd. and Roosevelt Avenue. The case has been made, however, that when the 7 is delayed, the masses of Flushing, Roosevelt, and Corona use the IND lines (R, M, E, F) instead of the IRT one. This results in quite a situation during morning commutes, and dangerous overcrowding. This is a borough wide phenomena, and is forecast to get worse before it gets better as the population continues to expand along the already overbuilt transit corridors.
Guess that the folks on my side of Northern Blvd. have the “R train blues.”
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April 16th, Obscura Day 2016 –
“Creek to Creek Industrial Greenpoint Walking Tour” with Mitch Waxman and Geoff Cobb.
Join Newtown Creek Alliance historian Mitch Waxman and Greenpoint historian and author Geoff Cobb for a three-hour exploration of the coastline of Greenpoint. Click here for more info and ticketing.
contracted chill
Nothing like an adventure, MTA style.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent endeavor found me leaving HQ just after the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself had begun its journey across the sky. A humble narrator’s intention was to have been out and about for a couple of hours in the pre dawn part of the day, but one overslept and left the house just as dawn arrived. My eventual destination was in lower Manhattan, and my plan was to be mid span on the Queensboro Bridge when dawn occurred, but as mentioned – I rolled over and kept on sleeping rather than springing out of bed when the alarm sounded at four in the morning. It wasn’t until about 5:30 that I stumbled out into the staggering realities of Astoria.
A brief scuttle across Northern Blvd. and the Sunnyside Yards ensued, and bored with the idea of walking across Queensboro at this point, it was elected that I would catch the most photogenic of all NYC’s Subway lines – the 7 – at 33rd street and cruise into the shadowed corridors of midtown Manhattan.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The “international express” as it’s known, arrived in the station accompanied by announcements that due to construction there was no Manhattan bound service at 33rd street. Having set aside literally five hours for the walk, I figured I’d just play along and see where the MTA wanted to take me.
As a note, with the exception of the F line, on the weekend of the 5th and 6th of March – there was “no way to get there from here” without playing the game laid out by the MTA.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The 7 carried me to the 61st Woodside stop, where Manhattan bound service could be accessed. Off in the distance, at what must have been the 69th street station, there were crews of laborers and what seemed like a crane busily at work. The normal “Manhattan bound” side was entirely subsumed by their activity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The 7 train, with its multitudinous delays and seemingly constant construction, has spawned a bit of activism. My pal Melissa Orlando, and others, formed first a Facebook group called “The 7 Train Blues,” and have since begun the formation of an organization called “Access Queens” with the intention of acting as advocates for the ridership community along this “international express” traveling between Flushing and Manhattan’s west side.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the subject of the 7 train, my immediate response is to discuss its immense photogeneity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It is virtually impossible to point a camera at the 7 and not get something interesting. Maybe it’s the low lying nature of Western Queens, with the elevated tracks running at rooftop level… can’t say. After running through the MTA’s perverse hoops, a humble narrator found himself in the Shining City, and what was encountered at my destination will be discussed in a post presented next week at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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copper eyed
The timid banality of it, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One enjoys the pained expression on the faces of Subway train operators and that uncomfortable look which washes across them when they see some odd character in a filthy black rain coat on the subway platform, in the process of photographing them while in their offices. A rare caprice, for one such as myself, are the moments which occur only when a momentary glimmer of joy breaks through that dire cloud normally occluding my mood. Few of these glimmers are more dearly held than those that are coincidental to some other task, which renders these annoyed expressions intrinsically whimsical.
The task, in these cases, is the continuing usage of NYC’s finest low light photography workshop – by a humble narrator for his endless experimentation with camera exposure triangles. Hey, I’m down there anyway, and headed on my way towards some miserable fate, might as well make some use of otherwise wasted time.
F 3.2, ISO 6400, 1/125th of a second, tungsten color temperature.
Btw, that’s the R line entering the 46th street station along Broadway in Astoria. The R line came online in this part of Queens back on the 19th of August in 1933.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the E line entering Queens Plaza on its way towards Manhattan. The IND (underground) station at Queens Plaza also opened on August 19th in 1933, but back then it only ran as deep into Queens as Jackson Heights at Roosevelt Avenue. On the Manhattan Side, it went to what was once called Hudson Terminal, a spot which we refer to as Ground Zero these days. The E’s range was extended several times throughout the 1930’s until it achieved a route which extended deep into Queens. Cutbacks began in the 1940’s, and continue to this day on the E.
F 3.2, ISO 6400, 1/160th of a second, tungsten color temperature.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The 23rd street Ely Avenue IND Station, over in Long Island City, opened on August 28 in 1939, about six years after the elevated IRT station “Court Square” was opened for business. That’s the M train coming into the station. The M line is part of the (in LIC and part of Manhattan) IND 53rd street line, which is a section of the IND Queens Boulevard line in terms of the larger system.
There you go.
F 2.8, ISO 5000, 1/160th of a second, tungsten color temperature.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over in Manhattan, at the deepest kind of a subway platform which one can mentally conjure, and at what has to be only 20-39 feet above hell itself – the 4 train illuminates one of those rotting concrete tunnels it inhabits while entering the scene. Notice how the train jockey is writhing whilst realizing he’s being photographed… hee hee. Why so serious, say I?
This station opened at two in the afternoon on the 17th of July in 1918. I’ve been using this line more and more often these days, as the less time the spent on the Subway the better, and the Lexington Express gets me to the Staten Island Ferry in Lower Manhattan just as quick as you can.
F 3.2, ISO 5000, 1/125th of a second, tungsten color temperature.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Bowling Green in Lower Manhattan, and the 5 train is entering the tableau. This used to be the terminal stop for the Lexington line, when the station opened on the 10th of July in 1905. Service to Brooklyn also started in 1905. It’s an IRT station, just like 59th street. IND and IRT are terms which refer to the old dual contracts era of the Subway construction era, which have created the A and B divisions of the modern day MTA New York City Transit Authority.
F 3.2, ISO 5000, 1/200th of a second, tungsten color temperature.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the G train entering the Greenpoint Avenue stop in the shot above, and also showcasing the decidedly uncomfortable expression characteristic of an MTA subway employee who suddenly realizes he or she is being photographed while at work. Another of the August 19th of 1933 era lines in Brooklyn and Queens, the G is officially called the IND Crosstown Line by MTA insider and rail fan alike.
F 4.0, ISO 5000, 1/160th of a second, tungsten color temperature.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An IRT train, the 7 line enjoys its elevated existence under the ever watchful burning thermonuclear eye of God itself, upon having entered Queens. The stop at which this shot was captured is the 40th street Lowery stop, which opened for business in 1917.
One is always amazed at the series of late dates upon which these stations opened, incidentally. Assumptions that the Broadway line through Astoria opened in the 1920’s are acknowledged, given the density of apartment houses along the line which are both admitted to and offered at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
F 7.1, ISO 250, 1/250th of a second, daylight color temperature.
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nothing now
Twirling, ever twirling.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The POV at the 40th Lowery Street stop on the 7 train causes my jaw to drop everytime I see it. Given what it costs for acccess to the observation deck at “Top of the Rock” or the Empire State Building, the MTA really delivers value for money – view wise – here on Queens Blvd. Turn your head to the left – you can spy the Kosciuszko Bridge, look straight ahead and its the whole soup bowl of Manhattan, and to the right there’s Hells Gate Bridge. This view is fortuitous, as at least you have some diversion while wondering when the train will arrive.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This spring, I’m trying to mix things up a bit and do some shooting in parts of Western Queens which aren’t part of my normal “thing.” There’s a bit of tumult going on between my ears at the moment, so the curative – as always – is to just get out and do some photographing in challenging places. To wit, the combination of bright and dark offered by the 7 tracks as they exit Woodside and head towards Jackson Heights along Roosevelt Avenue. Exposing for both lighting conditions is a wicked conumndrum, camera wise, but all of the shooting I’ve been experimenting with in the underground system pays a certain dividend when attempting this sort of thing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Roosevelt Avenue is, of course, pretty much antithetical to anyone who desires solitude or quiet. The blasting sound of passing trains that cascades down form the elevated’s steel is monstrous. One thing which always staggers the European University people whom I’ll conduct tours of Newtown Creek or Long Island City for is noise. It seems that the EU is several decades ahead of us in terms of what they legally define as “pollution” and that endemic urban background noise is taken as seriously as bad water or air.
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Upcoming Tours –
May 3, 2015 –
DUBPO, Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp
with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, a free tour offered as part of Janeswalk 2015, click here for tickets.
May 16, 2015 –
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills with Atlas Obscura
with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for details and tickets.
May 31, 2015 –
Newtown Creek Boat Tour
with Working Harbor Committee and Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for tickets.
The Newtown Pentacle 