The Lost Street Cars of New York City | The Story of American trolleys - IT'S HISTORY
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- Опубликовано: 19 июл 2024
- The story of New York's lost trolley network, a great American crime! Welcome to Tales of Urban Decay
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Tearing up the street car networks was truly one of the worst infrastructure/transportation decisions ever carried out in this country. Here in Southern California the Pacific Electric Railway advertised that it could take you from Los Angeles to San Bernardino in 45 minutes. Now it takes at least an hour on the freeways, even when there's no traffic! I really hope more light rail lines are built or expanded in the near future.
In 50s, people didn’t think so. Wealth was increasing, gasoline was cheaper than water. Only the oil crisis of 70s made people realize their mistakes.
I'd like to hear Bloomberg's excuse.
YES!!!!!! Make them solar powered!!!! Green nuts won't mind waiting hours for the cells to re charge!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's the government for you. First they pay for streetcars, then they pay to rip everything out, then they pay for streetcars...repeat ad nauseum.
@@ghost307 Most original streetcar systems from late 1800's, early 1900's, were built and run by private operators. On the other hand, most new construction of light rail since the 1980's is government subsidized.
I live in a city called Santos, in the coast of Brazil. Here a trolley line was reestabilished around 20 years ago be used as a tourist atraction, making a loop through landmarks and historical building in our downtown area. It's a very sucessfull project being constantly expanded to make the loop bigger and still being active. Fun fact is that senior trolley drivers, that used to drive trolleys when they where the main public transportation, where the ones hired to drive in the revitalized trolley line.
i have to visit it!
in one of the king Kong movies they showed a trolly or street car in New York City many years ago .
Here in Toronto Canada, the streetcars are more than a tourist attraction, they still part of the transit system with tracks & overhead cables run along some major Toronto streets. In 2014 new cars were introduced with wifi & stuff. Although they make few inconveniences like the tracks run in the middle of the road so automobiles have to stop for passengers to get on & off the streetcars.
Pele played for Santos.👍
@@jamiewilson5679 yes, Neymar to!
Some of the Brooklyn Trams have been sold after WWII to the city of Vienna Austria within the Marshall Plan and operated several years called Type Z. One is still functional in the Vienna Traffic Museum and it is called "The American".
There's one of those in the Tram museum at Crich in the U.K.
Would be cool...
I loved riding the trams in Vienna
As an Austrian from Vienna, we still have a large Streetcar Network going all around the city. It is comfortable and efficient, because it is also connected to all of the other public transportation. Most public transportation is government owned and the fair is very low at just 365€ (433 $) a year for all regional trains, subway, busses and all streetcars.
I live in Toronto and I’m glad that the city didn’t become a victim of this. We still have our streetcars. It just feels different than a riding a bus.
smooth, comfy, quiet, I live in London and yeah, trams are awesome 😊
SAME! Love the streetcars! Tho they do tend to run on the original horse and buggy streets. Sometimes traffic is a bitch.
As an Austrian I agree. We also have streetcars.
Things like that were made in the days when the built things to last and built properly...I still don’t know why they ruined English city’s by destroying all the old buildings and replaced them with tat....!! Our history should be saved and restored wherever possible..!!
@@ptgf1279 oh yeah vienna trams are awesome, quick and easy way (combined with the subway) to get literally everywhere
NYC has become full of tears of what has become of it today in (2021)
My uncle has lived in NYC since 1975, all his children, either grow up or born in NYC has moved out to NC, CO & AZ. but my uncle & his loving wife despite retiring 15 years ago & being through all ups & downs the city have seen, says that their roots in NYC are so deep, no matter what happens, they're not going anywhere!
@@3abbosi a true New Yorker
The Triple Alliance "GM, Firestone and Standard Oil" removing electric trolleys and street cars and bringing you the massive pollution of buses.
Big tire companies and corrupt government officials sold out the trolleys for city busses. It happened in every city. We still see the power and influence of big business and government today.
Toronto Canada did not do that. Most of our original streetcar tracks are still in the use. The ones we took out weren’t for buses but the underground train replaced it.
I feel like a lot of these deals were made on golf courses and clubhouses after much alcohol.
Ernest Marples in the UK had a similar negative effect on our Trams whilst he was Transport Minister (he £¥7&€d up the railways too), and during the same approx' period.
The reason?: his family owned a Tarmac Company.
This why im a socialist anarchist in the first place
Translation: A class obcessed thief with an edgy name XD.
Your photo of street car bodies stacked like cord wood is actually of Los Angeles street cars at National Metals, a scrape yard on Terminal Island L. A. harbor. I saw it in person as a boy.
The city of Seattle as it grew just paved right over cobble stone and trolly tracks as well as just berrying parts of the system. They recently build a new building down the street from me. When they dug into the street to put the electric converter vault they found cobble stone and street car tracks no one knew was there. About 15 years ago the city was doing some work to expand the underground light rail station. They found a 15x25 underground vault that had been closed and built over. It was a room with a giant pulley wheel and cables that was the trun around point for a trolly going up and down Yesler hill. The room had tools, a lunchbox and papers on a work bench and all sorts of interesting stuff. Somehow the vault was pretty water & air tight. The pully, base and cable had almost no rust because of all the grease on it. They took it out, cleaned it up and put it on display in the lobby area of the Pioneer Square Districts light rail station.
@Scott Prendergast I lived in Wurzburg Germany when I was a teen. They have the same thing happen there but in Seattle the oldest things you may find under the pavement is going to be from about 1880 at the oldest. In NYC a bit older as the city is older. In Wurzburg and others in Germany they find things that are thousands of years old.
Pioneer Square Station, I think the sheathe wheel was most likely from the Yesler Way or James Street cable car lines.
@@anthonybanchero3072 : It was indeed the remnants of a cable car system. If it was on Yesler, it was the Yesler line, the last one in Seattle. It was pulled up in the early '40s. That left San Francisco the last city in the US running cables (incidentally, the city where they were invented in 1873). When Dunedin, New Zealand pulled up their last line in the mid-'50s, San Francisco became the last and only city in the entire world to run cable cars.
@@joeottsoulbikes415 : Seattle dates to 1851, not "about 1880 at the oldest." In reality, there were native American tribes already living there for centuries before outsiders arrived. Your comments about Seattle (as well as NYC) are very patronizing and completely disregard the indigenous people who lived there.
@@sfmike711 No my comments are not. I realize there were people here long long before 1880. The time frame around 1880 moving forward to today would be the period of the most building activity where roads were being built, trolly tracks laid down, multi story brick buildings of 3 story and higher were being built. I hmwas told point blank by a history professor at Evergreen that artifacts before 1880 are very rare because 1. Before that date Seattle population was less than you can now find in a single apartment complex. 2. That is the period of fever pitch development and innovation from the industrial revolution. Items made, used and owned before then tended to be made of organic materials, not very durable and rotted away long ago. Yes, Seattle was incorporated on Dec. 2nd 1869 with a population a bit bigger than 2000 people. In the 1850's your talking about a population smaller than 800. (Not counting indiginous population ) They did not leave much behind. They did not even have that much to even try to leave behind as most personal items then were fagile, made of organic materials, people actually tought blood letting cured colds, it's not like there was a lot of innovation happening. The house I live in was built in 1879. It is now the oldest home in the Cascade neighborhood. Maybe even Belltown, QAnn, west cap hill, First Hill Downtown and SoDO the way everything gets demolished now.
I did not make mention of the indigenous people of the area leaving items behind because my experience talking to members of the Nisqually Tribe informed me that often they do not want there ancestors mentioned when talking about the development and growth of Seattle, Tacoma, Oly in referance to roads, trollies or other things of the time period of 1850 , 1860 and forward. I was told that period of time too many Northwest Native Americans or indigenous people that period of time is viewed as a time of both accidental and purposeful genocide. Because European and Asian settlers to this land came with sickness, destruction to the environment, crime, addiction and pretty much a literal curse on the people that were already here. Ever since then the tribes have been trying not to be completely consumed or loose all of there culture due to the absolute horror that The Outsiders brought to this area.
My town got rid of their street cars in the 70's. Essentially killing a big portion of what was a long street of downtown/uptown stores. It's a city of almost 400 000 people. Yet it has one of the lowest population densities because of unregulated urban sprawl. It also suffers a poor transit system, no proper fast transit roads to get through the city quickly and a awful traffic lighting system. It infuriates me how we allowed oil, gas and car related business to destroy much needed transit systems. Just so they could push their car, oil and urban sprawl agenda.
So whats really their reason ? Taxes that nobody wanted o pay ? Freedom , politics , "deservecrap talks by politicians" or something else - these people who were in power might still be alive - ask them
Best way to kill off small business is to restrict public access
@@anthonyxuereb792 So it were about to develop the area for the future ,and cars were the future but did they build parkinglots or builings -we know when you get the drug of being fast you need fast access to the place where you buy - i guess they can build them and they knew : You cant make omelett without crushing eggs . Another thought which any of these old desisionmakers would never admitt -they might have wanted some buisness gone -those they knew were just owned by shady people and with new infrastructure the % would go down significantly and Yes they would get more funding -devious -and they would not care and never admitt anything
@@jari2018 lol you funny
@@five5x nevertheless -not really
In the book, trolley car Treasury, they discuss the fine points of the cable car. An operator would approach a corner, and he would either release the gripper or slack it sufficiently so as to allow the cable car to coast up to the corner and just come around the corner before he would reapply that gripper and be pulled along at full speed again. This would avoid the problem of going at full speed around a corner and possibly incurring injuries...
@Roger Sheddy : When a cable car rounds a corner at a pull curve, the grip (not a "gripper") is always holding the rope tightly because of the physical design of the pull curve. A car cannot negotiate a pull curve with "slack" as that's impossible. Some curves are drop curves where the rope is dropped from the jaws of the grip and gravity allows the car to make the turn. As for full speed, the cars move at a steady 9½ mph and the gripman and conductor always holler "hold on for the curve" (locals already know that). Before the rehab and reconstruction of 1983, the turns were sharp and well worth the fare. Since the system reopened, the turns are smoothed out and not as sharp and the thrill/fun has been lost.
@@sfmike711 I don’t think your average commuter wants to whip around every corner in a streetcar.
I'm not the first person nor the last to say screw Bloomberg
@Charles J. Watch until the end of the video to learn more
lol wdym?
Well put, he was the precursor to the nazi tech billionaires currently holding America hostage.
Bloomberg was the worst dictator the world had ever seen
I remember if you get a parking ticket for no reason and you go to court to fight it with proof of not guilty
If the ticket was 120.00 and you found not guilty still you have to pay half of it 60.00$
@@johnvardakis153 Wow you had to pay 60$? Please tell me how that’s worse than the millions killed by actual dictators
I love seeing train/trolley tracks in NYC,and the historical sites,the architectural designs were beautiful,today's buildings don't have the nostalgic warmth of the golden age
There's plenty in lower Manhattan.
Nostalgic warmth of the "golden age". What exactly do you mean with golden age? Do you mean the Gilded Age?
I beg to I differ some facades are interesting today. I did the new age Art Deco look
@@EliF-ge5bu no, golden age as in the grand era of things
@@blue9multimediagroup That's really vague. Applied to NYC architecture or urban planning, I haven't heard of anyone talk about the "golden age". What time period did you have in mind? Or what architectural style?
If you go by the IKEA in Brooklyn, there are two old trolleys near there.
I live in Kingston NY, I'm literally around the corner from the train museum, I see that trolly car everyday along with a subway car that they rescued from under the trade centers on 9/11/01
@Rick Widener: The museum in Kingston needs a LOT of $$$ and work. My sister lives in Zena, so I visit often.
@@vondumozze738 it sure does
I live in Vienna and we have a huge streetcar network. People love to use it because it is comfortable and effective. The streetcar network is also connected to other public transportation like trains, subway and busses.
I've used the Vienna streetcars! I think the first time I ever rode a subway system and a streetcar was in Vienna many, many years ago when I was a kid.
Meanwhile in Europe (I live in Germany): You can reach every town by train, tram or as we call it Straßenbahn. So much better.
I am Austrian and I am happy about our great public transportation.
i’m moving to munich for college next year. so excited to b in europe
True. But the trolleys in the US ended in the 50s. The trolleys in Germany were just being (re)built in the 50s . Kind of like Germany has a superior under ground power grid while US is largely exposed up on wood poles. But Germany had above ground power grid at one time. Seems that when the entire infrastructure is destroyed its a good time to build back better. US was never bombed flat.....
@@kirkstinson7316 Whilst it is true that it is better to rebuild something proper that more or less grew somewhat badly due to budget cuts and so on, the street cars in germany started around the same time as in the US. For example the horse powered street cars in Germanys capital Berlin started operating on June 22nd 1865 (in 1881 the first electric street cars were introduced in a town that would later join Berlin as a district). I do not know what parts of that system continued its life as part of the modernized electric driven system and what parts were simply unfit for continued use after the second world war. I would however guess that a large part of it was reused as these rails were also used as means of transporting rubble in the aftermath of the war. However, large parts of the network were shut down and never reopened during the division of Berlin.
Imagine building a network 10x as large as your entire countries, and realizing that would only be enough to cover a couple states in the US, if that.
Wow, this hits home. As a new yorker from queens I've lived and worked right by so many of these tracks , and have visited the tower square mall, and crossed the grand street bridge hundreds of times. Cool to know their history.
The Pizza Hut and the Dollar General on Northern Boulevard right? I applied for a job at that Pizza Hut back in 2016 but they rejected me lol. I’ve taken the Q59 across the Grand Street Bridge and I’ve rode my bike across it. I wish we still had trolleys.
@@matthewhernandez8342 Pizza hut 🍕 🛖 didn't deserve you!
I remember the first generation of what we call in the UK, trams or tramcars 1950-1960 and I always looked out for fossilised trackwork in streets or especially in trolleybus depots (they were gone by 1968). Fortunately, there was a revival in the last two decades and although we no longer use double deckers, they provide wonderful service, often using the abandoned trackbeds of heavy rail and then switching into the streets changing the traffic lights to their advantage: London, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield and Nottingham. At first, they were delicately called 'light rail' but very quickly ('a duck is a duck') we went back to calling them trams. So civilised and so fast and clean and friendly.
National city lines was actually a conglomerate of General Motors Phillips petroleum Standard Oil Firestone and Mack bus division
Color me shocked.
As for the Pacific Electric in Southern California, ridership peaked in the nineteen twenties and continued to decline rapidly until WWII. Once hostilities ceased, PE ridership continued to decline precieptly, although freight revenues continued to grow.
Thus the abandonment of passenger service, electrification and infrastructure and transition to a dieselized freight feeder for parent Southern Pacific were prudent to reduce losses. PE ceased to exist when it was merged into the SP in 1964.
Makes me reminisce about when I lived in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and remembering all the evidence of trolleys, particularly in the Quakertown and Sellersville areas. As well as evidence of steam locomotive days, such as the abandoned water tower at Rockhill quarry. Or the dilapidated Delaware Canal that runs alongside the Delaware River. Such incredibly vital pieces of infrastructure of the time, barely even noticed by most people today.
In Chicago, I remember watching the electric buses in the '50s.
Hope you didn't vote democRAT slime in
It is being realised that it was a mistake to rip up the rails and remove the catenery - up-dated trams are real people movers. Cable cars were seen in Dunedin until the mid-50s and parts of Wellington, NZ, one of which still operates for tourists.
I can just remember getting off a tram in the Exchange in Dunedin...and going on the Mornington cable car...every bit as impressive as the San F ones....in ,1957, shortly before they stopped. My mother took me as a baby on the Rattray St_ Belleknowes cable car...
@Colin Gantiglew : The system used in Wellington is a finicular
Very interesting! In Dallas, Texas they have revived old trolley lines and now run the McKinney Avenue Trolley (MATA) from Downtown to Uptown as a free tourist attraction. I live in Uptown and use it almost everyday!
The first electric streetcar ran from 1881 in Lichterfelde, today a part of Berlin/Germany. That´s 7 years prior to the opening of the first electric streetcar line in the US.
The queen's hub is right there on northern Blvd! I used to shop there at the fabric bonanza (now Michaels) with my mom and always noticed the structure on the corner near the bus stop, I just figured it was the design for the shopping center. I am so honored to finally understand what that's really for. You teach me so much about a city that I was born and raised in. Thank you for this channel and this video!
Near Brooklyn queens border, there was an exposed streetcar rail for YEARS. As a kid it was cool seeing the old brick road and rail under the newer elevated subways cars. In the past decade or so it was paved over and now there is a little memorial sign telling how historical(or something idk)the street car line was in the beginnings of new York
We had that in Brooklyn as well. The street running underneath the elevated "F" train had the tracks running underneath. No bricks were visible but they constantly had to repave the asphalt. They finally tore it out, though I don't remember when. The tracks might still be visible near the Brooklyn Army Terminal.
There was a study done by the BMT Transit in 1940 that recommended 8 trolley lines to be kept running as they were more compatible with private right of ways in alleys and boulevards but Mayor La Guardia and later O Dweyer kept closing as many lines as they could despite the statistics. Thus confirming my suspicion that most carrer politicians are concerned about their own reputation. The city government took over the Brooklyn Manhattan Transit and the Interborough Tapid Transit Company in June 1940. I am a New Yorker.
You pulled me in with the singer building video lol I think the track remnants are a beautiful and sad finding in NY. It reminds me of the death of malls now. My city has a long section of the original horse drawn trolly track and brick laid road preserved on main street. In a world determined to bury history in an onslaught of progress it is a breath of fresh air. Thank you for sharing this amazing but tragic bit of history.
I just watched that one too! This one popped up on my reccomendations
Imagine government getting in the way and being a problem.
Couldn't be america
Australia can relate
Hahahaha! Imagine.
Now we have light rail trains , almost like the old trolley cars.
If I remember what he said correctly, the greatest factor in the demise of the streetcar companies was GM Standard Oil and Firestone Tires pushing bus lines. Stop blaming the government for everything. The problem is not big government. It’s big business.
As far as I recall, the 59th St trolley car (and other rare cars) at TMNY were excessed by the board under pressure from the landlord complaining the yard looked like a dump. Many parts were saved by TMNY and the Shore Line Museums but neither had the funding for it's or other car restorations. Feel free to donate to either or each museum, remember them in your wills !
As an Architect and Archaeologist, I submit that your epilogue was profound and quite correct. Well said! Great channel.
Came to say that as well. Very powerful closing!
New York should bring trolley back in service
Trolleys can only run on tracks, can't go around blockages, and that would mess up all the turning lanes at the stop lights.
Subways are the answer, new York was just too stupid to update their subways as rapidly as needed. What they're doing now is too little too late
@@rowerwet “Too stupid?” More like suffered multiple recessions and depressions that severely delayed projects.
@@banksrail political infighting between the Burroughs, crime bosses, and the resulting competing subways that purposely didn't connect with their rivals gave them the third class subways they are trying to bring into the current century at a cost of billions today.
All because of cronyism, which also took out the trolley system, fitting.
@@rowerwet, New York always has been, and always will be, that way! If Iran or any other country ever wanted to nuke New York, they could save their efforts and just sit back and watch it self-destruct!
@@banksrail NY has the population of Sweden, a country that's got sufficient wealth to operate a thoroughly modern subway system in their capitol. And develop their own fighter jets. NY should have zero issues to maintain their subway.
Ummm, actually, Scranton PA was the first city to have electrified street car lines which are introduced in 1880... eight full years before Richmond Virginia. Officials from Virginia actually traveled to Scranton in the early 1880s to see the system in action. This novel introduction of a transportation system based solely on electricity gave Scranton its nickname "The Electric City". The trolley lines in Scranton ran until the 1950s, and while none of the original lines are left today, the Electric City Trolley Museum is a cool place to visit (and take ride in a vintage trolley on a newly created scenic line). Its right up the street from the Steamtown National Rail Museum in downtown Scranton.
Here in Baltimore, we still trolley poles still remaining. Many of tracks here were just paved over, never removed so if ambitions were to ever gain the forefront, streetcar lines could be revived but I doubt anyone would ever approve of it.
Totally agree on your thoughts regarding remaining fragments of history
Many US cities would profit of a revival of the Trolleys.
new york should have kept the system like toronto canada. would have relieved alot of that traffic.
London (England) would also benefit. There are street running tram systems in parts of the UK, but a return to the streets of London proper (I discount the Croydon tramlink since it runs in an outer borough) is not likely.
Considering that the streets of New York are paved with the corpses of the 9/11 victims (literally) a layer of horse do on top is adding insult to injury.
Says somebody with no actual experience in transportation, business, or government.
@@eattherich9215 what's the difference between a streetcar and a bus?
Pittsburgh Pennsylvania had Frilly Tracks at one Glorious time. I remember once visiting from New York, my uncle took me downtown for day of riding. Miss that day!
I love hearing how City Lines was found guilty. This is the America we need today.
A lot of those old street rails are actually freight railroad tracks
It's crazy how they paved over the rails. If you know anything about Railroad tracks 🛤 you know they are constantly expanding and contracting with temperature changes. So the asphalt will never stop breaking up around the tracks.
The tracks.... the tracks want to be free!
In Sydney NSW (Australia) they made the mistake of removing the sleepers (U.S. English: "ties") as well as the rails in some places, but infilling the resultant depression with bitumen instead of cement. As a result, traffic soon depressed the bitumen and the street surface became rather bumpy. Cleveland Street was like this for a long time, and eventually required an expensive dig up and repair job.
Incidentally, the myth seems to persist that U.S. auto and oil companies conspired to influence the NSW government to remove Sydney's trams. That is not true; it were British transport "experts" from London who did that.
I live in melbourne and makes me wonder how crazy many American cities got rid of their trams.
Basically, all of them !!
In 50s, rail-borne transit was regarded as obsolete and a barrier against progress.
Don't forget all Ozzy cities except Melbourne ripped up their tracks and put in diesel busses. Now some of them have put them back.
This was fun. I remember in my city travels seeing lots of those track fragments back in the 80s and early 90s.
Same.
Very nice video. Incidentally, my great grandfather was a trolley car operator in NYC. I still have pictures passed down to me of him in his snappy uniform.
I love this kind of history. I was in L.A. a few years ago and stumbled on to street running railway. It was clearly industrial, but very interesting nonetheless. I rode electric trolleys in Calgary in the late 70s. They're all gone now. I rode the street cars in Toronto in the mid 70s. It's interesting to me that we we're on the right track in the first place and now we're going back to the original idea.
I note the old cobblestones are still visible in some pics. Nice catch! This used to be common in Toronto, but as they never abandoned their Streetcars & the've updated the system over the past 50 years. Almost if not all of these cobblestones were sold to home owners. There are some examples in public spaces but most tracks have been replaced & so have the cobbles.
The national bus line people recognize the fact that if they could take out enough Small Town Trolley lines, often ripping up all of the Rails so that they could not be rebuilt without major expense, that they could then bankrupt the outfits that were the suppliers of equipment and replacement parts. Without those, the large city lines would not be able to survive. That is why they were ultimately successful.
Sabotage
There's a bit more to the 5 cent fare saga and it was target at the subways, not the trolleys. Holding the fare was a major campaign promise by Mayor John Hylan. One story goes that Hylan once worked for the Brooklyn Rapid Transit, later known as Brooklyn Manhattan Transit or the BMT. Supposedly he was fired after some minor incident, and his opponents claimed that Hylan was out for revenge by driving the private subway companies, the aforementioned BMT and the Interborough Rapid Transit or IRT into bankruptcy. Sure enough, after the BMT and IRT went bankrupt, the city took them over and promptly raised the fare to 15 cents. Hylan was also the catalyst for forming the Independent subway or IND. The names IRT, BMT, and IND were in common use all the way through to the 1980's.
Incidentally, Bloomberg did almost exactly the same thing to the last private bus companies in NYC, among them the Triboro Motor Coach and the Green Bus Lines. Refusing to allow them to raise fares to that of the city (really the MTA, but that's whole other story) owned bus and subway lines, the city eventually took them over.
it was o dwyer that raised the fare to 10 cents the 15 cent fare did not happen untill 1953
@@chuckschafer6728 I looked into it a bit harder and yes, you are correct. The 5 cent fare lasted until 1948, when it was raised to 10 cents and then subsequently to 15 cents in 1953. To put in some context, the formation of the NYCTA to take over the BMT and IRT occurred in 1940. Also, I didn't know that the Dual Contracts obligated the BMT and IRT to keep the fare at 5 cents for 49 years starting in 1917, or in other words, until 1966. Obviously, back then they didn't factor in the possibility of inflation.
THEY STILL USE THE LETTER DESIGNATIONS TODAY
I grew up very close to an old railway line, the station used to be downtown but was demolished to make way for an ugly, round building. The rails however, are still buried under the pavement of the old tunnel and they continue all the way to the old worker's neighborhood, most of the old rails are buried either under asphalt/concrete or buildings. The bridge however still exists though it was closed to traffic some years ago and now some homeless folk have their home down there.
Excellent commentary at the end! I agree totally. Thanks for all your history!
Great video, but sounded like corruption, politics, greed and favors ended the trolly line in New York
That's ALWAYS the way New York operates...the more corrupt the the better it seems for them.
We know that couldn't happen today, right?
Not in New York, but not far away, there were rails visible outside Hoboken Terminal NJ a few years ago. Do you know when this system closed, and where it ran to?
I grew up in East New York, Brooklyn, around the corner from Church Avenue, and I clearly remember the tracks.
I played on that train as a kid, it was scary because the waterfront at the time was eroding and I dreamed the line would be restored, I used to follow the tracks and think man how cool would trolleys be over NYC.
From 03:00 there is another old film sequence showing a streetcar crossing the famous Brooklyn Bridge! Wow. Even if this is just daily life from old ages, it helps imagining how it would be to live in New York at that time.
I remember the White Front Streetcar boneyard in San Francisco you showed. Located in the inner sunset bounded by Funston and 14th Aves., Lincoln Way and Irving Sts. Today, an apartment building and Andronico Food Store occupies the site. We still have several streetcar routes, the "F" line which features a fleet of vintage trollies from around the world and two cable car lines.
Actually 3, Powell Mason, Powell Hyde, California Street. The Mason and Hyde lines share for 1 mile the Powell Steet corridor before going to their respective destination side streets.
Disappointing that we won't be seeing this again, let alone ride in them.
Oklahoma City used to have street car tracks connecting pretty much the entire metropolitan area. My grandmother told me about riding a streetcar from a small town on the outskirts of the city right into the urban core when she was a young woman. I always thought it was completely stupid and a shame that such a system was dismantled. A couple of years ago Oklahoma City reinstalled a bunch of tracks around the downtown area. Now much of downtown is serviced by street cars once again. If only the electric street car system would have remained and been upgraded through the years. I believe that our city and others would be better places. Instead, greed and corruption won out which is just so very typical.
In New York the decline of the streetcar is much less of a tragedy than in many other cities. New York now has the biggest metro system in the country to replace the streetcars, similar to how Paris' streetcars and other transit fell in favor of their metro. But in many cities the transit was not substituted and cars really did become king, which might have been fine at the time but now brings all the issues of pollution, traffic, and pedestrian danger. It's a shame that so many of the tracks were covered or ripped up because it could have been good grounds to modernize into fancier trams.
The metro serves a different purpose and trams serve a different purpose. Trams are more about easy access to shops and neighbourhoods, they keep you connected to the buzz of the city, they are not just about getting from A to B. In Poland the tram system is widely used despite the new metro which is used for going longer stretches. Metro is stuck to a very determined and mostly straight route, trams follow the lay of the road, meaning that they open up various areas of shopping and increase connection. Buses are used where the trams do not reach. If I had to choose, I would choose a tram over a bus any day for comfort. I would choose metro only if I am heading to work or an appointment.
@@hannahswheelieawesome I do love me a good tram and there is something nice about seeing the above ground world.
I do think the subway mitigates some of the problems though. Like Paris it has a very high density of stops so it is possible to get where you need to go in a city that is already very mixed-use. Unlike Europe though NYC is famous for its grid, so the subway's straight paths works fine since everything in the city is already aligned to that.
They are very sluggish in doing so but I think its inevitable that NYC starts carving out some parts of streets for better bus routes. Trams down the avenues would be wonderful but this is would be a fine compromise. I do not live in NYC though so I don't have a strong feel on the political barriers to making that happen.
Manhattan for a time had a three-level rail network: the subway (underground, mostly), the trolleys (surface), and the Elevated lines.
In Toronto Canada they have The TTC street cars everywhere it’s a amazing system.
Cheers 2021🇨🇦
And with a brand new East West LRT getting closer to completion. My son is working 100’ underground installing the electrical systems. He’s making more at 28 than I ever did in my lifetime! Trades: Dirty Hands =. Fat Wallets!
@@tomrogers9467 Are you talking about Hamilton LRT? I'm sure it's a cooI idea but I have a friend who lives in Waterdown, he's not happy, because people who live far away from downtown Hamilton will be paying for it with their taxes but won't be benefiting from it!
@@3abbosi No, this is the Toronto Cross-Town LRT. And yes, all Ontario taxpayers pay for infrastructure in the cities that we will never use.
@@tomrogers9467 lol that's kinda the point of a society bro, if everything was opt-in nothing would get done. I live in Ottawa and am happy to pay for infrastructure in TO or Hamilton or anywhere else. Like, I don't have kids either, but you bet your *ass* I want my taxes going to those schools--I don't want a world full of fucking idiots, do you?
It is said that America once had the best public transportation in the world. There was no need for cars. But big oil companies monopolized
You see electric trolleys all over the world from Japan, Paris, Korea, Spain, France, you name it in the late 1800s and early pre WW1&WW2 1900s And almost all at once they were purposely taken out of service and sent to the scrap yards all in the name of profit. To further feed the beast/machine. Which Big oil is simply one tentacle of.
I Remember The Last Trolley 🚎 That Ran Over The 59th.Street Bridge That's The Queensboro Bridge 🌉 In New York City. It Was Operated By Queens- Nassau Surface Lines. There Were Four Stops And Possibly Five. It Ran From Queens Plaza North, On North Outer Road Way. And Made It's First Stop 🛑 On The Middle Of The Bridge. There Was A Huge Building With One Yellow Brick Smoke Stack On Either Side Of The Building, I Think That Was Goldwater Memorial Hospital 🏥 It Had A Huge Elevator In The Building, That Could Accommodate Ambulances 🚑 🚑 Straight Job 🚚 🚚 And Cars 🚗 🚓🚕 And A Customized Fire Engine 🚒🇺🇸 I Don't Know The Engine Company.? They Also Had A Couple Of Small Elevators For The People. You Drove Your 🚗 On To The Roof, Facing The Elevators, At That Time 1959 The Island Was Called Welfare Island. I Think The Fare Was Twenty Five Cents Cash, The Next Stop 🛑 Was Under Second Avenue, You Couid Go Up The Stairs On The Sixtieth Street Side Or The Fifty Ninth Street Side. Then The Trolley 🚎 Went Back To Queens Crowded, With Hospital 🏥 Workers. It Operated On The South Outer Road Way, And Stop 🛑 On The Middle South Side Of The Bridge, The Workers Exited And Walked🚶♂️🚶♀️🚶🏾♀️🚶♂️🚶🏾♀️Over An Elevated Catwalk To The Northside Of The Bridge Where The Huge Building Or Hospital 🏥 Was. Then The Trolley 🚎 Came Off The Bridge, To Stop 🛑 At Queens Plaza South. I'm Not Sure If That Was The Last Stop 🛑 It's Possible The Trolley 🚎Went To Jackson Avenue, Queens Plaza East.? I Think Queens - Nassau Surface Lines Only Operated With Five Trolleys 🚎 🚎 🚎 🚎 🚎, I Was A Young Man Then, And I Remember The Electric Buses 🚎 🚎 🚎🚶♂️ On Manhattan Avenue In Greenpoint, Brooklyn The Garden Stop Of The World 🌎 I Loved The Trolleys 🚎 And The Electric Buses 🚎 👍 🇺🇸 I Refuse To Call The Fifty Ninth Street Bridge Or The Queensboro Bridge. After Mayor How I'm Doing Ed.Koch Or Edward Koch. Capeesh. I Wonder What Would Happen If They Named The Brooklyn Bridge After Ed.Koch, This Guy Was Born In The Bronx. They Should Name The Third Avenue Bridge After Ed.Koch, Its Appropriate And Spans The Bronx To Manhattan. ✝️God ✡ Help Our Republic.Of The United States Of America. 🇺🇸 🗽🗽Sincere Patriot ⚔ Semper Fi. 🇺🇸
First electric trolley system was in Scranton PA. Nickname is The Electric City for that reason and there is a streetcar museum right next to Steamtown National Park railway museum. There's also a very cool coal mine tour at McDade Park.
Very interesting video - here in the U.K. where Trams ( trolleys) were the norm well into the 1960’s there are lines visible in many places. When I was a kid growing up in the 1950’ there were disused lines everywhere and many are now just under the tarmac roads unless lifted up for salvage.
Living in NYC I love finding old signs abandoned subways and of course trolley tracks and I see a lot in the industrial areas of Brooklyn that’s your best bet
The electric utilities were selling power to trolley companies at a big discount, the government decided to make this illegal, that's what doomed the streetcars. This happened at the same time G.M. was getting into the locomotive business. G.M. would have been happy as a clam building streetcars.
Funny side note: when I was a kid you could take burned out light bulbs to Edison and they would give you replacements for free, Government stopped that too.
I was born and raised in Tampa, FL where we used to have a trolly system and that to disappeared; however, many years ago it was resurrected in part I believe by our local power company (since then, bought by Emera). Anyways, it’s been soo successful that they are looking at expanding it further into downtown because now, we have more people living in downtown Tampa. I love to ride on the trolly when I’m in the area that they service. I live in the suburbs of Tampa but still get a chance to go downtown when I can.
Congratulations - this is fascinating and the pitch is perfect.
My knowledge base up to this point was European street cars (...trams!), and the whole of this video was new to me. Very thought-provoking.
I remember seeing the surprised faces of a gang of workers who were ripping up a street in Derby, England, in the 1990s, when they hit the tram rails. Like NY, the whole system had been buried deep and forgotten. Until you need to build a traffic island. And then you suddenly need oxyacetylene.
25 years on, Derby's neighbouring city, Nottingham, has revived its trams and the system keeps expanding - reusing some of the architecture that was abandoned for decades after the city lost most of its railway/railroad network back in the 1960s (because: buses. We should have learned from New York).
Thanks for this video!
Thanks for this amazing glimpse of transport in New York city, I think I have seen more of NYC than many native New Yorkers in this great video.
Love the old historic film as well, great stuff!
I really love the content on this channel! I stopped for the Cerro Gordo video, but stayed for everything else. Great subscription!
“Corpse of engineers” ouch my ears!
it was good enough for Obak Barama
I love this part of my history of New York City.
I really appreciate your work. Growing up in Brooklyn, I remember when the trolley tracks and cobblestone show up every few years from the hastily paved streets. Like history revealing itself. Great job! Keep up the work!
I live in Brooklyn, Iowa and there have never been streetcars here, so stop your fibbing !
@@SeamusMcGillicuddy0 🤫🤫🤫
I've lived near Tower Square for over three decades and never knew it was an old railcar depot. Amazing.
Upstate New York had so many horse drawn trolleys and later electric powered.
The tracks are buried under asphalt in many cities in the Albany Saratoga area
I remember when the trolleys ran
I miss the old days
Very entertaining to revisit my old stomping grounds. Born & raised in Brooklyn.
Philadelphia still has some of its lines. Only a fraction though
I live in peoria Illinois where we once had trolley cars, the old police station was the trolley terminal. There's still tracks under the pavement all over the city. My dad rode the trolley when he was a kid.
It's funny as a utility worker in Brooklyn, you come across the remains of trolley tracks when trenching across wide streets. Like Flatbush Avenue, Rogers Avenue and Church Avenue. We would scratch our heads and wonder why they were train tracks in the middle of the street, paved over by time. This explains a lot!
A lot of those are just regular tracks (not streetcar tracks). Back in the day, most businesses relied on the railroads to transport raw materials and finished goods, so a lot of businesses were served by railroad tracks. If that business happened to be located on a city street, that's where the tracks would be located. Streetcars didn't run on regular train tracks, and vice versa.
Thank you for a very interesting video!
My ears pricked up when he mentioned Pripyat at 11:20. Cheeki breeki, Stalker!
Seattle has more than a few miles of trolley tracks hidden under asphault. I remember stepping over tracks in Ballard in the early 1960's.
Streetcars are a great way to move in a city especially if they cost nothing. I spent a month in Prague and while public transport was not free it was dirt cheap. It really relieves congestion when people do not use private motor vehicles and makes things much more pleasant for pedestrians. It is good for small businesses too when customers are not limited to places with parking spaces.
Precise concluding thoughts. It very important to remember this history. Thank you for your videos.
Never heard of the Army Corpse of Engineers.
Lesley Scotta, That's because they have their own little section tucked away in an obscure corner of Arlington Cemetery. Blink and you'll miss it. Wright Flyer, USAF (1968-1972).
Lol. Army Corpse. Is that the organization of dead engineers?
Corps of Engineers … corpse is a dead body 💀
Haha I caught that too
@@MoAli-wm4of, there's a difference?
I spend hours watching your stuff sometimes watch alot of stuff over again.
There is about a half mile track in Excelsior MN the trolley runs on Wednesday's I think. The Excelsior Museum is open on Wednesdays too.
I live close to Leipzig, Germany- this city has almost the same history - with the difference that trams are still running today. (since the late 1880s) - some of the historic tram cars still running today for a museum. the oldest trams in regular service are Tatra T4D-M (modernized T4Ds from the late 1960s built in Czech Republic)
Please make more videos exactly like this one. Transportation or train specific would be cool especially cool ones like the New York streetcars.
I recall the TRAMS in Wellington NZ. They were good. The city changed to diesel and Electric trolley-busses. Today the Government promotes electric cars and SUV's but Diesel basses. The main-railway trunk line was electrified, but again they use Diesel locomotives. Are we supposed to make sense of all this?
It's all around the world like that.
It's oil lobby, Rockefeller etc.
Those people are different, they take energy from fear, not happiness.
@@Rasarel rOcKeFeLlEr
No you are just supposed to listen to your leaders, they smarter, better, and more rich then you. Be a good little sheep and let your owners do the thinking....
@@mikehunt8375
Actually it's not always that simple.
In Czech republic we had trams and trolley public transport.
After the second world war the Russians arrived and took out the rails and cancelled the trams.
In 1968 they arrived again with tanks and took out the trolley and made electric transport forbidden, everyone had to use just diesel.
All the countries controlled by the USSR.
American and Russian government works for the same people..
They use power to destroy the nature all around the world on purpose.
It's part of black magic policy organizations..
Don't forget they killed off a modern Wellington trolleybus system a couple of years ago as well and replaced them with old dirty diesel busses.
Awesome job on this video!
Staten Island once had street car service too. Buried underneath about an inch, inch and a half of "blacktop", are cobble stones with trolley tracks embedded in the "pavement" made of cobble stones in most of the major thoroughfares.(Some places have trolley tracks "popping up" through the pavement) Victory Blvd, (formerly called the Richmond Turnpike until 1918) is one such example, along with many others where there's now bus routes that travel on them. In addition to that, most of these major thoroughfares have two sets of power poles (telephone poles) on both sides of the street. Most of the streetcar lines on Staten Island were operated by the Richmond Light & Railroad, a utility company that provided electric power for much of the North Shore of Staten Island. There's also a few trolley car "barns" that still stand today, one of them was built circa 1902 and is now a garage for the Department of Sanitation. And at least one of them serves as a bus terminal in the Port Richmond neighborhood of Staten Island. (There's still trolley tracks in the floor of a beige bricked building on the corner of Castleton Ave and Jewitt Ave where busses are washed at the Castleton Bus Depot.) Anytime the NYCDOT decides to do a major resurfacing project on any major thoroughfares, often times they'll remove the top most layer of pavement, exposing the cobble stones and the trolley tracks. Most of the major bus routes that stems from the Staten Island Ferry Terminal in St George, are former street car lines.
In Clarksville TN there were 1800s street car line rails still imbedded on Madison street (one of the main roads that is lined by large mansions as you approach the old part of town.). Always thought that was a very advanced transit for a town of such a small size (the town was probably only 10-15000 people back then.)
Back in the sixties when living in Wichita I remember seeing trolley tracks in residential areas. At that time I did not know that they were trolley tracks. They are now covered up.
I kinda proud and happy that in San Francisco the authorities still keep operating the cable cars and trolleys from the 50s
Thank you. I like your writing.
Yes yes yes. I love this channel
Thanks a lot, I'm doing my Masters thesis on tramways and I was researching about their downfall in major systems
clearly it seems it was the fault of the democrats in power
I live in Melbourne Australia. We have the worlds largest remaining tram/street car systems at over 160 miles still remaining operational and it’s all modern electric fleet. Much street running. 206 million passenger trips per year back in 2019 (the population is only 4 million).
I grew up in Rochester Michigan the tracks were still in the roads in town, my Great-grandfather was in two accidents with the street cars after drinking