33rd Street station (IRT Lexington Avenue Line)
The 33rd Street station is a local station on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line of the New York City Subway. Located at the intersection of Park Avenue and 33rd Street in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan, it is served by 6 trains at all times, <6> trains during weekdays in the peak direction, and 4 trains during late night hours.
Not to be confused with 33rd Street–Rawson Street station.
The 33rd Street station was constructed for the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) as part of the city's first subway line, which was approved in 1900. Construction of the line segment that includes the 33rd Street station started on September 12 of the same year. The station opened on October 27, 1904, as one of the original 28 stations of the New York City Subway. After the city's first subway line was split into multiple lines in 1918, there was a failed proposal in the 1920s to convert 33rd Street into an express station. The station's platforms were lengthened in the late 1940s.
The 33rd Street station contains two side platforms and four tracks; express trains use the inner two tracks to bypass the station. The station was built with tile and mosaic decorations, which are continued along the platform extensions. The platforms contain exits to 32nd Street to the south and 33rd Street to the north. The platforms are not connected to each other within fare control. The original station interior is a New York City designated landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
History[edit]
Construction and opening[edit]
Planning for a subway line in New York City dates to 1864.[6]: 21 However, development of what would become the city's first subway line did not start until 1894, when the New York State Legislature passed the Rapid Transit Act.[6]: 139–140 The subway plans were drawn up by a team of engineers led by William Barclay Parsons, the Rapid Transit Commission's chief engineer. It called for a subway line from New York City Hall in lower Manhattan to the Upper West Side, where two branches would lead north into the Bronx.[5]: 3 A plan was formally adopted in 1897,[6]: 148 and all legal conflicts concerning the route alignment were resolved near the end of 1899.[6]: 161 The Rapid Transit Construction Company, organized by John B. McDonald and funded by August Belmont Jr., signed the initial Contract 1 with the Rapid Transit Commission in February 1900,[7] in which it would construct the subway and maintain a 50-year operating lease from the opening of the line.[6]: 165 In 1901, the firm of Heins & LaFarge was hired to design the underground stations.[5]: 4 Belmont incorporated the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) in April 1902 to operate the subway.[6]: 182
The 33rd Street station was constructed as part of the route segment from Great Jones Street to 41st Street. Construction on this section of the line began on September 12, 1900. The section from Great Jones Street to a point 100 feet (30 m) north of 33rd Street was awarded to Holbrook, Cabot & Daly Contracting Company, while the remaining section to 41st Street was done by Ira A. Shaler.[7][8]: 4–5 The section between 33rd and 41st Streets was built as two double-track tunnels. To accommodate a never-built connection to the mainline platforms at Grand Central Terminal, the tunnel carrying northbound trains was shifted eastward (nearly touching the eastern curb line of Park Avenue). At the time, the railroads that operated the terminal had not agreed to the connection.[8]: 7 Property owners did not learn about the change until a series of accidents occurred along the excavation site in 1902.[8]: 7 A dynamite explosion near Park Avenue and 41st Street on January 27, 1902, killed five people,[9][10] and several mansions on Park Avenue fell into the excavation site that March due to rockslides.[11] Shaler became known by the pejorative nickname of "hoodoo contractor" as a result.[12] After Shaler was killed by a rockslide in his own excavation site on June 17, 1902,[13] his estate completed the construction of the tunnel between 33rd and 41st Street.[8]: 5
By late 1903, the subway was nearly complete, but the IRT Powerhouse and the system's electrical substations were still under construction, delaying the system's opening.[6]: 186 [14] The 33rd Street station opened on October 27, 1904, as one of the original 28 stations of the New York City Subway from City Hall to 145th Street on the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line.[2][6]: 186 Litigation over the IRT's Murray Hill tunnels continued for several years;[8]: 7–8 in 1905, a judge found that the city government was responsible for the January 1902 explosion.[15] In spite of this, the northbound tunnel was never relocated, as it had already been completed.[8]: 7–8