IRT Ninth Avenue Line
The IRT Ninth Avenue Line, often called the Ninth Avenue Elevated or Ninth Avenue El,[1] was the first elevated railway in New York City. It opened in July 1868 as the West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway, as an experimental single-track cable-powered elevated railway from Battery Place, at the south end of Manhattan Island, northward up Greenwich Street to Cortlandt Street. By 1879 the line was extended to the Harlem River at 155th Street. It was electrified and taken over by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company in 1903.
IRT Ninth Avenue Elevated
West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway
West Side and Yonkers Patent Elevated Railway Company
Westside Patented Elevated Railway Company
Ninth Avenue El
July 1, 1867
July 1, 1868
April 1868
1868
February 14, 1870
1903
June 11, 1940 (South of 145th Street) August 31, 1958 (North of 145th Street)
2–3
4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
The main line ceased operation in June 1940,[2][3] after it was replaced by the IND Eighth Avenue Line which had opened in 1932. The last section in use, over the Harlem River, was known as the Polo Grounds Shuttle. It closed in August 1958.[4] This portion used a now-removed swing bridge called the Putnam Bridge,[5][6] and went through a still-extant tunnel with two partially underground stations.[7]
The line had the worst accident in the history of New York City elevated railways, on September 11, 1905, when a train derailed and fell to the street. There were 61 casualties.[8]