Steinway Tunnel

The East River Tunnel Railroad Company was founded on February 22, 1885, to construct a railroad tunnel crossing the East River. Its objective was to connect the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR)'s tracks in Long Island City and the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad's tracks in the City of New York in the same tunnel. At that time period, movement through the New York metropolitan area was hampered by many large bodies of water such as the East River; there were no crossings across these water bodies, except for ferry service, which was not always possible or practical. In addition, plans to build the Blackwell's Island Bridge (later the Queensboro Bridge) were stagnant at the time. The East River Tunnel Railroad Company soon dissolved, and on July 22, 1887, Walter S. Gurnee and Malcolm W. Niven founded the New York and Long Island Railroad Company (NY&LIRR), which began planning for the tunnel shortly afterward. The tunnel was to begin on the New York side near the Hudson River docks in Manhattan, from there it would go east along 42nd Street to Grand Central and carry straight on under the East River. In Long Island City, the tunnel portals were to be between 5th Street (now 49th Avenue) and 4th Street (now 50th Avenue). It would go under Jackson Avenue and finally Thomson Avenue, intersecting LIRR tracks at Hunterspoint Avenue. The total cost of the tunnel was to be US$11.7 million. The route was finalized in the City of New York in 1890 and in Long Island City by 1891. Due to high compensation claims, the company was financially ruined, and attempts to raise additional funds failed because of the stock market crash of 1893. Work was stopped as a result, and it was boarded up. Investors refused to fund the tunnel because they feared that it was unsafe. Attempts to resume construction were occasionally made until Steinway died in 1896. ==The Belmont era==

' portals. Pictured in April 1974. In 1900, the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), headed by August Belmont Jr., was awarded the contract for construction and operation of the city's subway line and a few years later the IRT engineered a takeover of Manhattan's elevated railways, thus gaining a monopoly on the city's rapid transit services. In February 1902, the IRT bought the New York & Long Island Railroad and tram operators New York and Queens County Railway for a similar monopoly in Queens. The tunnel was holed through on May 16, 1907, and was completed in September of that year, after 26 months of construction. Fifty tramcars were made available for operation through the tunnel. They possessed a -long and -wide all-steel superstructure with double-sided semi-open entrances at the ends. Power was drawn from an iron rail on the ceiling, to which the car roof's -high pantograph would attach. The cars were also fitted with rod pantographs for street operation. The first trolley trip in the Steinway Tunnel was scheduled for September 20, 1907, but was postponed due to a power failure. Shortly afterward, trolley cars ran through the tunnel as part of a demonstration run. On September 29, 1907, a short circuit on the overhead wires caused a small fire, and the tunnel was shut down. Belmont did not have a franchise to operate a transit line. The concession to operate the tunnel had expired on January 1, 1907, and the city of New York was unwilling to renew the contract. For the next five years, the tunnel, with trolley loops on both the Manhattan and Queens sides, remained unused. In 1913, Belmont sold the tunnel to the city government after the IRT signed the Dual Contracts, which incorporated the Steinway Tunnel as part of the new Flushing subway line. ==Subway operation==

, one of three original subway stations in the Steinway Tunnel Initially, the IRT intended to use the tunnel for trolleys; Work began in 1913, with a regularly scheduled shuttle service beginning June 22. The planned metro route was to go from Times Square through the tunnel over to Long Island City and from there continue towards Flushing. The IRT was to operate this line, with the trackage east of Queensboro Plaza to be shared by the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (later the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation, or BMT). Meanwhile, the construction work continued on the planned route. To the east of the tunnel, the Hunters Point Avenue subway station went up to the level of the Hunterspoint Avenue LIRR station. Immediately east of it was a ramp up to the elevated subway towards Queensboro Plaza. Hunters Point Avenue opened on February 15, 1916, and on November 5 of the same year, it was extended to Queensboro Plaza. Because the line did not have track connections to the rest of the IRT network, a provisional maintenance workshop was operated at the tunnel ramp until 1928. and Times Square on March 14, 1927. When Belmont modified the IRT Flushing Line to extend to Times Square and to Flushing, it was found that the loops could not be used for the extensions. The loops on the Queens side of the tunnel were obliterated in the wake of new construction. The loop on the Manhattan side, however, is intact and occupied by maintenance rooms, although the ceiling third rail still exists in the loop. The line from Times Square to Flushing was completed in 1928, when the station at Flushing opened. The 50 "World's Fair"-type cars, used for the 1939 New York World's Fair, used the same type of gear boxes. In subsequent years, the tubes of the Steinway Tunnel were difficult to maintain: they were prone to flooding, and the tube walls were much narrower than other tunnels in the subway system, with almost no clearance on each side of the train. After a train got stuck in the tunnel in 1971, a passenger died of a heart attack. A fire broke out on a train in the tunnel in 1973, killing one passenger and trapping over a thousand in the middle of the tunnel, after the collapse of an archway. In 1991, the tubes were flooded to after a water main broke on the Manhattan side. The next year, an electrical fire in the tunnel melted several feet of steel rail, although the tunnel's exhaust fans were working properly. After Hurricane Sandy-related storm surges flooded the tunnel in 2012, the tubes were rebuilt in a $29 million project that took place between 2013 and April 2016. To protect the tunnel from future flooding, two retaining walls will be installed on either side of the tunnel portal in Queens, and flex gates would be installed to prevent water from entering the tunnel. The project is estimated to cost $15 million, work was scheduled to begin in May 2021 and was still ongoing in 2024. ==References==