Development In 1935,
New York City Parks commissioner
Robert Moses selected the then-new
Flushing Meadows Park in central
Queens for the
1939 New York World's Fair.
New York City Board of Transportation (BOT) chairman John H. Delaney convened a group of transit officials and engineers in January 1936 to discuss plans for
rapid transit to and from the fairground. At the time, the
Queens Boulevard Line of the city-operated
Independent Subway System (IND) was being extended to
Union Turnpike, and the
Jamaica Yard was being built in Flushing Meadows as a storage depot for trains. The Queens Boulevard Line's construction was expedited in advance of the fair, and the line opened at the end of December 1936. Initially, the fair was planned to be served by IND stations in the neighborhoods of
Kew Gardens and
Jamaica, as well as the
Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) and
Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) at the
World's Fair station.
Planning By October 1936, there were plans to construct a spur of the IND line, diverging from the Queens Boulevard Line in the south and traveling northward to Horace Harding Boulevard. According to
Grover Whalen—the president of New York World's Fair 1939 Inc., which was developing the fair—the IND spur would be able to accommodate 40,000 hourly passengers, while the IRT and BMT station would serve 40,000 additional passengers an hour. Of this amount, $700,000 was to be allocated to construction and $500,000 to equipment. The city government also had the option to spend another $100,000 to construct a permanent line to the fairground. Delaney and New York Transit Commission chairman
William G. Fullen recommended in January 1937 that an spur of the IND line, with two revenue-service tracks and an additional storage track, be built for the World's Fair. Whalen also endorsed the spur's construction. According to Whalen, without the spur, 70% of the fair's visitors would be forced to use the BMT and IRT station at the extreme north end of the fairground, Conversely, Moses derided the line as "extravagant and unnecessary", prompting Mayor
Fiorello La Guardia to convene a committee to discuss the spur's construction. Despite Moses's objections, the Board of Estimate approved $1.2 million for the World's Fair spur that March. New York state lawmakers
John J. Dunnigan and
Herbert Brownell Jr. sponsored legislation in April 1937 to authorize the Board of Estimate to issue $1.2 million worth of
bonds for the project. The
New York State Senate passed the bill with minimal opposition, but
New York State Assembly members objected to the fact that the proposed line would charge an additional 5 cents to anyone entering or leaving the World's Fair station. The Assembly ultimately passed the bill in May 1937 on the condition that no one using the station be charged more than 5 cents. Governor
Herbert H. Lehman signed the Assembly bill into law at the end of that month. For legal and financial reasons, the line was called the "World's Fair Railroad" and was considered a separate entity from the IND, in part due to the state legislation. By July 1937, the estimated cost of the line had increased to $1.742 million. At the time, BOT chief engineer Jesse B. Snow anticipated that the spur would take 22 months to construct. He also estimated that the line would accommodate 13 million passengers during 1939 and 10 million passengers during 1940. The plans for the IND World's Fair Line prompted increased interest in homes that were being built near the spur. During the line's planning stages in 1937, city officials considered making the line permanent the end of the fair. They also looked at the possibility of intermediate stations along the line to serve the local areas, comprising what is now
Kew Gardens Hills and
Flushing. At the time, city officials estimated that a permanent structure would cost $3.683 million if built above ground or $6.088 million if built underground. Despite pressure from Queens borough president
George U. Harvey and Queens residents, the line was ultimately not made permanent. The Board of Estimate believed that such a line would not serve any useful purpose, since the site of the fairground was undeveloped. The board's members also felt that if the line were to be permanent, it should not have been built at ground level. Attractions in Flushing Meadows, such as the
Citi Field baseball park and the
USTA National Tennis Center, were not added until later. Despite opposition from
Board of Aldermen president
William F. Brunner and Manhattan borough president
Samuel Levy, the Board of Estimate provided $225,000 in corporate stock for the initial construction of the spur. As part of the contract, the Cox Company was to construct a pile trestle along the eastern edge of Flushing Meadows, with
track beds made of
rock ballast. By February 1938, there were concerns that excessively high wages would delay the line's construction. The same month, the Board of Estimate awarded nine contracts for the construction of the line's tracks, which cost a total of $148,595. Work on the World's Fair station commenced on April 2, 1938, Neither
Union Switch & Signal nor
General Railway Signal, which had manufactured every existing signal in the subway system, submitted any bids for the signal system, as they were protesting the city's requirement that labor unions install the signals' wiring. The line's contractors thus had to obtain parts from these two companies. The BOT awarded an $11,816 contract for 18 turnstiles to the Perry Manufacturing Company Inc. in September 1938. The turnstiles were configured to accept either nickels or dimes because the BOT had not yet decided whether to implement the increased fares. To pay for the line's construction, the Board of Estimate decided in February 1939 to charge an additional fare at the World's Fair station. By then, the line was more than 85 percent complete. Ultimately, the line cost the IND $1,187,512, though the city's parks department planned to pay back $1.7 million to the IND.
Operation from 1939, showing the World's Fair Line as a spur heading northwest off the Queens Boulevard Line. The Queens Boulevard Line is the red line stretching roughly horizontally across the map's center.Test trains on the IND World's Fair Line began running in mid-April, and news media reported that empty trains were to start operating on the line on April 29, when a new IND schedule went into effect. The line was mostly served by the local train, running between
Smith–Ninth Streets and the World's Fair station. As such, IND riders had to change trains up to two times. The fair ran for two six-month seasons in 1939 and 1940. Of the fair's first million visitors, just over 9% (or 90,000) used the IND World's Fair Line to access the fair. By comparison, 203,000 passengers used the LIRR, and 189,000 passengers used the BMT and IRT line. Reflecting the IND line's temporary nature, it had to be repaired and reinforced every time there was a severe rainstorm. Initially, the line carried more passengers away from the fair than toward it. This trend continued throughout the rest of the 1939 season, since the station was next to the fairground's amusement area, where fairground visitors tended to congregate at the end of the day. The line ultimately carried 7,067,948 riders in 1939, far below the city's original estimate of 13 million. The ridership figures included 2.9 million passengers traveling to the fair and 4.2 million passengers leaving the fair. The most popular month for the line was May, when the line carried 1.2 million total passengers. and police officers patrolled the area outside the station during the off-season. That June, Harvey proposed retaining the line after the fair, and he formed a committee to advocate for its continued operation. Harvey also proposed extending the line, which was supported by the local communities, elected officials in Queens, and the president of Queens College. The last train ran on October 28, 1940, at 5 a.m., the day after the fair closed.
Demolition Plans called for the IND station and the connecting ramp to be demolished after the fair ended. While most of the fairgrounds were torn down soon after the event, the line remained intact for several months afterward. The BOT deemed it infeasible to retain the World's Fair Line because the trestle was constructed to be temporary, and due to regulations at the time which required permanent lines for subway service to be built underground. and on January 15, 1941, removal of the line commenced. Seven train signals that were modified for the World's Fair Line still exist along the Jamaica Yard's track connections to the Queens Boulevard Line. Instead of controlling the speeds of passenger trains, these signals are now used to control the speeds of yard traffic. In the end, improved Flushing Line service, and increased E, F, and GG service on the Queens Boulevard Line would provide improved transportation facilities for the fair. ==Route==