The Major Works

General History

The "political" and legal history of the subways, up through the establishment of the Transit Authority in 1953.

Summary from amazon.com: Brian Cudahy offers a fascinating tribute to the world the subway created. Taking a fresh look at one of the marvels of the 20th century, Cudahy creates a vivid sense of this extraordinary achievement-- how the city was transformed once New Yorkers started riding in a hole in the ground.

How We Got to Coney Island is the definitive history of mass transportation in Brooklyn. Covering150 years of extraordinary growth, Cudahy tells the complete story of the trolleys, street cars, steamboats, and railways that helped create New York’s largest borough---and the remarkable system that grew to connect the world’s most famous seaside resort with, Brooklyn, New York City across the river, and, ultimately, the rest of the world. Tables, charts, photographs, and maps.

Amazon.com writeup: In celebration of the New York City subway system’s 100th birthday, [this book] offers up this easy-to-read, informative history. From its beginnings as an underground amusement ride, to the development of the IRT, BMT and IND rail systems, to its crime-ridden and graffiti-covered fall in the 70’s and, finally, to its current revival, the system has had a more colorful history than most straphangers and tourists realize. Diehl’s well-pitched nostalgia leads readers to appreciate the wonder of the subway’s nascent period and to imagine how incalculably different New York would be today had the transit option that is so taken for granted not been created how and when it was.

Amazon.com Writeup: Drawn from a newly discovered cache of 8 x 10-inch glass negatives, these images show the incredible construction techniques and details involved in creating the underground marvel that is today's New York subway. From "cut and cover", sinking under-river tubes and disastrous cave-ins, the photographs are awe-inspiring. The pictures are accompanied by an engaging history of the subway system.

First published in October 1904 by the Interborough Rapid Transit Corporation, the company that built New York’s first underground railway, this unique facsimile edition is a lavishly illustrated guide to one of the century’s greatest engineering feats.

Here in twelve detailed chapters, are the routes, stations, and tracks, the rolling stock, signal systems, and electric supply stations of the new subway that ran under the streets of Manhattan and the Bronx. Beautifully reproduced photographs, maps, line drawings, and other illustrations complement the text, written by the IRT’s own engineers. It covers the construction methods, architecture, station and rolling stock design, and the political groups responsible for the creation of New York City's first subway.

An online version is available: http://www.nycsubway.org/articles/irtbook_index.html.

Amazon.com writeup: An audacious and all-encompassing book about New York's underground, The Subway and the City has everything a fan of the city and its trains could want. 568 Pages with more than 400 photographs, including over 375 vintage photographs never before seen in print!

This is an updated version of Fischler's previous book Uptown/Downtown which has been out of print for some time. A good general history of the elevated lines and subway, with sections on disasters, the Hudson Tubes, Beach's pneumatic subway, and more. Filled with anecdotal reports from people whose lives have been affected by the subway, the book ends with a "report card", rating each line on its railfan value.

The book delivers what it promises: a discussion of the Dual Contracts and its impact on the City. Whereas 722 Miles emphasized the political history of the subway system, "Tunneling" looks more closely at the social necessity for the massive expansion envisioned and rapidly carried out under the Dual Contracts. The "saving" refers to the relief of physical and social overcrowding which was not sufficiently eased by the existing elevated system and first subway.

There's plenty of politics, too, and we get an even sharper picture of the some of the IRT's machinations in trying to preserve its subway monopoly. Derrick's primary story ends, however, with the signing of the Contracts. If you're looking to find much about the company (the BRT) whose intervention made the Contracts "Dual" there is not too much.

What Derrick does, that reading the source material here does not, is put the material together, and add research and evaluation, which explains how and why the system came to be. In the process, we realize why the Dual Contracts were important (beyond the obvious of its creating new lines).
-Review by Paul Matus

Probably the definitive general history, this book is an excellent introduction to the New York subway system. Starting with a brief overview of the Els of the 1800's and the Beach pneumatic subway, it then discusses in depth the 1900 groundbreaking of the IRT. The BRT/BMT and IND are well covered, as are more recent developments in the subway, from the creation of the Transit Authority to the present. Now in its second edition.

Rolling Stock

This excellent book features color photographs of the subways, Hudson & Manhattan, Staten Island Rapid Transit, and Newark City Subway, mostly from the 1960s when many of the first-generation cars were still around.

This excellent color photo book chronicles the history of NYC Subway rolling stock, beginning with the IND Subway 1930's R1 car, up through the R110A and R110B technology test trains from the early 1990s. A must-have companion to the Interborough Fleet and Subway Cars of the BMT books, NYC Subway Cars picks up where those other books leave off, covering the "R-series" subway cars. The full-color photography is excellent. It includes some diagrams of subway car specifications but in this respect is not as inclusive as Evolution of New York City Subways.

The centennial edition of this book is the definitive guide to the rolling stock of the NYC subway and elevated system, covering the first elevated line in 1867 thru the R-142 car contract of 1997. Each car type is illustrated with photos, mostly black & white, and a writeup, as well as the diagram sheets from the NYCT internal publication Revenue and Non-Revenue Car Drawings where available. This book is a good general introduction to the car types, but the other books in this section go into further detail and illustration about the "sub-classes" (no pun intended) of the cars (early IRT, early BMT, and R-types). There are some color photos but New York City Subway Cars is the clear winner in that category. This book is unique in one other respect: it is the first comprehensive book about any aspect of subway history published by MTA New York City Transit, and hopefully not the last. This book is a necessary addition to any subway fan's collection.

First two editions titled "The Evolution of New York City Subways: An Illustrated History of New York City's Transit Cars, 1867-1997"

This long-awaited companion to New York City Subway Cars features over 200 black and white photos and diagrams of the BMT rolling stock, including the BMT Standard, D-Type Triplex, Bluebird articulated train, and many more of the BMT Subway oddities.

This book, in the same vein of Greller's New York City Subway Cars and Subway Cars of the BMT, is a photo tour of the cars of the Interborough Rapid Transit. Old photos detail the earliest composite cars up through the IRT's final purchase of World's Fair Low-V cars. A section on Belmont's Mineola and some color photographs of IRT Low-Vs in service complete the book.

Recently reprinted (1996), this book is an interesting history of the various subway cars used by the IRT, BMT, and NYCT transit lines. Many B&W photos of old cars and elevated lines. The author reports he has a number of copies still available.

Other Works

This book describes the building of the IND from the political forces that brought about its existence through beginning of construction through later developments, and includes many excellent photos.

A historical reprint of the engineering accounts in "Building the Dual Contract Lines for the City of New York", a series of articles from Engineering News in late 1915. Similar in scope to the Interborough Rapid Transit book The New York Subway: Its Construction and Equipment, this book includes many construction photographs and engineering illustrations of the Dual Contract subway and elevated lines.

This booklet, first published as part of the celebration of the IRT's 90th birthday, contains much factual information about NYC Transit, including the subways, bus system, police force, governance and administration, and history, with many interesting statistics.

Rare photographs of trolley and subway operations in New York City, including Third Avenue Railway System trolleys, Queensborough Bridge trolleys and el trains, Brooklyn elevated lines, the early subway cars of the BMT, and more.

Anyone interested in subway power technology or the remarkable buildings which housed it should inspect or obtain a copy of this book. This remarkable and inexpensive volume features dozens of high-quality, artistic and evocative monochrome photos of substation interiors, exteriors, and equipment in their last days (all were decommissioned by 1999), as well as explanations, history, diagrams, and contemporary maps of feeder cables, substation locations, and the like, as well as exploring the romance and fascination of this then centenarian antique technology. This is now the definitive volume on the Rotary Converter in New York City.

This book takes a look at the role of the subway in history, culture, arts, and spirit of New York City. Chapters about the subway in literature, in photography, and in the news paint the picture of New York and its subway.

This book chronicles a day in the lives of several people whose life is affected by the New York subway, from a token booth clerk to a conductor to a group of graffiti artists, and how they all relate to each other. Along the way, Dwyer throws in many tidbits of history. The net result is to give an excellent picture of what makes the New York subway the greatest in the world.

A look at the extensions made to the subway lines to accomodate the 1939-40 New York World's Fair. Lots of photos not seen elsewhere.

A scholarly review of the incidents leading up to, during, and after the Malbone Street subway accident of November 1, 1918, in which 90+ people perished. A full review can be found on the Rapidtransit.net web site at http://www.rapidtransit.com/net/book/reviews/malbone.htm.

This book is part of a series about major engineering projects in history. It is aimed to a junior high or high school student level but makes a nice concise history of the New York subway.

The definitive guide to the track layout of the subway. 68 pages of maps are supplemented by information regarding the signal system, radio codes, and locations of abandoned stations. A must-have for the railfan subway rider.

First published in the 1940s, this was a WPA Writers Program book detailing the underbelly of New York City, from the subways to gas and steam distribution, etc.