By the El: 3rd Avenue and its El at Mid-Century

It’s been over twenty years since the New York subway system has increased its capacity by adding a new station or extending service. Two major expansion projects are currently under construction: the 7 line extension in Midtown West and the 2nd Avenue line — the T train and Q extension — that is to run from 125th Street to Hanover Square in a long-planned effort to reduce considerable congestion on the Lexington Avenue line (4, 5 and 6 trains). The financial and political challenges that constrain the MTA’s ability to respond to a constantly growing and changing city are well known. But what is less well known is the fact that we used to have a lot more public transit options than we do currently, especially on the east side of Manhattan. Both 2nd and 3rd Avenues had elevated rail lines that connected to Queens and the Bronx. These lines were run by private companies and, during the decades immediately following the consolidation of mass transit under public control, they were discontinued without viable plans to replace the capacity being reduced. And beyond their infrastructural utility in a growing city of commuters, the stations themselves were reflective of an era of civic architecture when materials and craftsmanship were sources of pride.

But while most traces of the elevated train system in Manhattan have been erased, luckily we have a record, a series of photographs taken between 1951 and 1955 by amateur photographer Lothar Stelter, who rode the 3rd Avenue El to work each day as a telephone cable splicer and installer. His photographs form such a rich and rare archive of mid-century street life, transportation and building that his son Lawrence was moved to catalogue the images and bring them to a wide public. The resulting book, By the El: Third Avenue and its El at Mid-Century, is now in its second printing and is available for purchase on Amazon, or at the New York Transit Museum or the Bronx County Historical Society. The combination of the elder Stelter’s photographs, the younger Stelter’s comprehensive knowledge of our transit history, and first-hand accounts of living by or traveling on the El provides either a nostalgic reminder for someone who experienced this nearly forgotten chapter of New York City’s history or a welcome introduction for someone who didn’t. Learn more in our conversation with Lawrence Stelter below. –C.S.

Uptown express leaving 23rd Street
Uptown express leaving 23rd Street
Cassim Shepard (CS):

Tell me a little bit about yourself and your book By the El. What do you do? How did you come to create this book?

Lawrence Stelter (LS):

I am a registered architect. I work for the City’s Buildings Department as a plan examiner. Local Law 11 requires all facades on buildings that are more than six floors high to be inspected every five years for safety. So that’s what I do. There are 12,500 buildings in the five boroughs that fall under that category, all types, all ages.

My father, Lothar Stelter, started working for the New York Telephone Company in 1950. He lived in the Bronx (first in Highbridge, then in Wakefield, where I grew up) and he took the El to work on the east side of Manhattan. He was always interested in photography, and in 1951 he bought a Contessa Camera and became interested in color slides. At the telephone company, he started out helping the men working in the manhole, and then he became a cable splicer and eventually an installer. So he was up on roofs, down below buildings, between them. And he would take his camera to work with him and take a lot of pictures from the rooftops.

At first, I don’t think he noticed that the Elevated stations were particularly antique or of value. But a little research showed that the structures – the wooden fretwork, the ornate Victorian-era ironwork, the stained glass windows – were virtually intact since 1878. He just took it upon himself to record this.

He had already been photographing the El for a few years before he learned that it was going to close in 1955, but I think as a photographer he always had an appreciation for things that were going to disappear. For example, there’s one series of pictures of the ice man, with his calipers and serrated shovels, making deliveries in East Harlem. Another series documents all the antique stores along 3rd Avenue.

A downtown train passing 115th Street
A downtown train passing 115th Street
CS:

Can you sketch a history of the 3rd Avenue El?

LS:

After the Civil War, New York was growing very quickly, and transportation in the city was pretty much horse run. Railroads terminated at Grand Central Terminal or at 30th Street, but getting further south to lower Manhattan had to be horse-drawn.

Now, London had an underground railway system as early as 1863, but the soft clay under London makes tunneling relatively easy compared to New York, since here we’re built on solid rock. So mass transit options in New York City required a different approach. And beginning around 1867, a man named Charles Harvey started experimenting with building an elevated railway structure. In the early 1870s there was an experimental line that ran along Greenwich Street that was eventually extended along 9th Avenue all the way up to 42nd Street, then 59th. The next one, which opened in 1878, began on Church Street, went up Murray, swung over to West Broadway and then turned on 3rd Street to 6th Avenue then up to 58th Street. Later that year, the 3rd Avenue line opened. It ran from City Hall up the Bowery and 3rd Avenue up to 129th Street. There were other branches and rail lines put in, and mergers between companies (The Metropolitan Railway, the New York Railroad, the Manhattan Railway) and lines.

In 1880, more than twenty years before the subway, Manhattan had four rapid transit lines. The subway didn’t spur the development of the Upper East or Upper West Side; the El did. Meanwhile, by 1885, Brooklyn was developing it’s own elevated system, on Myrtle Avenue, Fulton Street, 5th Avenue, Broadway – parts of which are still in operation.

In 1886, the 3rd and 2nd Avenue lines were extended into the Bronx, which was called the Annex District at the time.

Left: 89th Street stationhouse | Right: A southbound local approaches the 67th Street station
Left: 89th Street stationhouse | Right: A southbound local approaches the 67th Street station
CS:

When was the apex of ridership for the 3rd Avenue El?

LS:

1920 was the height. During this period, subway lines – the first of which had opened in 1904 – were being expanded and new ones constructed. Technology had advanced. People were moving out the city, but the demand for public transit was only increasing. In the 1920s, there was a move to gradually replace the El lines. The real estate industry also really wanted to get rid of the El in order to redevelop property. Real estate portrayed the avenues with Elevateds as blighted, as slums, but the people who lived by the El didn’t think they lived in a slum at all. The idea that the El was deterring development was a myth, I think. Look at Sutton Place or the Chrysler Building annex.

Another factor was that Mayor Hylan, who started the Independent Subway System (or IND, currently the A, B, C, D, E, F and G lines), was predisposed against the private transit companies. He wanted the City to run public transportation.

The IND’s 6th Avenue subway was to replace the 6th Avenue Elevated. There was loud agitation to get rid of the El before plans for the subway were even finalized. And then, of course, the Depression set in. The IRT (Interborough Rapid Transit, currently the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 lines) and the El lines in particular were losing a lot of money – labor issues delayed improvements like automated doors and the political infeasibility of raising the five cent fare made the company struggle to make the economics work. In 1932, the IRT went into receivership. It owed the city a lot of back taxes and closing the 6th Avenue El before the 6th Avenue subway even opened was part of a deal. The IRT and the BMT (Brooklyn Manhattan Transit Corporation, currently the J, L, M, N, Q, and R) were in negotiations with the City to take over the entire system, which happened in 1940.

The 99th Street station northbound platform
The 99th Street station northbound platform
LS:

The 3rd Avenue El was still running throughout the ’40s, and my father says that up to the very end it was always crowded at rush hour. Starting in 1950, gradual closures of parts of the line were deliberate attempts to stop people from using it. First the branch to South Ferry was closed. Then City Hall to Chatham Square Junction was closed. And in March of 1952, the Board of Transportation announced that the 3rd Avenue El south of 129th Street would only run on weekdays between 7:30 am and 6 pm, which basically meant all the building custodians, the cleaning ladies and others who worked odd hours weren’t going to be able to use the El anymore.

After they closed and demolished it in 1955, new high-rises did appear in the area, but then of course you are faced with a lot more people in the neighborhood packing into the existing subway. The 2nd Avenue El had been closed and demolished in 1942.

A hardware store alongside the El at 3rd Avenue and 95th Street
A hardware store alongside the El at 3rd Avenue and 95th Street
CS:

So the Lexington Avenue line was immediately over capacity?

LS:

It was. The newspapers tried to make the case that nobody really missed the El, that extra trains on the Lexington Avenue line would reduce the congestion. But if you see pictures of the mobs of people changing trains at 149th Street and 3rd Avenue, otherwise known as the Hub, it’s pretty clear that a lot of people in the Bronx missed the El. In my view, removing the El made the central corridor of the South Bronx a much less desirable place to live. I watched the whole place just disappear.

CS:

Many New Yorkers, such as myself, were not around to experience the Elevated, a least not within Central Manhattan. What do you hope those who didn’t experience it might learn about forgotten aspects of New York’s transit infrastructure from looking at this book?

LS:

The Elevated is often times ignored as history. When the subway celebrated its centennial, everyone was talking as if the subway was the beginning of rapid transit in New York, which isn’t true. So correcting the historical record is one thing. But there’s also the preservation of the structures themselves. Chicago is still running its El. Philadelphia just finished restoring one of its elevated lines. Boston replaced many of its elevated lines with subways, but didn’t destroy all of the infrastructure. Here, nothing was saved. I know there was some talk of using the station buildings as visitor centers in Central Park, but it didn’t happen. People remember seeing all the stained glass from these ornate stations in the dumpster. My father bought a piece of one of the red stained glass panels for ten dollars — that was a lot of money in those days. And these are things that can never be replaced; the craftspeople who created this work just don’t exist anymore. I showed some of these pictures in Corning, New York, where a lot of the glass was made, and they were really interested to see documentation of the quality of the glasswork. The ironwork was made in Passaic, New Jersey. This whole chapter in New York history is lost.

I remember a book that came out in 1971, Lost New York. There was nothing in that book about the El. And it described how Penn Station was torn down and the uproar that caused. Meanwhile, I met people who consider themselves New York history buffs who had no idea the elevated system even existed! And my father happened to create this record of it. People often ask me if he was a professional. And I tell them, “No, he was just a telephone man who took his camera to work.”

A young woman checks her hair in one of the Third Avenue El's stations
A young woman checks her hair in one of the Third Avenue El's stations
CS:

Given that the 3rd Avenue El was an important piece of transit infrastructure that was removed, how do you feel about the 2nd Avenue subway line?

LS:

At least they’re doing it. And at least it will go part of the way up. But it’s really just a Manhattan shuttle; it’s not going to help the outer boroughs at all. With a little more money they could extend it past 125th Street. It’s been proposed since 1920. At one point it was going to go to the Bronx. And the plan was revised in 1950 and the only part of that plan that was built was the Grand Street station, which would have connected to the 2nd Avenue line.

A bond proposition passed in 1951 to build a 2nd Avenue subway, but obviously the money was not used for the 2nd Avenue subway; it was used for other projects. That’s why my father says that to this day he always votes “no” when there’s a proposition.

Another thing that spurred me to create this book happened in 1994. I heard Joe Cunningham, a transit historian, interviewed on the Brian Lehrer show. He said that getting rid of the El hasn’t panned out to be such a good idea. And we are still talking about how to replace the capacity that we willingly destroyed.

In the case of 3rd Avenue, the public investment simply did not follow all the private investments. What we actually had was public disinvestment. Hoping it would lead to private investment and increased property values, we destroyed a public asset – a transit asset – that most other cities would crave.

Joe Cunningham was one of the people who told me that I had to get my father’s pictures out there for all the people who didn’t experience this chapter of New York City history. He wasn’t expecting much when he came to see the photos, but then he saw them and immediately said he felt like jumping into the pictures. So we went through all the photographs, catalogued them and went about trying to find a publisher. In the meantime, I talked to a lot of people who had memories of 3rd Avenue in the ’40s and ’50s.

CS:

It’s such an incredible document to that era. What do you hope people who look at these images might learn about that time in urban history more generally?

LS:

I think the photos show that a lot of the people living along the El were not living in blight. And they tell a story about life in the 1950s: almost every single car captured in these street scenes is American-made (there are exactly two foreign-made cars in the photos that appear in the book); there are also a lot fewer cars on the street than you’d find today; air conditioning was a luxury; two pounds of fruit cost 25 cents from a vendor pushing a cart down the street; street masons would fix the pavement blocks with care and attention. It’s a record of the cityscape, of moments frozen in time.

Only the pillars remain, looking south from 83rd Street, fall, 1955
Only the pillars remain, looking south from 83rd Street, fall, 1955

Lawrence Stelter, author of By the El, is an architect for the City of New York. He received a master’s degree in city planning from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and his thesis was “Analysis of the New York City Policy of Demolishing Elevated Transit Lines” (1982). In addition to the history and romance of the city’s mass transit lines, his interests include general history, travel and photography. He lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.law

Lothar Stelter, the photographer, is now retired after a long career with the New York Telephone Co., a predecessor of Verizon. He sometimes paid fifty cents to building superintendents where he was installing phones to let him shoot pictures of the Third Avenue El from good vantage points. Lothar Stelter is a product of the city schools, having graduated from Evander Childs High School in the Bronx before attending college. He and his wife of more than fifty years, Josephine Montelbano Stelter, live in Kew Garden Hills, Queens, where he, too, continues his fascination with the old elevated train system. He’s also keenly interested in film history.

The views expressed here are those of the authors only and do not reflect the position of The Architectural League of New York.

Comments

Linda Pollak March 7, 2012

‘By The El: Third Avenue and its El at Mid-Century’ is an important contribution to our understanding of the city and its systems. There is little official history of elevated transportation infrastructure, yet its role in the city’s development has been and remains tremendous. Thank you Urban Omnibus for highlighting the significance of this publication associated research.
LP

Otto Behrmann March 9, 2012

As a cousin of Lothar Stelter and growing up with him, I vividly remember his passion for photography and his dark room in the basement. The 3rd Avenue El is only one of his many themes. He was way ahead of his time in artful photos of everyday people and city scenes. Wedding photos, mine included, were also done to perfection. Thanks Larry for bringing some of his work out of the file cabinet into the world. I know there’s lots more good work in those file cabinets. Maybe some more of them could be brought out into the light. Great work on your publications AND your continued membership in the Coney Island Polar Bears.

Caroline Hancock March 16, 2012

It’s fascinating to see these beautiful photographs and learn about one of the many lost iterations of New York City; this one ended the year I was born in Manhattan. My parents used to reminisce about the El, and deplore the paucity of public transportation on the East Side. Though wider from east to west than “our” West Side, it had only the Lexington subway line, while the WS had both the IND and IRT (as I still think of them). Lessons from the past!

Pieter Vandenhoudt May 7, 2012

Most interesting article with beautiful photographs. I agree about losing an important part of NYC’s history by demolishing these elevated tracks. For my thesis I’m working on the thematics of the Brooklyn El. and new approaches for involving the public realm with these modernistic structures. I also read the articles about the Culver Viaduct and the Queens Borough Plaza project of Marpillero Pollak Architects which are handeling these new approaches. I want to stress that in the other boroughs (Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx) these elevated lines are still an important part of the street scene but there is very little to find about on the internet. Thank you for publishing these thematics since it will grow in importance in contemporary city development.
PV

Bronxstar September 24, 2012

My grandmother lived on 159th and 3rd avenue and as a young girl,I remember going to 3rd avenue and seeing the EL running above ground. We use to visit places like Woolworths and the shoe repair guy on the corner. I believe the author when he states that the loss of the EL is what was a major contributor to the demise of the Bronx-The businesses moved to where the most people could commute to and that left tenants with no place to shop-those tenants moved out (therefore police presence did as well)and crime moved in..It is nice to see things finally turning back around for my home town! Bronxite forever!

Solon Beinfeld October 11, 2012

I rode the 3rd Avenue El as a child living near Tremont Ave.in the Bronx. I thought it was much more fun than the subway. I remember the lovely stained glass windows, and was delighted not long ago to find a couple of them at the apartment of a friend. She somehow had found out where they were stashed in a dumpster somewhere and bought them on the spot.

John Feehan September 14, 2013

For almost 10 years starting in 1998 I and my family lived in the Buchanan, on 3rd between 47th and 48th. Glimpses of the Buchanan are found in several of Lothar Stelter’s pictures). When I learned that an el station once existed at the corner of 47th, I began to look in street fairs and in bookstores for photos of 3rd Avenue when the el was still running. I never found one. I’m so happy to find this book. In fact, I’m even more interested today in how one might acquire a copy or print of one or two pictures from the book – if that’s possible.

Michael Cantillon January 27, 2014

I WOULD LOVE TO GET SOME INFO ON WHERE THE EL CROSSED INTO MANH. I ROAD THE EL AS A CHILD . WHAT STREET OR AVE. BEFORE IT WENT INTO MANH. WHERE WAS THE BRIDGE OR TRESSEL LOCATED THAT WENT OVER THE WATER LEAVING THE BRONX?

Melanie September 23, 2014

Stunning photography and history!

Allan B. July 10, 2016

Excellent. Superb (and any other superlative you can think of). A true treasure trove in photographs.

To answer Michael Cantillon’s question – the trestle on the Bronx side before it crossed the Harlen River was on Willis Avenue at E132nd Street. It entered Manhattan at 2nd Avenue.

Just as a point of information – as of 2016 one of the stone abutments/support walls for the 2 level railroad bridge in still in place and intact 60+ years after service ended and the the El structure demolished. It is at E132nd St & Willis Avenue in the Bronx (under the present Willis Avenue Bridge).

Edward Fenning March 23, 2017

I have a copy of this book, and it is one of the prize possessions in my collection. Mr. Stelter’s photos capture the essential and unique feeling of the el and its east side neighborhoods, during the early 1950’s. It is also unusual to have such a large collection of color slides (of excelllent quality) of New York from this period – your average family photographer, or even amateur photographer was probably still shooting in black and white; and maybe considered color film/ slides probably a luxery at that time.

I just missed the el unfortunately. I was almost five when it stopped running in May 1955, and I’m sure if my Dad had thought of it, he would have taken me for a ride on the trains. I certaingely would have remembered this, since I do have a number of memories from five and maybe a little earlier. I have possibly very dim memories of maybe passing under thrid avenue el pillars, in my family’s Studebaker, probably during 1954, on our way to see the obstetrician, when my mother was pregnant with my brother Roger.

Joseph Frank January 31, 2018

I have 2 copies of the hardcover original, and 1 of the softcover 2nd printing of Lothar’s “By the EL” Book. Both are quite excellent !!

I lived and grew up along the Manhattan 3rd Ave EL next to one of its Yorkville Local EL Stations. I have deep vivid memories of the EL and riding its trains. I took many color slides and B&W Photos of the EL – Manhattan & Bronx, like Lothar did, and have about 6000 photos in my collection on the EL, and many hundred thousands on the other subway and El lines of NY City. I appreciate the work Lothar did to obtain his images as I did the same, from street level, on trains, stations, and from rooftops !

I also built scale operating models of the various classes of steel subway and wooden EL trains of the old IRT and also made models of streetcars that ran below the EL’s, all hand built in 1/4″ to foot scale, as full museum caliber hand-built operating models, with full accurate scale interiors, as well as models of the BMT subway and EL cars. The Model EL line runs along hand made scale models of tenements and other buildings and stores seen along an EL line. I am also a noted and published NYC Transit Historian. Here are my website links to photos and videos of this Museum caliber operating layout, named the “New York City Model Transit System – ‘EL’ and Trolley Layout in O-Scale”

NOTE: If ANY of these THREE links provided below do not show as hyperlinks, you may have to copy-&-paste each of them to an address bar to click there to open them that way;

The Flickr Photo ALBUMS Page — Photos showcased by model scene and model subject matter

https://www.flickr.com/photos/44268069@N00/albums

The Flickr Photostream MAIN page

https://www.flickr.com/photos/44268069@N00/albums

By the way – re: the further above comment by Allan B – Incorrect INFO !

There is NO stone abutment for the River Bridge of the 3rd Ave EL in the Bronx under the Willis Avenue Bridge !! However, there are the two large heavy twin stone bases on the waters edge for the Bronx shoreline stone portal arch pier for the Harlem River Swing Bridge’s approach span Fixed Bridge – located along Lincoln Avenue where it heads south to the river and turns east running along the river – can be seen in this google view…


Remains of Bronx Anchor Stone PORTAL Pier for 3rd Ave El River Bridge

The single very old stone pier seen abandoned UNDER the Willis Avenue Bridge’s NEW roadway approach, is the OLD original pier for the original Willis Avenue Bridge and its original, now removed, Bronx approach roadway !! There is NO physical structural TRACE whatsoever of the EL in the one time massive former New Haven RR Freight Railyard’s (that whole area) — EXCEPT the riverbank stone remains at waterline in the google view.

Anyone want to further discuss the EL or its extensive history, or nostalgia, I can be email contacted at irtelman@yahoo.com

Regards – Joe F