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It
has often been remarked that New York City politics
is not quite like politics anywhere else.
That
goes doubly for the politics behind New York
City’s vast transportation system. Yet if you
want more than a light treatment of the
personalities behind the building, equiping and
management of that system, you’re mostly on
your own.
Clifton
Hood has produced a political history of the subway
which should be read by every student of New York
history and every person who wants to understand
better the workings of New York City politics
today.
Hood's
depiction of the growth of New York City
transportation should alter the popular perception
of rapid transit, particularly as it came to relate
to modern New York City. In this age in which we
talk of "greenfields" and and
"suburban sprawl" we may be forgiven if
we believe that the purpose of rapid transit was to
concentrate the population along its routes,
perhaps preserving the sylvan rural landscape
elsewhere.
In
fact, quite the opposite is true. The building of
New York's subway and elevated system was to have
been the ultimate step in dispersing New York's
population.
Until
the coming of the horsecar and public stage lines,
working people
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basically
had to live within walking distance of work. Public
surface transportation helped this situation
somewhat, but merely made it possible for even more
people to make their livings in the dense core of
the City. Even after tenement buildings replaced
smaller structures, the piling of humanity on
humanity didn't slacken--tenements were built in
the backyards of existing tenements, depriving the
original tenants the solace of a bit of grass or a
tree or two, or some open playspace for their
children.
When
the elevated trains and then the subways came
along, people were able to move to the suburbs and
still work in the City--the suburbs that were then
the little villages and farming communities of
northern Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx.
Needless
to say, there was money to be made in the
development of such a vast territory. The original
revolution creating New York City's transit
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