"We take it for granted," Concetta Bencivenga, New York Transit Museum director, told The Post of the subterranean system, which opened to the public on October 27, 1904. The subway celebrates its 120th anniversary Sunday, recognized throughout the boroughs as 'Subway Day.' But what happened 120 years ago was so shockingly novel and revolutionary," continued Bencivenga. "The notion of asking people to get on an electrified vehicle, when electricity was still fairly new, and move around underground was completely mind-blowing."
Straphangers today, however, aren't all that fascinated by the trains' functions. Instead, it's the outré encounters and experiences they've had while traveling about 100 feet beneath the concrete - like virally belting out Celine Dion's 'My Heart Will Go On' with a subway car full of strangers or witnessing a pair of Brooklynites tie the knot on the L train - that stand out most.
As New Yorkers reflect on their craziest, memorable moments, a below-ground stage for the Big Apple's most uninhibited likely wasn't what William Barclay Parsons had in mind when he began designing the railroad in 1894. As the first chief engineer of the New York Rapid Transit Commission, Parsons, a Columbia University alum, curated the original plan for the Interborough Rapid Transit subway - the city's first underground train system.
Collection
[
|
...
]