The Spell of the El (New York City)

In Inwood, in Upper Manhattan, the streets are defined by the overhead rumble of the Nos. 1 and 9.

THE end came abruptly on Third Avenue. Just after 6 p.m. on May 12, 1955, the last elevated uptown train rolled out of Chatham Square, in Chinatown, bound for the Bronx and then for incineration.

Subway ridership had declined steadily after peaking at 2.1 billion in 1947. Elevated railways, at least in Manhattan, were seen as a thing of the past. So down they went: Sixth Avenue in 1938, Ninth Avenue in 1940 and Second Avenue in 1942. Now the last of the borough's four lines, above Third Avenue, was fated for obsolescence.

Who would want to save it? The Third Avenue el, rusty and screeching, was seen as producing little but blight. Shopkeepers and city officials wanted to widen, brighten and repave the thoroughfare below. The goal was a "model city highway," as the Manhattan borough president, Hulan E. Jack, called it, a Third Avenue version of the new interstate expressways. And so Manhattan bade farewell to its last fully elevated train line.

"It was melancholy and sort of sad," said Lothar Stelter, 74, of Kew Gardens Hills, Queens, who was a 24-year-old telephone cable splicer when he boarded the final train that day in May. "People emerged from saloons and bars and, raising their glasses, saluted as the train went by," he said. Others tried to stop it. "The police had to cut the train's rip cords because everyone was pulling the emergency brake to prolong the last ride, or the agony," Mr. Stelter said.

Within three months, the city would begin to raze the structure, and whatever relics the souvenir hunters spared were burned or sold for scrap. (The Bronx portion of the line stayed open until 1973, when it was "replaced," the Metropolitan Transportation Authority says, by the Bx55 bus.)

Two days after the el's last run, a half-century ago this month, The New York Times mourned the event in an editorial, asking if the subway itself would become obsolete. "Will we or our successors cry when this happens? Who knows? But meanwhile, farewell, 'El,' a long, long, long farewell."

Yet despite this and other death knells, the el is far from gone. It rumbles over the streets of Inwood in Upper Manhattan, in University Heights and Pelham Bay in the Bronx, in Bensonhurst and Bushwick in Brooklyn, in Middle Village and Woodside in Queens. It takes riders and pleasure-seekers to the subway system's farthest reaches: Van Cortlandt Park, Coney Island, the Rockaways. And it tests the energy and creativity of hundreds of workers who monitor 168 track miles of elevated ironwork, more than one-fifth of the total. (Other trains, those that run in trenches, on embankments, or along viaducts, are classified differently by the M.T.A.)

A look at one particular stretch of the el, and the life lived along it - the shop owners who conduct business beneath it, the passengers who ride it, the transit workers who tend it, and the people who live nearby and have come to know its clack and clatter intimately - reveals how much this urban survivor continues to be threaded through the city's life. For those who use it, live and work near it, or keep it from falling apart, the el is neither a scourge upon the city nor a touchstone for nostalgia. It simply is.

In Upper Manhattan, the el makes its first appearance as a subway rider travels north on the Nos. 1 and 9 lines for a 13-block stretch, from 122nd to 135th Streets along Broadway.

Just as quickly, the train dips underground again, then emerges into the light at Dyckman Street in Inwood. It then glides by Substation No. 17, a century-old red-brick electrical depot, its ornamental reliefs and wrought-iron roof brackets making it a neighborhood landmark.

The Dyckman Street station and three others to the north, at 207th, 215th and 225th Streets, along with the 125th Street stop, remain the last holdouts of the elevated subway in Manhattan, a paean to the four lines that were destroyed.

At Dyckman Street, the street-level station sits on a concrete island. Passengers and pigeons alike have no trouble entering. Hence the owl. The owl is a simple cut-out, an outline drawn on a sheet of shiny metallic plastic and suspended by a thread from the station ceiling. It works reasonably well as a scarecrow, but the black netting wrapped above the turnstiles helps.

"That's part of our pigeon-deterrence program," said Peggy Forest, a superintendent who oversees 52 subway stations, including the one at Dyckman Street. "The pigeons always used to land here."

The portion of Tenth Avenue shaded by the el is far less vibrant than Broadway, a block to the west, but it is hardly desolate. The businesses along the streets in this heavily Dominican neighborhood have a unique rhythm, one governed by the frequency of the trains overhead.

Bijaru, a casual place near 215th Street that serves traditional Latin cuisine, enjoys a morning rush as busy as any subway car's. Residents dash into the store for a quick coffee or even plantains with rice and beans, and they do not linger.

"With some people waiting on line, you can see on their faces how frustrated they get when they hear the train," said Mrs. Conlon's grandson Alvin Pichardo, who frequently drops by. "What's the big deal? Why not wait until the next one comes?"

Mr. Pichardo, a student at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, has learned not to run after the train. "I've been late plenty of times," he said.

Ms. Forest, who oversees the Dyckman Street station, has been a manager since 1992. From her perspective, elevated stations are popular among station cleaners because people tend to want to do the least amount of work possible. Elevated stations are the easiest to clean, thanks to nature.

Wanda Robinson, one of Ms. Forest's deputies, welcomes wet weather. "When it rains, the rain actually helps to clear off the platforms," said Ms. Robinson, who oversees the station agents, supervisors and cleaners at 13 stations on the Nos. 1 and 9. "A lot of times, we have stains on the platform, like coffee spills. The rain won't do the job, but it sure helps."

Ms. Robinson has another theory to explain why transit workers prefer elevated stations. They like to observe the change in seasons, not to mention the changed behavior of riders, who are often more polite, and less hurried, than they are underground. "You see the people and the sunshine, and it helps your day," she said. "I enjoy being out in the open. It makes me happier."

The other morning, Lindsey Jimenez carefully held her place in "Hamlet" (Act V, Scene II) as she rode the No. 1 train over the bridge from Manhattan to Marble Hill and reflected on her daily ride along the Harlem River. "I like to look at the water," she said.

Ms. Jimenez, who is a communications student at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in Riverdale, heads deep into the earth every morning, taking the elevator underground to the 181st Street stop, then, minutes later, re-emerging at Dyckman Street.

She enjoys the view as the train passes the brick public housing projects like Dyckman Houses and Marble Hill Houses, which these days look almost bucolic, framed by the first yellow-green leaves of spring. But, as is true for so many youngsters who grow up near the el, the view was even more thrilling when she was younger, especially the moment the train emerged into the sunlight. "You used to put your knees on the chair and look," she said. "All of the sudden you're outside. You look down and say, 'Oh, my God!' I guess it's like flying."

The Broadway local is as popular among some train operators and conductors as it is among riders. "The No. 1 is a fast line," said Louis Brusati, a general superintendent who oversees rapid-transit operations on the Nos. 1, 2, 3, 7 and 9 lines. "It's level and flat. You just keep on going. It only gets muddled, if it gets muddled at all, at 96th Street. From 157th up to 168th, it's fast, and from 168th to 181st it's fast, even though you're going local."

Keeping the trains moving in poor weather is surprisingly easy. Snow generally falls through the gaps in the track. Only on some stretches does snow accumulate, and when it does, a sweeper train comes through and brushes off the snow with a metal extension known as a shoe. About the only thing a motorman needs to do differently is switch on the windshield wiper, although conductors would do well to bring their caps.

But now, summer is approaching, making the elevated line more appealing than ever. "It's a nice run if you're outside and it's a nice day," Mr. Brusati said.

Near 213th Street, Quisqueya Auto Sound churns along almost as noisily as the trains overhead. The shop is a popular hangout for young men, who go to get their convertibles and low-riders retrofitted with the latest and loudest car audio systems.

"I'm deaf - that's why I speak so loud," said Jaime Irizarry Jr., a 46-year-old trash collector who is a Quisqueya regular. Mr. Irizarry has spent much of his life amid loud noise: he grew up across the Harlem River, about two blocks from the tracks in Marble Hill, home to the 225th Street station.

"The problem is when you're watching television," he said. "Whenever I watched 'Columbo,' at the very best part, when Columbo was about to break the case, the train would pass by. It's murder on the ears. I should have learned how to read lips."

Moving to Brooklyn after his first marriage was like exiting a combat zone. "It took me a week to get used to it," he said. "The only noise there was the crickets."

Divorced, Mr. Irizarry is living in Marble Hill again, and has modulated his volume accordingly. "My girlfriend always asks me why I'm screaming," he said, a bit loudly. "Every time we speak, she thinks I'm arguing. I can't talk low, even on the phone."

If water is a boon for cleaners and a diversion for motormen, it is the enemy for the ironworkers and engineers charged with maintaining the els.

Elevated train structures are made up of a series of bents, as they are called, each consisting of two columns supporting a crossbeam. Resting on the bents are upright beams, or girders, to which track platforms and tracks are attached. The structure is supported and stabilized by a seemingly infinite array of X-shaped braces.

"We have four gangs of ironworkers that climb all over these on an annual basis," said John Ferrelli, the director of infrastructure engineering in the agency's track division. "They're dedicated full time, year round. All they do is inspect these structures."

"The difference between summer and winter weather can be three-quarters of an inch at the expansion girders," said John Ponessa, an iron-fabrication superintendent, pointing to a set of beams that give the bents space to breathe.

The 198 ironworkers employed by New York City Transit, unlike their counterparts in the construction industry, spend their time not putting up new steel, but repairing and replacing existing parts, some of them decades old.

"The vast majority of the city's elevated structures are original," Mr. Ponessa said, pointing to the round rivets in a column supporting the track near Dyckman Street. Such rivets were phased out long ago, in favor of high-strength bolts. But there they remain, right at eye level.

When elevated structures need repairs, ironworkers set up scaffolding directly under the tracks. "We're working on something that's got active trains on it, 24/7," said Frank Gaetano, who oversees 700 masons, carpenters, tinsmiths, plumbers and ironworkers.

Mr. Gaetano grew up in Riverdale, the Bronx, and loved watching the trains glide into the train yard at 240th Street, not far from his home. When he thinks about underground trains, he uses words like dirty, grimy, claustrophobic. Elevated structures are easier to maintain, he says. "Manhattan could still use them," Mr. Gaetano said.

Despite the Third Avenue el's reputation for fostering blight, els in the city have had a safe operating record. Neither of the largest disasters in the subway system's history -- Malbone Street in Flatbush, Brooklyn, where nearly 100 died in 1918, and the Times Square wreck that killed 16 in 1928 -- occurred above ground.

But in the 1970's and 80's, money to keep the system going was in such short supply that even deteriorated columns went unrepaired. John Carter, a retired transit official, will not forget the morning of May 29, 1986, when water gushed down the street near the Gates Avenue station on the J line in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

"I got a phone call in the middle of the night," he said. "There was a water-main break underneath the structure. The foundation of the column had washed out from underneath it. When a train went by, the column sank 18 inches here. When I got there, they were still running the trains, and I'm telling you, I was never more scared in my life." The trains were stopped and no one was hurt. The structure was repaired, and the line reopened three days later.

In a neighborhood like Inwood, the el is often entwined with stories of immigration and assimilation, sometimes in odd and unexpected ways. It played such a role for Isaac Morillo, a 28-year-old barber who does double time where the el travels over Nagle Avenue. He lives almost right next to it, on West 204th Street, and works directly under it, a block and a half down on the avenue, at Rudy's Barber Shop.

Four years ago, when Mr. Morillo moved to the neighborhood from the Dominican city La Vega, the train's sonorous presence surprised him. "In La Vega, we only get that kind of ruckus when it's Carnaval," he said, standing at the first chair in the shop.

He has gotten used to what happens when the train arrives, the way the barbershop vibrates, the way phone conversations are momentarily interrupted, the way the glass shelves rattle. It is when he leaves the neighborhood that things feel peculiar. "It's too strange not to hear the train," he said. "The sound is addictive. It's burned into your mind. When you're asleep, and 20 minutes pass and there's no train, you wake up."

If the silence lasts too long, the train starts to function like a canary in a coal mine, speaking volumes with its absence. Mr. Morillo never needs the radio to tell him something is wrong with train service, and he remembers the eerie quiet that followed the attack on the World Trade Center.

At work one recent morning, he picked up a ringing telephone and announced into the receiver, "Dímelo, monstruo!" - "Talk to me, you monster!" It was his brother, Oliver, calling from the Dominican Republic. Just as the two began a conversation, a subway rumbled by overhead. "That damn train," said Oliver, who recognized the cacophony at the other end of the line even though he has never been to New York.

I used to go to the Stadium during the "Guidry" years....

do you remember a reliever for the Red Sox named Dick Drago?

A friend of m ine used to like to get on Drago with a line only a New Yorker would get: "Hey, Drago, fix my shoes."

Great catch! It wasn't an optical illusion. They completed a 14 story building with a water tower around the block from where I grew up at Nagle Avenue just south of Ellwood Street in 1990. I moved from there in 1980. I rarely pass that way now.

There is a famous story that a father and son were driving by where the Polo Grounds used to be (W. 157th in Manhattan, right on the river, virtually directly across from Yankee Stadium) and the father told his son that that was where Bobby Thomson hit the homerun that won the pennant for the Giants.

The son looked for a few seconds and asked, "Yeah? Which floor?"

Never heard of the "Horseman", It was probebly after my time there.....I do miss the deli's in Yonkers, where I'm living in NJ there is no such thing of a "real" Italian "smelly deli" as we used to call them!!!!!!!

It might be. I don't know how long The Horseman has been open. If you go up Route 9 (Broadway) past Sleepy Hollow High School, just about when it forks you'll see the place. Whenever you're back in Westchester, look it up.

My family lived right by the el on 30th & 3rd from the 1940s until my mother finally left our tenement in the 70s. Our neighborhood was very ethnic and very lower middle class and being situated adjacent to the el not very desirable from a real estate point of view. When the el came down in the 50s we all rejoiced because we didn't have to hear the trains rumbling by at all hours of the day and night and the sun finally shone on Third Avenue!

Well, with the demolition of the el the area became prime real estate, the Italian, Greek and Armenian shops disappeared, yuppies moved in as my friends and neighbors moved out. High rises went up as brownstones and older apartment buildings disappeared.

I've since moved to California but sometimes wish I could return to the old neighborhood as it was in the 40s and 50s even with the rumble of the el trains and the lack of sunlight on the avenue.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.