New Subway tunnels connecting Queens to Manhattan and Brooklyn
One hundred years ago today … The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company inaugurated its new tunnels: the 60th Street Tunnel that connected Manhattan with Long Island City, Queens, and the Montague Street Tunnel linking Brooklyn to Manhattan.
Now, for the first time, the BRT was an inter-borough system like its rival the Interborough Rapid Transit Company.
The Tribune offered a diagram of the new routes enabled by the tunnels.
New York Tribune, 1 August, 1920, p. 32.
The tunnels went into operation at 2:00 a.m.
Okay, so it was actually Sunday, August 1, not Saturday, July 31, but since it was still Saturday night for many New Yorkers, we’ll count it for today.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1 August, 1920, p. 53. Chronicling America.
As the Brooklyn Daily Eagle notes, one result of the new service was to offer Queens residents a ride all the way to Coney Island, eighteen miles away, for just five cents (which we just posted about).
WRITTEN BY JONATHAN GOLDMAN, JULY 31, 1920.
TAGS: subway, transportation, transit, Brooklyn, Queens, tunnel, borough