Subway : the curiosities, secrets, and unofficial history of the New York City Transit System /

New York wouldn't be New York without the subway. This one-time engineering marvel that united and expanded the city has been a cultural touchstone for the last 114 years. Somehow though, there has never been a book that celebrates the subway from the scars it left on the city's fabric to...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Morris, John E., 1957- (Author)
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: New York : Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, [2020].
Edition:First edition.
Subjects:
Table of Contents:
  • Introduction: an underground microcosm of the city
  • Horse-drawn gridlock and dreams of a subway
  • Other means of transport
  • Men, mules, and dynamite : building the IRT
  • Under the East River to Brooklyn
  • Unique features of the subway
  • The forgotten mogul
  • Better skin, fewer cockroaches
  • Lights, camera, action
  • The engineers who made the subway possible
  • Signaling and capacity
  • Collecting fares
  • Defects in the new marvel
  • Complaining
  • Sex and the subway
  • The lost decade and the dual contracts
  • Songs of the subway
  • Dos and don'ts on the train
  • A very different subway
  • The pugnacious mayor and the media baron
  • City versus state
  • Bigger, better, faster
  • Beneath the streets
  • Unification and demolition
  • Meet Miss Subways
  • Rolling stock
  • How new lines shapes the city
  • Scars left behind
  • Dream on
  • Train substitutes
  • Near-death experience
  • From horror shows to sitcoms
  • How to get there
  • The man who introduced New York to Helvetica
  • or something like it
  • Literature goes underground
  • Promises, promises
  • Calamities
  • Party down
  • Epilogue and prologue
  • Archaeology: a self-guided tour
  • Just the facts, ma'am
  • Timeline: 1863-2019
  • The straphanger's essential lexicon
  • Frequently cited sources.