The New York Subway | Page 2

completion of the rapid transit railroad in the boroughs of
Manhattan and The Bronx, which is popularly known as the "Subway,"
has demonstrated that underground railroads can be built beneath the
congested streets of the city, and has made possible in the near future a
comprehensive system of subsurface transportation extending
throughout the wide territory of Greater New York.
In March, 1900, when the Mayor with appropriate ceremonies broke
ground at the Borough Hall, in Manhattan, for the new road, there were
many well-informed people, including prominent financiers and
experienced engineers, who freely prophesied failure for the enterprise,
although the contract had been taken by a most capable contractor, and
one of the best known banking houses in America had committed itself
to finance the undertaking.
In looking at the finished road as a completed work, one is apt to
wonder why it ever seemed impossible and to forget the difficulties
which confronted the builders at the start.
The railway was to be owned by the city, and built and operated under
legislation unique in the history of municipal governments,
complicated, and minute in provisions for the occupation of the city
streets, payment of moneys by the city, and city supervision over
construction and operation. Questions as to the interpretation of these
provisions might have to be passed upon by the courts, with delays,
how serious none could foretell, especially in New York where the
crowded calendars retard speedy decisions. The experience of the
elevated railroad corporations in building their lines had shown the

uncertainty of depending upon legal precedents. It was not, at that time,
supposed that the abutting property owners would have any legal
ground for complaint against the elevated structures, but the courts
found new laws for new conditions and spelled out new property rights
of light, air, and access, which were made the basis for a volume of
litigation unprecedented in the courts of any country.
An underground railroad was a new condition. None could say that the
abutting property owners might not find rights substantial enough, at
least, to entitle them to their day in court, a day which, in this State,
might stretch into many months, or even several years. Owing to the
magnitude of the work, delay might easily result in failure. An eminent
judge of the New York Supreme Court had emphasized the
uncertainties of the situation in the following language: "Just what are
the rights of the owners of property abutting upon a street or avenue,
the fee in and to the soil underneath the surface of which has been
acquired by the city of New York, so far as the same is not required for
the ordinary city uses of gas or water pipes, or others of a like character,
has never been finally determined. We have now the example of the
elevated railroad, constructed and operated in the city of New York
under legislative and municipal authority for nearly twenty years,
which has been compelled to pay many millions of dollars to abutting
property owners for the easement in the public streets appropriated by
the construction and maintenance of the road, and still the amount that
the road will have to pay is not ascertained. What liabilities will be
imposed upon the city under this contract; what injury the construction
and operation of this road will cause to abutting property, and what
easements and rights will have to be acquired before the road can be
legally constructed and operated, it is impossible now to ascertain."
It is true, that the city undertook "to secure to the contractor the right to
construct and operate, free from all rights, claims, or other interference,
whether by injunction, suit for damages, or otherwise on the part of any
abutting owner or other person." But another eminent judge of the same
court had characterized this as "a condition absolutely impossible of
fulfillment," and had said: "How is the city to prevent interference with
the work by injunction? That question lies with the courts; and not with

the courts of this State alone, for there are cases without doubt in which
the courts of the United States would have jurisdiction to act, and when
such jurisdiction exists they have not hitherto shown much reluctance
in acting.... That legal proceedings will be undertaken which will, to
some extent at least, interfere with the progress of this work seems to
be inevitable...."
Another difficulty was that the Constitution of the State of New York
limited the debt-incurring power of the city. The capacity of the city to
undertake the work had been much discussed in the courts, and the
Supreme Court of the State had disposed of that phase of the situation
by suggesting that it did not make much difference to the municipality
whether or not the debt