Building the subway system’s 472 stations meant contending with the unique geology of New York City.
This geology is starkly evident at the Bennett Avenue entrance of the 190th Street stop on the A train. Here, six doors are framed by an arch of stone blocks nestled in a dramatic ridge of bedrock that extends high above the street.
It’s a breathtaking sight, especially if you’re used to subway entrances on gray sidewalk corners or inside brightly lit transfer stations. And it’s a reminder of the task engineers faced when they set out to put Gotham’s mass transit underground.
“Builders of New York’s first subway faced a severe challenge in Manhattan’s geology,” wrote Clifton Hood in a City Journal article on subway construction pioneers. “Although the island has a total of only 23 square miles, it harbors an unrivaled range of forbidding features.”
“Above 103rd Street, Manhattan is dominated by a line of ridges along its western shore rising 268 feet above sea level. It is also bisected by two major faults that were important barriers to transportation at the turn of the century.”
The 190th Street station was part of the Independent Subway System, which followed Manhattan’s Eighth Avenue and opened in 1932. That was two decades after an IRT stop opened nearby, which helped launch the transformation of Upper Manhattan from farmland to urban cityscape.
New York’s 665 miles of track and network of underground tunnels serve as examples of how transportation engineers tamed the city’s unruly topography. But on this stretch of Hudson Heights, Gotham’s natural rocks and ridges make themselves known.
Ephemeral New York 