From The Peopling of New York City

An Early History of the New York City Transit System

It was out of necessity that a subway system was first implemented in New York City: Elevated trains had already sprung up around the city, yet New York was quickly growing and getting far too crowded to continue such a system of development.

Spearheaded by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (the IRT), construction on the first subway began in the year 1900. It was completed and opened for business on October 27, 1904, running uptown from City Hall. Though passengers were at first tentative at the prospect of traveling at high speeds underground, the benefits of a subway system soon became obvious. Once constructed, transportation was quick, affordable, and did a great deal to relieve street congestion.

However, perhaps one of the most important effects of a subway system was its ability to foster growth in neighborhoods bordering the city, such as Flushing.

The Growth of New York City’s Chinatowns

By 1870, many Chinese immigrants had begun to move into Manhattan from the east coast of the United States looking for work. The population of Manhattan’s Chinatown began to rise, but its growth was slowed by the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

As early as 1913, New York’s subway system reached Sunset Park in Brooklyn. In 1928, the 7 train was finally extended all the way to Flushing Main Street Station. From these early dates, expansion was possible from Manhattan’s Chinatown into what would become the neighboring Chinatowns of Queens and Brooklyn.

However, due to the Exclusion Act, the Chinese immigrant population was not increasing at a rate that would encourage the movement of whole communities to the two boroughs. It was not until the passing of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (the Hart Cellar Act) that the ban on Chinese immigration was finally lifted. This increased the population of New York’s Chinatown so significantly that immigrants had to make their homes in the neighboring boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn. This led to the growth of the communities we see today in Flushing and Sunset Park.

In fact, if we look at the following images (all portraying the growth of the Asian community in Flushing), we see that there were barely any Asians in Flushing at all in 1970, only five years after the passing of the Hart Cellar Act. Yet, the subsequent images show how this population skyrocketed in the ensuing decades, eventually becoming the thriving neighborhood we know today.

Flushing's Transit System

The 7 train’s last stop is Flushing – Main Street Station. However, this leaves us with the questions: Why did the subway end there? Why not continue into the rest of Queens?

There are several answers.

First, Flushing was finally reached in 1928 – twenty-eight years after construction of the first subway began. At this point, funding was low and it simply was not a viable financial option to continue laying subway tracks.

Secondly, the water table in Queens is much higher than it is in Manhattan. Therefore, while it was easy to dig subway tunnels in the city (where channels of underground water run much deeper below the surface), these underground rivers simply got in the way of prospective subway lines in Queens.

Thirdly, even if it were financially and physically possible to build the necessary tunnels in Queens, it still might not have been done due to socioeconomic reasons. In the early twentieth century, Queens was one of the more affluent and better-off boroughs (which is still true to this day). It was thought that extending the subway system further into Queens would also bring with it the homeless population, as well as increased levels of crime.

At any rate, subways were not needed in Queens, because there were many bus lines already in place. With the arrival of the 7 train in Flushing, these bus lines simply rerouted towards or connected to Main Street Station.

Due to the overall increase in transit, population growth in Flushing was spurred at an incredible rate. Population growth in turn fueled the need for an even greater transit system. In order to keep up with the demand for public transportation, more bus lines were added in the subsequent years. The following bus lines can be found in Flushing: Q12, Q13, Q14, Q15, Q16, Q17, Q20, Q25, Q26, Q27, Q28, Q34, Q44, Q48, Q58, Q65, Q66, N20, and N21.