Comments on: What’s in a name?

By: From the archives: A history of futility for Utica, Nostrand extension plans :: Second Ave. Sagas

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 05:14:28 +0000

[...] 1910 plans for subway expansion, and the Utica Ave. route would have been the southern part of the new Williamsburg train lines. A 1939 post-Depression version of the Second System had the Utica Ave. line reaching Floyd Bennett [...]

By: A history of futility for Utica, Nostrand extension plans :: Second Ave. Sagas

A history of futility for Utica, Nostrand extension plans :: Second Ave. Sagas — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 05:56:15 +0000

By: A subway art project in the abandoned Underbelly :: Second Ave. Sagas

A subway art project in the abandoned Underbelly :: Second Ave. Sagas — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 04:48:46 +0000

[...] once-built shell of a subway station at South 4th St. and Broadway in Brooklyn. I traced the unique origins of this long, lost part of the Second System two years ago, and Subway & Rail has a full [...]

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:58:46 +0000

In addition to Marc Shepherd’s comment above, if you’re trying to give a subway novice directions and you tell them to take the Eighth Avenue train to 23rd Street, there’s every chance that they wind up on an A train and miss their stop. That doesn’t happen if you tell them to take the C train.

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:02:39 +0000

I actually like the NYC system. I was a frequent straphanger in Singapore, and there the station names just don’t tell you where the station is. The names are all unique, but you need to know the layout of the neighborhoods they’re in to know where they should be. For example, my own station, Orchard, is one of three located on Orchard Road, all on the same line. If you know the Orchard Road area, you’ll know what the most important intersection is, so you’ll know where to find the station, but otherwise, you’re out of luck.

By: Second Ave. Sagas | A New York City Subway Blog » Blog Archive » Dreaming of the Second System: Where the subways should go

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 05:57:45 +0000

[...] we talked about the uncompleted remnants of the ambitious plan. Today, let’s look at what the plan would have meant for our subway’s reach. The IND [...]

By: Marc Shepherd

Marc Shepherd — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:42:16 +0000

I’m not so sure the “good old days” were any clearer than what we have now. Someone who uses the subway every day will quickly get used to just about any naming system. For visitors or occasional riders, it is rife with confusion.

By: Kid Twist

Kid Twist — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:12:46 +0000

Back when people referred to the lines by their names instead of nonsensically saying they were taking, for instance, the A/C train, it worked fine in most cases. Tell someone you’re taking the Eighth Avenue train to 23rd Street and they’d know you’ll end up at West 23rd Street and Eighth Avenue.

By: Kid Twist

Kid Twist — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:08:11 +0000

built

By: Kid Twist

Kid Twist — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:07:33 +0000

They buitl this station because it connects with Broadway on what is now the G line. In a few places, the IND built shells of stations for future lines while completing the existing system. I guess the idea was to do all the construction at once and avoid having to excavate around an operating subway line later on. There are partial stations at Roosevelt Avenue in Queens and Utica Avenue in Brooklyn and some additional excavation at Second Avenue and Houston, all of which would have been part of stations on the IND Second System. Actually, Roosevelt is more than a shell, it has tiles and pretty much everything but tracks.