I got back to New York City pretty late tonight after my flight north from Florida was left circling above Wednesday’s thunderstorms. Instead of a new piece, I’ve decided to run something from the archives so I can get to sleep. I’ll have more later this morning. In the meantime, enjoy this look back at some recent subway history that I wrote originally back in August of 2009.
I grew up three blocks away from the West Side IRT station at 96th and Broadway. For the first six years of my life, I learned the subway from the front windows of the 1, 2 or 3 trains. The 2 — the old red birds — were my favorite until one day in 1989 when the MTA introduced the 9 train.
Six-year-old Benjamin was smitten. It was a brand new subway train that would stop at his home station and skip some far-away stations in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx in which I as a child never set foot. I was disappointed when I realized that the 9 trains were just 1 trains with a different bullet, but to me, that 9 always looked like a big grin. It was a welcoming child of the subway system.
In high school, I came to enjoy the 9 train. During my junior and senior years, I would take the subway from 96th St. north up Broadway to 242nd St. before walking up Post Road to my school on 246th St. Each day, I would hope for a 9 train because, in my mind, it was faster. The 9 train skipped four stops north of 125th St. while the 1 skipped only three. It was simple subway math.
After high school, the 9 train faded from my subway conscious. I didn’t have to use it any longer, and on Sept. 11, 2001, the MTA suspended 9 train service as they had to change a slew of routes to accommodate for the damage to the subway system in and around Ground Zero. While the 9 returned a few days after the one-year anniversary of those terrorist attacks, it was but an afterthought. Less than three years later, it would be wiped from the map, a victim of the northern Manhattan population boom that continues to this day.
Soon, we’ll celebrate the 22nd anniversary of the good old 9 train. The first 9 — in reality, a rebranded 1 — rolled off the line Monday, August 21, 1989, twenty years and six days ago. Donatella Lorch reported on this service addition for The Times:
The new service provides ”skip-stop” service between 6:30 A.M and 7 P.M. on weekdays, freeing the old No. 1 local to skip four stops between 137th and 242d Street. The purpose, says the Transit Authority, is to provide a faster and less crowded ride for people in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan. Not everyone believes this will happen. Some passengers say they will spend more time on platforms, transferring or waiting for the right train to come along…
“It slows me down because I have to change trains for no good reason,” complained Frank Gary as he waited yesterday evening at 137th Street for an uptown train to 157th Street. “I knew about it this morning so I did not get confused.”
Jared Lebow, a Transit Authority spokesman, said the new line would save up to three minutes on a ride from South Ferry to 242d Street. That’s not much, he said, but cumulatively, over the course of a day, enough time is saved to get more use out of the trains. He also said that a total of 28 No. 1 and 9 trains would now run during each rush hour, instead of the 25 that used to run on the No. 1 line.
For 16 years, residents of northern Manhattan complained about the 9 service. While those of us passing through enjoyed the luxury and perceived speed of the seat-saving skip-stop service, people in Marble Hill, Inwood, Washington Heights and Harlem felt slighted by the MTA.
By 2005, the need for this service had greatly diminished. In fact, as the skipped stations had grown in ridership, Transit had to restore full-line service to Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, and 12,000 per day experienced more frequent service when the 9 was axed. “Skip-stop service on the 1 line is an idea which today doesn’t make sense for our operations or our customers,” Lawrence G. Reuter, the president of New York City Transit at the time, said to Sewell Chan in 2005. “By eliminating skip-stop service, the majority of riders along the 1 line will benefit from shorter travel times and will no longer have to stand on platforms as trains pass them by during rush hour.”
The last 9 train rode up and down the West Side IRT local tracks on May 31, 2005, and it passed quietly into subway lore. Nearly 22 years ago, it debuted, and now it is but a memory in the minds of New Yorkers, a fleeting part of straphanger past. Sometimes, I believe the MTA should revisit skip-stop service to better apportion crowds on locals, but for now, the 9 simply rests in peace.
17 comments
Having grown up in New Jersey, I always found it peculiar that Highway Routes 1 & 9 were on the same roadway in much of central and northern Jersey, while Subway Routes 1 & 9 operated on the same tracks in New York. Is there some correlation in the choosing of numbers, or just an unusual coincidence?
Sometimes Manhattan STREETS are like that.
Broadway and 7th Avenue “run together” between 43rd St. and 46th St.
(I’m not referring to traffic patterns. Those two actual avenues become ONE wide avenue for that three-block stretch.)
I understand that, I’m specifically referring to the numbers 1 and 9. Like the two have to run concurrently on both sides of the Hudson for some reason.
As a resident of upper manhattan, I would like to see something reinstituted on the IRT line that saves some time. There is that unused third track that covers huge portions of the line and I believe was built to accomodate peak service. Have the new 9 skip everything between 96 street and 157th. Itll then hit every station until Dyckman where itll go back to the middle track all the way to Van Cortlandt where there are unused platforms that could accomodate it. The 1 of course will hit every single station. Maybe instead of calling it the “9”, just put a diamond around it like the east side and flushing IRT’s to show its an express.
Yeah, I’ve had this idea, too. The southbound 1 trains get really crowded by 157th in the mornings — if a 1 express could turn some of those trains around faster and get more service, it seems like it’d be a benefit even to those skipped by the express.
I take the 1 from 137th every morning… you think it’s crowded? Really?
Definitely. It’s not unusual for the train to be too full for people to board at 125th. Maybe it’s a timing issue — I typically get on at 157th at about 9:00am. What time do you ride?
How useful could that be, though? You can already switch to the A at 168th, and above 168th it’s an easy walk to the A. It would only really be useful for those going between Washington Heights and the Upper West Side. Both are primarily residential, so I doubt there’s enough traffic between the two areas to justify it.
The transfer from the 1 to the A at 168th is pretty unpleasant, though. There’s often a wait for the elevators, especially with the hospital traffic in the mornings.
Off-topic with the original post, but I’ve wondered how hard it would be to build a ramp connection from the 168th A platforms down to the 1 platform — it’d clearly be a non-trivial grade, and any construction would have to move spoils out through the station. So it’s probably not cost-effective. But it sure would be nice to make the A-1 transfer without the elevator and all the doubling back.
How about new, faster elevators and drilling more elevator shafts?
It would be pretty cool if they took a lesson from the past and brought back the double decker elevators. I think theyre still there rusting away actually
I have to say I agree with the 168th Street Elevator. That thing was not a great ride. Then again, the entire 168th Street 1 station as great as it is, looks like you’re in cavern, and yet you aren’t deepest underground yet. The same would apply for 181, which last time I was there was dim as hell. I had much better experiences on the 191st Street than 168th, and 191st is the deepest underground.
As a former resident of Upper Manhattan, I would like to not see something instituted on the IRT that cuts frequency. The 1 is pretty fast north of 116th, because of the wider stop spacing and the straight tracks. And the busiest stops north of 116th are, in this order, 168th, 116th, 137th. The express run would skip two out of three.
It may be a memory but New Yorkers constantly still pretend it exists out of force of habit. I’ve even heard it announced on the train within the past year or so! “42nd Street, transfer to the 1 and 9!”
I got into a big fight with someone 2 or 3 years ago who refused to believe the 9 train didn’t exist and kept insisting it existed long before 1989. It was…surreal.
I remember when conductors were still calling the R train the “double R” a long time after it had become the R.
Also, that “double R” name was strange even when it still WAS the RR.
After all, nobody would say the “double C”, the “double G”, etc.
Some older lady asked me where the IRT was not long ago.