History

Early Plans

Since the early 1940s, the number of people traveling in and through the East Side of Manhattan has steadily grown, severely straining the capacity of the area's streets, highways, buses, and subway lines. With the conversion of neighborhoods from industrial to corporate, commercial and high-rise residential buildings have dramatically increased the population density of the East Side.

To make way for development, two subway lines were removed. The Second Avenue "El" was taken down in 1942, followed by the Third Avenue "El" in 1956. This left the Lexington Avenue subway ( and lines) to accommodate the growing East Side population. No new transit facilities were provided to serve the new residential and office buildings that sprung up.

Proposals to build a north-south subway line along Second Avenue date back to 1929, preceding the demolition of the elevated trains. Several detailed plans were proposed in the following decades. The latest plan, developed in the 1960s, proposed a two-track subway line from the Bronx to Lower Manhattan. This plan culminated in the actual construction of several tunnel segments. However, construction was suspended in the 1970s due to the city’s financial crisis.

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