Third Avenue Lightweight Streetcars

[daveklepper]

Correct.  First came the horsecar streetcar, Manhattan's second, after the NY & Harlem on 4th Avenue and lower Park Avenue, ,then came the steam-operated elevated, then conversion of the horsecar line to cable. then cable to conduit electrification, then conversion of the steam elevated line to electricity, then rebuilding of the elevated with a continuous center track, then conversion of the streetcar to bus with tracks above 59th Street kept in service several months for use of the 65th Street shops for Queensboro Bridge cars and K and 125 X put-ins and pull-outs, then abandonment and removal of the elevated.

rc can more easily provide the exact dates.

Note correction to a previous post and insertion of the missing photo.

[MidlandMike]

I presume they were built as competitors.  Did they eventually under the same management ?

[rcdrye]

The Third Avenue line converted to cable in two sections, north of 6th on Dec 4, 1893 and to the Post Office on February 11, 1894. According to Hilton's "Cable Car in America" it required 4350 tons of iron yokes and 46000 barrels of cement.  The cable installation was barely complete before TARS started converting other lines to conduit electric operation.  The Third Avenue line was converted in 1899. Among cable lines Third Avenue was considered number two in traffic density, after Chicago's  State Street line.

[daveklepper]

Midland Mike:  All the lines dikscussed in my posting were built as competitors.  For a short time, all streetcar lines were leased to the Metropolitan Railway, but reverted to the originsal owners shofrtly after that company entered receivership.

Unification in Manhattan between surface and rapid transit took place well after bus conversion and even after end of the South Ferry - Chatham Square part of the Third Avbenue Elevated.

[daveklepper]

Conduit cars equipped with poles (1947) on the 161st-163rd St. Crosstown, probably on West 155th Street Manhattan just west of 8th Avenue, the Polo Grounds, and the McdCoombs Dam Bridkge to The Bronx, where 186 is headed, with the end point the destination sign shows as Hubnts Point.  127 will get as far as Amwsterdam Avenue.

[daveklepper]

Ywo on the "T" on Amsterdam Avenue