Smyrna times., 1904-11-09
SMlRNIAN'S IMPRESSION OF
NEW YORKS GREAT SUBWAY
Mr.. THOMAS S. START GIVES GRAPHIC DE-
ScRIPTION OF OPENING DAY EXERCISES.


The Underground Track Approaches 20 Miles
In Leugth-System Employs 5000 Men.
Memorable in the history of Greater
New York will be the events of last
Thursday, when the great subway sys-
tenn was officially opened. If the ex-
cavations for the New York Subway
were in a single tunnel six feet high
and three feet wide, it would reach
from New York to Chicago. The track
approaches are seventy miles in length
all underground. The timber employed
would build 10000 two-story houses,
and the rock taken out would make a
respectable imitation of the Great
Wall of China, a structure three feet
thick, eight feet high, and 500 miles
long. Its express trains will make 30
miles an hour, it cost $40, 900, 900, total
length twenty-five miles. Cost of
equipment, $16,OOO,OOO Estimated
passengers annually, 21S, 400, 900. Fares
annually estimated, 81, 100000. Men
employed in construction 10000. Men
employed in operation, 5000.
Public Scarce Waited Closing Of FOrmalltles.
With simplicity fitting a republic,
the first completed section of New
York's wonderful Subway was pro-
nounced ready for operation at o'clock
last Thursday and after six hours of
ceremony and official inspection, the
people took possession of their own.
The public scarce waited for the for
malities to close. 1t stood a-tiptoe out.
side the gates of the promised land be-
meath the city's busy surface, on edge
for the hour o'cioek-wben those
gates should be thrown open and the
public at last could realize the mean
ing of metropolitanism. There needed
no words, no flags, no fireworks, no
tedious signing and sealing, deliver
ing and ratifying. for the peoples cell
ebration. Thousand on thousands on
tens of thousands plunged into the
vast arcade like treasure-seekers into
Ali Baba's cave. Along the whole line
that was ready for use, from the twin
terminals in City Hall Park to the far
northern end of the giant bore at 145th
street and Broadway, by hundreds ana
hundreds and hundreds the crowds
swept down the well-kept stairs to the
clean-swept station platforms and into
the substantial trains now thought
none too good for city dwellers. The
transformation scene was achieved
with all the precision of modern stage
'crait. One moment New Workers were
dependent for transportation on ele-
waited and surface lines that long had
been wofully inadequate; the next they
had at their disposal the beginning of
a grand underground system that prom
ises to solve the transit problem by
leaps and bOunds-to make Greater
New York greater than all other cen
tres of the world in fact as we'll as in
name One hundred and fifty thou
sand tickets were sold IN five hours.
General Manager Headley had told
Belmont, the inancier; Mcdonald, the
builder and Parsons, the engineer that
the joint product of their wealth and
Drawn and brain would be welcomed
by the public as had been few things
in the annals of the island. He ex-
pected a rush and prepared for the big.
gest he thought likely to follow the
opening of the road to passengers Po-
lice reserves were on hand at the
Brooklyn Bridge and City Hall station
and at the other more important points
between Park Row and Washington
Heights. But Headley's head; crammed
though it was with the lore of his craft
and intimate knowledge of humanity
in mass, had no conception of the tu-
multuous enthusiasm with which the
whole community, after long years,
would embrace the opportunity to ride
swiftly, smoothly and safely over mile
after mile of solid road from Manhat-
lan's business part to the centre of the
residence district on the heights over
looking the Hudson. He expected
cloud burst, he got deluge. Crowd
after crowd rushed it's way to the long
and lofty tunnel, but instead of con-
gregating at a few points where-provi-
sion had been made for their prompt
handling, the scores of thousands dis
tributed themselves among all the sta
tions that were accessible, and the re
suit was the Subway's uppermost quar-
ter was choked for hours. Visitors
to town made the most of their good
luck speeding up and down the line,
not once but many time. Natives to
the manner born-and some born
without any manners and hopeless of
acquiring them-piled pellmell into car
after car, train after train express and
local and trains that we're between the