Last week, the city broke ground on the long-awaited Second Avenue subway line, but it wasn’t the first time: Several stations were actually dug in the 1970s, before the city declared bankruptcy and tabled the project. City architect and borough Transportation Advisory Board member Larry Stelter of Bay Ridge chronicles the trials of the Second and Third Avenue lines in his book By the El: Third Avenue and Its El at Mid-Century (H&M Productions), which he plans to reissue this year to coincide with the new phase of Second Avenue construction.

Here’s one thing we don’t understand, though: Stelter “criticizes the city and the MTA for not including any connections to either Brooklyn or the Bronx,” the Brooklyn Eagle reports; “both the early 1950s plan and 1968 plan included tie-ins to Brooklyn lines.” Looking at the MTA’s proposal, it’s clear that there are in fact several transfer points to Brooklyn-bound lines (including the F, L, and Q), so the Second Ave train doesn’t completely shun our fair borough. But Stelter does have a point that the new line really ought to offer a Chrystie St. transfer point, which would give Brooklynites access to Manhattan Bridge trains.

Historian To Reissue Book about Elevated Line [Brooklyn Eagle]
Photo via Gothamist.