Thursday, June 16, 2016

Reader report: Workers dig up streetcar tracks on 3rd Avenue



An EVG reader/tipster shared these images from last evening... where workers have been putting in a new roadway on Third Avenue between Astor Place and Ninth Street/Stuyvesant Street as part of the Astor Place Reconstruction project ...

The reader thinks that workers have unearthed the former streetcar tracks along here...

"In digging out the roadbed for Third Avenue near Stuyvesant crews uncovered what I believe to be crossovers for the Third Avenue and crosstown streetcars. It may be difficult to see in the photos but one axis runs east/west (Stuyvesant) and the other runs parallel to Third Avenue."

When the Stuyvesant and Ninth Street mini-parks were built I remember Stuyvesant Street tracks being dug out."



These crossovers are still so well anchored that workers couldn't pull them out. Per the reader: "The crew has been cutting them into small pieces. They are at it again today."



No word on how this might delay the project...

According to the Village Crosstown Trolley Coalition: "The 8th St. line ran its last streetcar on March 3, 1936, clearing the way for the crosstown bus and ever-increasing swarms of automobiles and trucks."

Off the Grid has some nice trolley history here.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

They don't look like trolley tracks - but perhaps were infrastructure related to the cable car system (in which an underground cable pulled the trolleys along).

Anonymous said...

Stuyvesant Street? The historical street Amanda Burden cemented over?

Anonymous said...

At least they're not digging up the new islands they placed like last year.

Anonymous said...

This is sad and regressive.
We should never have done away with the streetcars.
Let's re-implement them, modernized light rail in the city.
Would be far cheaper than building more subway tunnels, cleaner, smoother, and quieter than bus rapid transit -

- East Villager

Anonymous said...

Anon @ 2:47

Not tracks, crossovers that may have anchored tracks.

Anonymous said...

I checked out link to Village Crosstown Trolley Coalition above...
Is that still an active movement to make that happen?
I would love to see that.

Anonymous said...

Clang, clang, clang, goes the trolley, ding - ding - ding, goes the bell!

Scuba Diva said...

@Anonymous 11:20:

Zing, zing, zing, went my heartstrings, and the moment I saw him I fell!