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As a lifelong New Yorker, this video is an extraordinary document of Manhattan before WWII. Mayor Laguardia was making a huge effort to rid the City of its streetcar lines and EL lines. We can see the WPA was brought in to remove the trolley tracks with had center electric conduit as the center rail. What is striking (among so many things) is how industrial NYC was then. Back then, the City was all about factories making stuff, wholesaling, warehousing, shipping, etc. ...today it's finance, technology, media, etc. Amazing document....thank you for this great video (and your others).
Early GM at work, if rail could be removed in Manhattan it could be rid of anywhere. It will take billions to replace it someday. 50 other cities have or will. But the lobbies keep it out off NY City. Light Rail that is. GM had cost the country billions and billions in bailouts ! It's a dirty company!
What a wonderful historic record of a city where I once lived, but where what we see here was long gone before I was born! Thanks so much for sharing this with us!!
I rode as a kid Jerome, white plains, some 3rd ave , Westchester, myrtle the Manhattan els long gone before my time. Manhattan el riding would have been something , some town then
Thanx for the great post. Some of the streetcar tracks being removed look like old cable car tracks as they still have the center cable trough. Great pictures of old New York. Would have loved to have taken a rid on the El but it must have been very noisy but I guess the sections of the subway that still use the old elevated sections must also be noisy these days..
