Motorists know all about the Park Avenue Tunnel, which runs beneath the avenue between 33rd and 40th Streets, but few pedestrians ever see it. It was built in 1834 as an open cut for the New York & Harlem Railroad (NY&H) which ran both steam engines and horsecars, and the cut was bridged over in the 1850s, creating the tunnel — one of NYC’s oldest, if not the very oldest. The tunnel has carried trolley tracks, two-way traffic, and now northbound auto traffic.
Photo from NYC Department of Records
ForgottenFan Joe Brennan:
…The oldest tunnel in NYC for rail traffic, or any kind of traffic, is the Mount Prospect Tunnel in Manhattan, opened in 1837. It now forms the center two tracks of Metro North from 92nd St to 94th St, under Park Ave. The tunnel north and south of it, and the one-track tunnels on each side of it, were added in 1873-1875, but the Mount Prospect Tunnel was left in place and became part of the larger “Fourth Avenue Improvement”
12/6/12