BACK in March I took a PATH train to Newark and then rode the Newark Light Rail all the way to its terminal at Grove Street in Bloomfield, which is the only occasion I was able to travel at any length out of town this year, though I also forayed into Hoboken the same month. I hadn’t ridden the City Subway as it used to be known since its vintage fleet of cars from 1948 had been scrapped; I mean to dig up some pictures form that ride that are lying around, but I’ve lost track of their location. I never throw out a photo, though.
The City Subway, as I prefer to call it, runs in underground sections in downtown Newark, on the surface along a right of way and in an open cut at different locations. If you’ve been to Boston, the City Subway behaves like the Green Line in its underground sections and as a surface trolley, as the Green Line does in Brookline. (I haven’t been in Boston since 2006 and would enjoy a return visit; my Forgotten Boston project seems to be in an indefinite hold till then. I began it in 2005 with Bostonian firefighter Sean Colby.)
The City Subway opened in 1935 and its signage and station design are similar to New York City’s IND Subway which was in the midst of its decade-long opening. One of these days I’ll put the whole batch in FNY when I have the time to research some context.
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11/12/21