NEW York City’s subway system is among the world’s largest but is largely stuck in time, like a fly in amber. Because of construction safety precautions, environmental concerns, $$$ and union rules among other reasons, it now takes 20-25 years to build an extension such as on 2nd Avenue between 61st and 96th Street. In other parts of the world…such as right here in the USA in Los Angeles, it takes much less time. There needs to be political and public will to build.
Over the years I have largely been silent about a couple of other nearby subways not an official part of NYC’s such as the PATH train which connects Herald Square with Hoboken, Jersey City and Newark. It has been in operation since 1908 and was originally called the Hudson and Manhattan Railway. Another is Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, not a subway at all but a surface line connecting Hoboken, Jersey City, Bayonne, Weehawken and other locales. I rode it as recently as December 2024, and some of that will leak out eventually.
In March 2021 I took the PATH to Penn Station. What, you say? Penn Station? Newark Penn station. Things can get confusing. I then took Newark Light Rai , which is separate from and not connected to the HBLR at all. It was constructed between 1935 and 1940, with an extension to Grove Street in Bloomfield in 2002, and used oldie but goodie PCC cars built in the late 1940s all the way to 2001. Again, I obtained plenty of photos and will parcel them out gradually.
Newark Light Rail was originally called the City Subway, but that’s something of a misnomer as only the part beneath Raymond Boulevard in downtown Newark is actually underground. It rises to the urface and runs at grade or an open cut north and west beginning at Orange Street. To me the line behaves like the Green Line in Boston, which is underground downtown but then runs on the surface or open cut in three branches. Other Boston lines, Blue and Orange, behave more like conventional subways, with the Red taking on a suburban commuter feel, like our LIRR or Metro North. Pictured above is Newark Light Rail’s terminal station at Newark Penn.
Newark Light Rail has preserved its original 1930s tiled station signage in the underground stations, with new signage on the above ground. There quite resemble the tiled signage of NYC’s Independent Subway opened from 1932-1940, but while IND signage is multicolored, brown and beige are the rule in Newark.
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6/5/25