BusTalk

W.B. Fishbowl

. . . yesterday (the 14th) was the anniversary of the launch of the city's first-horse drawn streetcar service in 1832, initially running along the Bowery and Fourth Avenue between Prince Street and Union Square. It is the ancestor of two different public transit services:
- In 1935, it was the first of the major streetcar routes to have been "bustituted," as Routes 1 and 2 of the Madison Avenue Coach Company, Inc. That entity (and Eighth Avenue Coach Corporation) would all be folded into the New York City Omnibus Corporation in 1951, and after NYCO changed its name to Fifth Avenue Coach Lines, Inc. in 1956 it was rebranded as a "NYCO Division" route. The #2 only lasted to 1969 (replaced with what is today the M102), but #1 - today, M1 - ironically, on its S/B route, since 2010, has run along the exact same path as FACCo's old #1 which was THEIR first route, in 1886 (from the ultimately ill-fated Fifth Avenue Transportation Co., Ltd.) of what started out as horse-drawn stage coaches (no streetcars for "tony" "Fifth Aven-yew"), but only lasted up to the TWU strike in 1962 that knocked out FACL and its Surface Transit subsidiary, and their routes taken over by MaBSTOA. (Before then, it had run up and down Park Avenue south of Grand Central Terminal.)
- Metro-North's Harlem line, to Wassaic, is also descended from this first city streetcar route.

Naturally, SubChat mentions the latter - but doesn't even connect the dots to the former.

Cyberider · Joined: 27 Apr 2007 Posts: 801 Location: Tempe, AZ

Thanks for the great piece of history, W.B.

Not surprised about SubChat other than, apparently, it's back up again?

NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629 · Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2024 9:42 pm Post subject:

W.B.:

I had read "hints" of this over on SubChat; thanks for posting this interesting historical here on BusTalk............ Wink

"NYO"

['THE PEOPLE'S OMNIBUS COMPANY"]

W.B. Fishbowl · Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2024 11:10 am Post subject:

NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629 · Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2024 2:44 pm Post subject:

W.B.:

Yopur posting revived a thought I've had for many years now.......

LONG, LONG overdue is a book detailing the history of HORSE-powered omnibuses and streetcars in "Noo Yawk"; this is a nearly-totally neglected and forgotten aspect of the city's rich transit history.

Look at how the mighty and "tony" FACCo started with humble horse-drawn omnibuses..........indeed, we LONG AGO needed such a documented work on the city's horse-powered buses and streetcars........there's a lot that can be learned, I am sure........

"NYO"

["BOWERY TO BROADWAY"]