NYC Rapid Transit Expansion under the Dual Contracts: Urban Development of 7th Ave Subway Construction with Extensive Handwritten Notes and 27 silver gelatin photographs, 1914

NYC Subway MTA

Photograph

7th Avenue Original Subway construction album documenting cut and cover excavation, timber bracing, and utility rerouting in Greenwich Village, New York City, in 1914, a ground-level record of the Dual Contracts expansion that extended the IRT south along Seventh Avenue Extension and Varick Street to meet rising transit demand on Manhattan’s lower west side. Frank X. Bertolini, named on the opening leaf, compiled the album around active work sites at Bleecker and Barrow Streets, Grove Street, and Christopher and West 4th Streets, where the new line required the physical remaking of existing streets rather than simple track installation. The project formed part of the 1913 Dual Contracts program. Photos and captions depict the development process itself: excavation opened through a dense built neighborhood, temporary and permanent support systems erected inside the cut, and street infrastructure altered in order to carry a larger rapid transit network quintessential to public transport into lower Manhattan.

Archive of Handwritten Construction Notes with 27 silver gelatin photographs, New York City, 1914. The photographs are mounted in a small marbled notebook-style album with extensive contemporary handwritten captions beneath many images. Captioned views dated July 23, 1914 and August 20, 1914 identify specific operations and locations, including “Showing Derrick & Hopper also some Sheathing. Located at Bleecker & Barrow Sts.,” “Showing Sheathing along west side of cut also showing temporary bracing,” “Showing Bridge across Bleecker St. (in background) also Steam Shovel (in foreground),” and “Showing Tower for carrying overhead Bypass Gas Pipe. Grove St.” The open trench runs between rows of Manhattan buildings, with heavy diagonal timber shoring, rails laid along the floor of the cut, a large steam shovel with workers standing before it, a derrick and stacked pipe sections on cobbled street surface, and a surveyor posed with tripod and instrument. Several rear leaves carry pencil equipment notes and counts, workers' names, including references to junction boxes, batteries, and fittings, preserving the workaday administrative texture of the project alongside the construction views.

The archive documents how early twentieth-century rapid transit expansion was executed block by block in Manhattan after the original IRT had already transformed city travel and pushed planners toward a coordinated lower-west-side extension. The album includes excavation crews working along Bleecker and Barrow Streets, Grove Street, and Christopher and West 4th Streets; temporary road and bridge supports spanning the open cut; utility bypass structures such as the overhead gas pipe tower at Grove Street; and staged timber bracing and reinforcement within the trench as the line advanced through an inhabited neighborhood after the original IRT expansion. Light toning to photographs, expected wear to the album covers and leaves, blank pages present; overall good condition. The 27 photographs, dated captions, and named sites at Bleecker & Barrow, Grove Street, and West 4th Street fix the construction sequence to specific blocks, crews, and operations along the Seventh Avenue Extension in 1914.

Item #23209

Price: $1,450.00