The story
History
The first IRT subway ran between City Hall and 145th Street at Broadway, opening on October 27, 1904. It opened following more than twenty years of public debate on the merits of subways versus the existing elevated rail system and on various proposed routes.
Founded on May 6, 1902, by August Belmont, Jr., the IRT's mission was to operate New York City's initial underground rapid transit system after Belmont's and John B. McDonald's Rapid Transit Construction Company was awarded the rights to build the railway line in 1900, outbidding Andrew Onderdonk. The Manhattan Railway Company was the operator of four elevated railways in Manhattan with an extension into the Bronx.
On April 1, 1903, over a year before its first subway line opened, the IRT acquired the Manhattan Railway Company by lease, gaining a monopoly on rapid transit in Manhattan. The IRT coordinated some services between what became its subway and elevated divisions, but all the lines of the former Manhattan elevateds have since been dismantled.
In 1913, as a result of massive expansion in the city, the IRT signed the Dual Contracts with Brooklyn Rapid Transit (BRT) in order to expand the subway. The agreement also locked the subway fare at 5 cents for forty-nine years. The IRT unsuccessfully attempted to raise the fare to seven cents in 1929, in a case that went to the United States Supreme Court.
The IRT ceased to function as a privately held company on June 12, 1940, when its properties and operations were acquired by the City of New York.
Today, the IRT lines are operated as the A Division of the subway. The remaining lines are underground in Manhattan, except for a short stretch across Harlem at 125th Street and in northern Manhattan. Its many lines in the Bronx are predominantly elevated, with some subway, and some railroad-style right-of-way acquired from the defunct New York, Westchester and Boston Railway, which now constitutes the IRT Dyre Avenue Line. Its Brooklyn lines are underground with a single elevated extension that reaches up to New Lots Avenue, and the other reaching Flatbush Avenue via the underground Nostrand Avenue Line.
The Flushing Line, its sole line in Queens, is entirely elevated except for a short portion approaching its East River tunnel and its terminal at Flushing–Main Street (the whole Manhattan portion of the line is underground). The Flushing Line has had no track connection to the rest of the IRT since 1942, when service on the Second Avenue El was discontinued. It is connected to the BMT and the rest of the system via the BMT Astoria Line on the upper level of the Queensboro Plaza station.
Original IRT system (1904–1909)
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Subway Division
West Branch
Broadway Line (Atlantic Avenue to 242nd Street, with intermediate terminals at South Ferry and City Hall)
East Branch
Lenox Avenue Line (Atlantic Avenue to 145th Street, with intermediate terminals at South Ferry and City Hall)
Westchester Avenue Branch (135th Street to 180th Street)
Manhattan Railway Division
Eastern Division
Second Avenue Line (South Ferry to 129th Street)
Third Avenue Line (South Ferry to Bronx Park Terminal)
City Hall Branch (City Hall to Chatham Square)
34th Street Branch (Third Avenue to 34th Street Ferry)
42nd Street Branch (42nd Street to Grand Central)
Willis Avenue Branch (129th Street to Willis Avenue)
Western Division
Sixth Avenue Line (South Ferry to 155th Street, with an intermediate terminal at 58th Street)
Ninth Avenue Line (South Ferry to 155th Street)
Expansion (1917–1928)
The Bronx and Manhattan
Trunk lines include:
Lexington Avenue Line (4 5 6 <6> trains), under Park and Lexington Avenues, as well as under Lafayette Street and Broadway
Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line (1 2 3 trains), under and over Broadway, as well as under Seventh Avenue, Varick Street, and West Broadway
Flushing Line (7 <7> trains), under 41st and 42nd Streets
42nd Street Line (S train), under 42nd Street
Branch lines include:
Lenox Avenue Line (2 3 trains), under Lenox Avenue and Central Park
White Plains Road Line (2 5 trains), under East 149th Street, and over Westchester Avenue, Southern Boulevard, Boston Road, and White Plains Road
Pelham Line (6 <6> trains), under East 138th Street and Southern Boulevard, and over Westchester Avenue
Jerome Avenue Line (4 train), under Grand Concourse, over River and Jerome Avenues,
Brooklyn and Queens
There were three Brooklyn lines built by the IRT:
Eastern Parkway Line (2 3 4 5 trains), under Fulton Street, Flatbush Avenue, and Eastern Parkway
New Lots Line (2 3 4 5 trains), over East 98th Street and Livonia Avenue
Nostrand Avenue Line (2 5 trains), under Nostrand Avenue
The only line in Queens is the Flushing Line (7 <7> trains), under 50th Avenue, and over Queens Boulevard and Roosevelt Avenue.
River crossings
(of the East and Harlem Rivers, from south to north)
Joralemon Street Tunnel (4 5 trains)
Clark Street Tunnel (2 3 trains)
Steinway Tunnel (7 <7> trains)
Lexington Avenue Tunnel (4 5 6 <6> trains)
149th Street Tunnel (2 train)
Broadway Bridge (1 train)
From Wikipedia’s article on Interborough Rapid Transit Company, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4