Series II: Third Avenue Line

Series II. Third Avenue Line contains twenty-nine photographs dating from 1876 to 1904. The Third Avenue Line began service in 1878 and ran from South Ferry to the Harlem River in Manhattan. An early-twentieth century copy print of a photograph from 1876 shows a view from a rooftop looking north from 96th Street before the construction of the tracks. Another copy photograph of an image from ca. 1878 shows a group of women and children on a lawn at Whitehall Street with the El behind them. Two mammoth plate albumen prints from 1882 show the City Hall Station and include the Manhattan terminus of the Brooklyn Bridge, still under construction. City Hall Station appears again in an 1884 albumen print. Different sized albumen prints from 1882 show stations at 9th Street and 23rd Street. The tracks and terminal yards at 98th-99th Streets are shown in two mammoth plate prints and one early-twentieth century copy print of a photograph from ca. 1895-1900. Two additional mammoth plate albumen prints that show Third Avenue between 26th and 27th Streets ca. 1890, have stamps and notations that suggest they were used as evidence in legal proceedings. Northern sections of the line are visible in a group of six cyanotypes from about 1898 showing views from 99th Street and the yards at 129th Street used by the Third Avenue and Second Avenue Lines. Three prints from 1900 show the tracks at Third Avenue and 76th Street. Another set of three prints, these from 1904, show improvements, mainly at ground-level, to the station at the Chatham Square, where the Third Avenue Line was linked to the Second Avenue Line. An 1878 photograph shows the original Chatham Square station and the tracks before work on the Second Avenue Line began.

Photographs are arranged from south to north on the train route. The number of prints in each folder is noted in parentheses.