The Independent Subway System (IND; formerly the ISS) was a rapid transit rail system in New York City that is now part of the New York City Subway. It was first constructed as the Eighth Avenue Line in Manhattan in 1932. It was originally also known as the Independent City-Owned Subway System (ICOSS) or the Independent City-Owned Rapid Transit Railroad (ICORTR).
One of three subway networks that became part of the modern New York City Subway, the IND was intended to be fully owned and operated by the municipal government, in contrast to the privately operated or jointly funded Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) and Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) companies. It was merged with these two networks when the subway system was unified in 1940.
The original IND services are the modern subway's A, C, E, F, and G services, as well as the portions of the B and D services that are not in Brooklyn. In addition, the BMT's M and R use trackage that was originally built for the IND, while the Q uses the IND Second Avenue Line, which was built after the unification of the three systems. The Rockaway Park Shuttle supplements the A service. For operational purposes, the IND and BMT lines and services are referred to jointly as the B Division.
Until 1940, it was known as the Independent City-Owned Subway System (ICOS), Independent Subway System (ISS), or Independent City-Owned Rapid Transit Railroad. It became known as the IND after unification of the subway lines in 1940; the name IND was assigned to match the three-letter initialisms that the IRT and BMT used.
The first IND line was the Eighth Avenue Line in Manhattan, opened on September 10, 1932; for a while the whole system was colloquially known as the Eighth Avenue Subway. The original IND system was entirely underground in the four boroughs that it served, with the exception of a short section of the IND Culver Line containing two stations spanning the Gowanus Canal in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn.
In the early 1920s, Mayor John Hylan proposed a complex series of city-owned and operated rapid transit lines to compete with the BMT and IRT, especially their elevated lines. The New York City Transit Commission was formed in 1921 to develop a plan to reduce overcrowding on the subways. The original plans included:
Two major trunk lines in midtown Manhattan, with one running under Eighth Avenue and one under Sixth Avenue, which already had an elevated line
A crosstown subway under 53rd Street (connecting with the Eighth and Sixth Avenue subways) running under the East River to Queens Plaza (Long Island City), meeting with a Brooklyn–Queens crosstown line, and continuing under Queens Boulevard and Hillside Avenue to 179th Street, where bus service would converge
A subway under the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, diverging from the Eighth Avenue Line in Manhattan at 145th Street and Saint Nicholas Avenue
These lines were completely built as planned. All but a short portion of the Culver Line (over the Gowanus Canal) are underground.
On March 14, 1925, the groundbreaking of the Eighth Avenue subway took place at 123rd Street and St. Nicholas Avenue.
On July 8, 1931, the first train of R1s left Coney Island at 11:35am and ran via the BMT Sea Beach Line to Times Square. The trip took 42 minutes.
Opening and progress through 1933
First Manhattan trunk line, 1932
On September 10, 1932, the Eighth Avenue Line opened from 207th Street to Chambers Street, inaugurating the IND. In February 1933 the Cranberry Street Tunnel opened, along with the Eighth Avenue Line from Chambers Street to Jay Street–Borough Hall. On the northern end of the construction, in the Bronx, the connecting Concourse Line opened on July 1, 1933 from 205th Street to 145th Street. On the IND's opening day, it had a relatively small subway car fleet of 300 cars, while the IRT had 2,281 subway and 1,694 elevated cars, and the BMT had 2,472 cars.
The new IND Eighth Avenue Line was built using 1,000,000 cubic yards (27,000,000 ft3) of concrete and 150,000 short tons (140,000,000 kg) of steel. The roadbed of the new subway was expected to last 30 years. At the time of the line's opening, other portions of the Independent Subway System were under construction, including five underwater tunnels:
Cranberry Street Tunnel, 8,487 feet (2,587 m) long
Rutgers Street Tunnel, 5,479 feet (1,670 m) long