Members of the Central Queens Historical Society celebrated the 70th anniversary of the opening of the Independent Subway Line stretching from Roosevelt Avenue to Union Turnpike/Kew Gardens by telling about the subway's history outside the Continental Avenue and 71st Street subway station.
When the eight new subway stops opened for daily use on December 31, 1936 at a nickel per ride, it started to revolutionize the area, according to Jeff Gottlieb, president of the Central Queens Historical Association.
With the addition of the subway line, the areas in central Queens started to develop with apartment complexes, retail stores, businesses and other shops.
“People could live out here, [and] you could spend 5-cents to get into the City of New York and go to work,” Gottlieb said.
Sue Hof, one of the owners of Terrace Realty in central Queens, agreed saying that the subway line brought people to the neighborhood in the past, and people today still move into the area from Nassau County and other areas.
“In 13 minutes you have a dream come true,” she said.
The day before the subway stops opened in 1936, then-Mayor Fiorello La Guardia spoke about his excitement for the project at a luncheon in Forest Hills, and the Queens Borough President at that time, George Upton Harvey, boasted that Queens Boulevard would become the Park Avenue of Queens.
The complete seven-year project from 50th Street in Manhattan to Kew Gardens cost $33 million in federal money, including a Works Progress Administration (WPA) grant of $10 million for the last eight stops.
70th anniversary of subway lines
By Pete Davis
Posted on
