While the first underground line of the subway opened on October 27, 1904, the first elevated line in New York City, a line which would become the IRT Ninth Avenue Line, had opened almost 35 years earlier. The oldest structure still in use today (albeit reinforced) opened in 1885 as part of the Lexington Avenue Line, and is now part of the BMT Jamaica Line in Brooklyn. The oldest right-of-way, that of the BMT West End Line, was in use in 1863 as a steam railroad called the Brooklyn, Bath and Coney Island Rail Road. Subway cars (R44s) currently operate on the Staten Island Railway, opened in 1860, but that is not usually considered part of the subway system since it shares no track connections with the subway system and must comply with Federal Railroad Administration standards due to a previous track connection to mainland railroads.

By the time the first subway opened, the lines had been consolidated into two privately owned systems, Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT, later Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation, BMT) and Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT). The city was closely involved; every line built for the IRT, and most other lines built or improved for the BRT after 1913, was built by the city and leased to the companies (via the original Contracts 1 and 2 for the IRT subway, and the Dual Contracts for later extensions and widenings). The first line of the city-owned and operated Independent Subway System (IND) opened in 1932; this system was intended to compete with the private systems and allow some of the elevated railways to be torn down.

In 1940, the two private systems were bought by the city; some elevated lines closed immediately, and others closed soon after. Integration was slow, but several connections were built between the and , and they now operate as one division, Division B. Due to the having tunnel segments and stations too narrow to accommodate the 10-foot wide Division B cars, it has remained its own division, Division A.

The New York City Transit Authority was created in 1953 to take over subway, bus, and streetcar operations from the city, and was placed under control of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in 1968.

In 1934, the BRT, IRT, and IND transit workers unionized into Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union. Since then, there have been three union strikes. In 1966, transit workers went on strike for 12 days, and again in 1980 for 11 days. On December 20, 2005, transit workers again went on strike, over disputes with MTA regarding salary, pensions and retirement age, and health insurance costs. That strike lasted just under three days.

Subway stations are located throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. All services pass through Manhattan, except for the Brooklyn-Queens Crosstown Local (), which connects Brooklyn and Queens directly without entering Manhattan, the Franklin Avenue Shuttle, and the Rockaway Park Shuttle. Although a few stations close overnight or on weekends, the New York City subway is among the few rapid transit systems in the world that operate 24 hours a day, along with PATH (connecting New Jersey with Manhattan) and PATCO (linking Philadelphia with southern New Jersey). (Two individual lines of the Chicago 'L' also run at all times.)

Many lines and stations have both express and local service. These lines have three or four tracks: the outer two for local trains, and the inner one or two for express trains. Stations served by express trains are typically major transfer points or destinations. The BMT Jamaica Line uses skip-stop service on portions, in which two services operate over the line during rush hours, and minor stations are only served by one of the two. The IRT Broadway-Seventh Avenue Line used skip-stop until May 27, 2005.


A typical subway station has waiting platforms ranging from 400 to 700 feet (122 to 213 m) long to accommodate large numbers of people. Passengers enter a subway station through stairs towards station booths and vending machines to buy their fare, currently via the MetroCard. After swiping the card at a turnstile, customers continue to the platforms. Some subway lines in the outer boroughs and northern Manhattan have elevated tracks with stations to which passengers climb up.

A typical subway train has from 8 to 11 cars, although shuttles can have as few as two, and the train can range from 150 to 600 feet (46 to 183 m) long. As a general rule, trains on the lines inherited from the (the numbered lines) are shorter and narrower than the trains that operate on the / lines (those designated with letters). Since the original IRT sections—with narrower tunnel segments, tighter curves, and tighter platform clearances than the BMT/IND sections—are integral parts of the modern Division A, these lines do not run the wider Division B (/) cars, although all of the IRT built under the Dual Contracts could technically handle Division B cars. Division A trains cannot run in revenue service on Division B routes due to the large gap that would result between the platform and train. All service and maintenance trains, however, are comprised of Division A cars, as these can fit the tunnels of all lines.

Subway tunnels were constructed using a variety of methods. When the IRT subway debuted in 1904, typical tunnel construction was the cut-and cover method. The street was torn up to dig out the tunnel below, then the street was rebuilt above. This method worked well for soft dirt and gravel near the street surface. However, thicker sections made of bedrock required tunnel boring machines.

Most stations are not handicapped accessible. The exceptions are new construction and "key stations", as required by the ADA. See New York City Subway accessibility for more details.

In 2002, an average of 4.5 million passengers used the subway every weekday.


In 1994, the subway system introduced a fare system called the MetroCard, which allows riders to use cards that store the value equal to the amount paid to a station booth clerk or to a vending machine. The MetroCard was enhanced in 1997 to allow passengers to make free transfers between subways and buses within two hours; several MetroCard-only transfers between subways were also added. The token was phased out in 2003. The same year, the MTA raised the basic fare to $2 amid protests from passenger and advocacy groups such as the Straphangers Campaign. In 2005, the MTA increased the prices of unlimited Metrocards, but left the base fare at $2.00.

In the early 21st century, plans resurfaced for a major expansion, the Second Avenue Line. This line had been planned as early as the 1920s but has been delayed several times since. Construction was started in the 1970s, but discontinued due to the city's fiscal crisis. Some small portions remain intact in Chinatown, the East Village, and the Upper East Side, but they are each quite short and thus remain unused.

In the mid-2000s, the MTA began a 20-year process of automating the subway. Beginning with the BMT Canarsie Line (), the MTA has plans to eventually automate a much larger portion, using One Person Train Operation (OPTO) in conjunction with Communications-based Train Control (CBTC). Siemens Transportation Systems Group will be building the CBTC system. A 1959 experiment in automating the 42nd Street Shuttle in New York City ended with a fire at Grand Central Terminal on April 24, 1964.)


On July 22, 2005, in response to bombings in London, United Kingdom, the New York City Police Department introduced a new policy of randomly searching passengers' bags as they approached turnstiles. The NYPD claimed that no form of racial profiling would be conducted when these searches actually took place. This has caused the NYPD to come under fire because these searches were deemed ineffectual if racial profiling was not used. "This NYPD bag search policy is unprecedented, unlawful and ineffective," said Donna Lieberman, Executive Director of the NYCLU. "It is essential that police be aggressive in maintaining security in public transportation. But our very real concerns about terrorism do not justify the NYPD subjecting millions of innocent people to suspicionless searches in a way that does not identify any person seeking to engage in terrorist activity and is unlikely to have any meaningful deterrent effect on terrorist activity."

In August 2006 the MTA revealed that all future subway stations, including ones built for the the Second Avenue subway, the No. 7 line extension, and the new South Ferry station, will have platforms outfitted with air-cooling systems.

Many rapid transit systems run relatively static routings, so that a train "line" is more or less synonymous with a train "route". In New York, routings change often as new connections are opened or service patterns change. The "line" describes the physical railroad line or series of lines that a train "route" uses on its way from one terminal to another.

"Routes" (also called "services") are distinguished by a letter or a number. "Lines" have names.

For example, the "D train," "D route," or "D service," though it can be colloquially called the "D line," runs over the following "lines" on its journey:

In the Bronx, the Concourse Line;

In Manhattan, the Eighth Avenue Line, Sixth Avenue Line, and Chrystie Street Connection;

In Brooklyn, the Fourth Avenue Line and West End Line.

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(in design as of 2006)

The subway is often seen as an integral part of the city and has had a place in popular culture for at least three quarters of a century. Many living in the area through the 1980s remember it for crime and graffiti, but these have since subsided.

In the 1940s, Billy Strayhorn composed the jazz piece "Take the A Train", which soon became the signature tune of Washingtonian Duke Ellington and his band. The composition was inspired by the train.

Series of baseball games between New York City teams are referred to as Subway Series. It is said that early 20th century teams took the subway to their opponents' parks. The Brooklyn Dodgers played at Ebbets Field, located near the Prospect Park station on the BMT Brighton Line; the New York Giants played at the Polo Grounds, located near the 155th Street station of the IRT Ninth Avenue Line and the 155th Street-Eighth Avenue station of the IND Concourse Line; and the New York Yankees played at Yankee Stadium, near 161st Street station on the IRT Jerome Avenue Line. Today, many fans rely on the subway system to travel to their teams' games; the , and trains serve Yankee Stadium, while the and (IRT Flushing Line) provide access to Shea Stadium at Willets Point station, home of the New York Mets.

In addition to baseball, the subway system is heavily used by fans bound for New York Knicks and New York Liberty basketball games and New York Rangers ice hockey games. These are all played in Midtown Manhattan at Madison Square Garden, which is served by the IND Eighth Avenue Line ( at 34th Street-Penn Station) and the IRT Broadway-Seventh Avenue Line ( at 34th Street-Penn Station).

In 1967 The Velvet Underground and Nico, the debut album of the American rock band The Velvet Underground, included the track "I'm Waiting for the Man," a song about buying heroin in Harlem. The line "up to Lexington 125 / feel sick and dirty more dead than alive" references 125th Street on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line.

The Velvet Underground also used a painting of an old TA Subway Entrance with pink smoke coming out of it for the cover of their 1970 release, Loaded.

The entire All In The Family episode Mike The Pacifist (which aired in 1977) takes place on a subway train. A set was constructed at Television City in Hollywood, which resembled the interior of a subway train traveling towards Queens, New York.

The second half of the 1974 The Odd Couple episode The Subway Story takes place on a NYC Subway train interior, which was a constructed set as the show was filmed in Hollywood, California.

An episode of the television situation comedy I Love Lucy from 1956, entitled Lucy And The Loving Cup, has a scene in which Lucy Ricardo (played by Lucille Ball) is on a Lexington Avenue Line NYC Subway train, with a loving cup stuck on her head, needing to go to Bleecker Street.

In the 1980's, a 16-year-old immigrant from Jamaica, who was obsessed with the New York subway system, put on a uniform and successfully impersonated a subway driver. For three hours, he chauffered a train up and down Manhattan tracks, passengers none the wiser, until his brakes locked up, and he was unable to unjam them. He received a suspended sentence and a lot of publicity.

In the 1987–1989 American television series Beauty and the Beast, Vincent (the "Beast"), who lived in tunnels beneath the city (see "Mole People"), would ride on top of a subway car to travel surreptitiously around the city.

In the 1992 Seinfeld episode "The Subway", a subway ride leads to four unique experiences. Jerry Seinfeld befriends an overweight nudist; George Costanza meets an attractive woman who invites him to her hotel room; Elaine Benes misses a lesbian wedding; and Cosmo Kramer wins a horse bet.

The 1999 debut album from Jennifer Lopez was called On the 6, named after the line that she regularly rode while growing up in The Bronx.

Living Causes Death is a popular online Internet cartoon by Mike Gupta. It contains numerous references to the New York City Train system.

In the Futurama episode "The Luck of the Fryrish" (first aired March 11, 2001), Bender uses the run down subway system, apparently still electrified, to get to Fry's old neighborhood. He hooks his feet up to the tracks and, just before leaving the station, says, "This is the Brooklyn-bound B-train, making local stops at where ever the hell I feel like it, watch for the closing doors!" and imitates the sound trains make just before the doors close. In reality, the train does indeed run to Brooklyn: It originates at Bedford Park Boulevard in The Bronx, then proceeds downtown through Manhattan and into Brooklyn, eventually terminating at Brighton Beach. The station they debarked at, Newkirk Avenue, however did not see B service until 2004.

In the Without a Trace Episode "Birthday Boy", Gabe Freedman disappears on his birthday while with his father at the Yankee Stadium subway station.

Some episodes of Disney's American Dragon: Jake Long shows Jake fighting bad guys in the subway. Sometimes Jake and his friends just take the subway to get around.