As a member of the NYC Transit Museum, I’m entitled to a (slight) discount on its programs, such as excursions using older subway cars from the museum’s collection. Sunday, August 16 saw a trip from 96th Street and 2nd Avenue all the way south to the Rockaway Park station. The trip used a consist of R-10 cars which served from 1949-1989; R-16 (1955-1987); R-32 (you probably remember the corrugated stainless steel exterior, 1964-2020) and R38 (1966-2009). This trip, to my disappointment, did not use the crown jewels of the museum, Q-Types from the 1901s and Triplexes from the 1920s, which had wicker seats, overhead fans, olive green paint jobs, exposed incandescent bulbs, and a familiar musty smell. Those cars are more fragile, and the Museum did not want to risk a breakdown which would snag regular service.
By the 1940s and 1950s, subway interiors had settled into 20th Century Functional, with plainer gray paint jobs and plastic seats in various shades, and fluorescent lighting. It’s a long haul from the Upper East Side to the Rockaways using track connections generally not employed unless there is trackwork. I especially enjoy the ride across Jamaica Bay, the only place in the subways where, instead of the bleak darkness of a tunnel, you see water, water everywhere, with only islands, including Manhattan, in view.
The consist headed by an R-16 car arrives at Rockaway Park for a return trip to Manhattan.
The Rockaway Park station was the terminus of the New York, Woodhaven and Rockaway railroad and boasted a grandiose terminal on Beach 116th Street between 1882 and 1917 that was complete with a private suite for the railroad’s president. It was demolished in 1917 to make way for this more sedate brick building. The railroad became first a part of the LIRR and the trackage was sold to the NYC transit system in 1954; the building is now the terminus of the A train.
The R-16 interior featured “Subway Sun” ads by Amelia Opdyke Jones, a cartoonist who drew a slew of subway posters that gently and humorously called attention to the shortcomings of subway riders in the manners department. The posters were given a faux newspaper masthead called The Subway Sun.
“The Sun was introduced originally to warm riders to a fare increase, but the signs evolved to tout technological improvements, highlight travel destinations-”You too can reach the beach by subway!”-and most memorably, to promote straphanger etiquette. The most famous campaign, inked by Amelia Opdyke Jones, used Monopoly-like cartoon characters the women often modeled after Oppy herself to push good manners on a captive audience. Some considered it propaganda, but at least it was entertaining, and it gave the impression that management was paying attention.” ABC News
Oppy could be a bit overbearing and preachy; imagine what she would think of the overall shenanigans in subway cars in 2026.
Kevin Walsh is the webmaster of the award-winning website Forgotten NY, and the author of the books Forgotten New York (HarperCollins, 2006) and also, with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, Forgotten Queens (Arcadia, 2013).