Subway Construction, Long Acre Square, Broadway

Subway construction in Long Acre Square, Seventh Avenue and Broadway. Source: George P. Hall & Son photograph collection, New-York Historical Society. Photograph taken from the top of the old 9-story Pabst Hotel (demolished in the early 1903), looking north, with Seventh Avenue and West 43rd Street in the foreground. The continuation of Broadway is seen in the upper right corner of the photo (enlargement on the right).

Between about 1902 and 1904, the old Long Acre Square, 42nd Street and Broadway had the New York Subway under construction. On April 15, 1902, the subway company took possession of the entire cellar beneath the Broadway side of the Pabst Hotel and about half of the space beneath the sidewalk on 42nd Street, for tunnel purposes. Broadway was then the New York's busiest thoroughfare and it would be impossible to obstruct its traffic to construct the subway.

We can also see the foundations for the 11-story Hotel Astor, constructed between 44th Street and 45th Street, which opened on September 9, 1904. The four-story Barrington Apartments is between 43rd St. and 44th St. Times Building was erected in 1904 on the whole block the Pabst Hotel once stood. Buildings on this block were demolished between late 1902 and early 1903.

More: Map of the Subway, theaters and hotels in 1906 ►