New York's Lost Monorail

There was a time when New York had its very own monorail, complete with seven two-car trains running between 9 and 2 a.m. seven days a week at a dazzling 40 feet above the ground. But here's the twist. The monorail's story is not one of triumph. Rather, it's a tale of fleeting glory as the monorail met its end after just two short years. Stay tuned to find out why, as today we uncover the story behind New York's lost monorail. I'm your host Ryan Socash and you're watching It's History. The idea of a New York monorail is nothing new. In fact, the first notable attempt to build one dates all the way back to 1907. This was the year when John H Starlin and two additional retired Rapid Transit board members announced their intention to finance a company that would construct a monorail or quote one rail system as it was called at that time between Newark and New York City. The network was to include a four-track system whisking passengers to their destination at 100 miles per hour. The idea went as far as an exhibition version set up in Jamestown with inventors recalling quote this monorail has a car 47 feet long and a maximum width of six feet tapering at each end. The car is supported by two trucks with two wheels each. In the end, an unrelated system was set up between City Island and Barrow in the suburbs of the Bronx. However, it did not last long. On July the 16th 1910, a severe accident occurred resulting in 20 passenger injuries, one of which was said to be serious. This story really deserves its own episode but in short, I'll tell you that the train ran upright thanks to a gyroscope but when it failed the vehicle tipped over ending this weird experimental railway altogether and although the idea of a monorail seemed futuristic and exciting the city found it to be a dangerous gimmick and ultimately prioritized its investments in building the subway system instead. Talk of building a monorail died down until 1955 when a telephone survey of several American cities including New York investigated public enthusiasm for the monorail as a means of mass transportation. It turned out that the Big Apple showed serious interest in this prospect to the point that experts compiled a vast report on the possibilities going as far as surveying potential routes. Yet once again this hype bore no fruit. Then, just as it seemed New York would never have a monorail, the perfect storm occurred when the city won its bid to host the 1964 edition of the World's Fair. One of the event's sponsors American Machine and Foundry or AMF was hell-bent on presenting their monorail concept to the world. So by December of 1963 the news had spread far and wide across the nation with the Daily Herald in Washington reporting quote, the New York World's Fair will have a monorail but it will be different from Seattle. Instead of rolling along the top of the track the New York version will be suspended from tracks and run under it. This idea was not entirely popular with everyone. Many skeptics recall the famous breakdown of a scenic monorail in California which apparently resulted in haunting images of cars actually dangling from the tracks with passengers stranded on board. Even so on April the 12th 1964 the first cars were mounted to the tracks and even the construction workers appeared to look on from below with complete fascination. The enthusiasm was contagious as the media began to speculate about the possibility of a monorail dominating the east coast. One depiction shows a monorail traveling as far south as the Atlantic City Expressway. In reality the system had six two-car trains running 40 feet above the ground on two parallel kidney-shaped loops. Curiously the design was not entirely groundbreaking as similar systems with mile-long variations could be found in places like France and Japan and this made sense as New York's monorail was designed based on French and American patents. Upon opening the 4,000 foot track loop offered amenities that had previously been unknown to the world. Aside from the fact that passengers rode a train with the tracks above it for the first time they also experienced things like air conditioning. The 90 foot long cars were automatically controlled hence a family could travel with a front window view in place of where the engineer would normally sit. The capacity was 80 passengers per car all of whom were entertained by a carriage attendant presenting a real-time tour over the PA system. However some passengers were baffled by the that the attendant was not real. Instead it was a recorded loop. Even so there was an override control as well as a staff member on board in case of an emergency. The doors automatically opened and closed upon arrival and departure stations and the monorail could operate in basically any weather condition. Another fact that was loud in the press with the World Fair celebrating its so-called weather immunity. The stations were also fascinating in their own right with novelties such as a bowling alley. Even the train maintenance center was a marvel as the fully loaded rail would be hydraulically lowered to the ground level where a repair hanger awaited. Yet in some ways it was all in vain as upon the conclusion of the World's Fair most of the structures in Flushing Meadow Park including the monorail were dismantled removed and lost altogether. So what became of this monorail? Well initial reports from March of 64 suggest that the five million dollar train would be shipped to Sacramento California to service a run between downtown and the state fair. The authorities asserted their firm interest stating quote the American machine foundry and company which has installed the New York monorail has been in touch with our local people and is interested in erecting the transportation system here. New York offered a price of one million dollars for the sale of the trains and Hollywood passed. Then a 65 edition of the sun suggested the New York City monorail would run in California but that the connection would be between the then new Diplomat West Hotel and the convention center and from here the trail of what happened to the monorail goes almost completely dark. However in 1971 the Philadelphia Inquirer made an assessment of New York's monorail which I found to be rather suggestive. The newspaper recalled a consideration by Philadelphia to buy this monorail however they dismissed it upon discovering that the top speed of the train was only 10 miles per hour. Philadelphia transportation authorities went as far as saying that the New York system quote did not have any value with only a few exceptions and I believe that this is a very telling observation of why most cities do not install monorails. They do spend hundreds of thousands of dollars investigating the tempting proposition only to ultimately conclude that typical two rail track systems are far more practical. As to what became of the system after it was dismantled I searched to the bottom of newspaper archives and the internet only to find nothing. Perhaps the closest trace I came across was a 1993 nod to the logo on the monorail in the Simpsons episode Marge versus the Monorail and I guess that doesn't count for too much. One World Fair blog cites that the cars were sold at auction and eventually ended up in Texas where some of the remains were seen rusting away as late as the 1990s. However the blog does not specify where they were and what became of them. In other words your guess is as good as mine when it comes to what exactly became of the train cars today. Yet I've got to assume that at least one of you out there watching knows definitively what happened. Maybe you have access to show us the remains. If that's the case email me so that we can solve this mystery together. Otherwise you can still help out by sharing this video far and wide so that hopefully it will end up on the screen of an expert and at that point I hope to come back with part two of this video. But until then I'm Ryan Socash signing off.