February 26, 1908: The Hudson Tubes (PATH System) Open

February 26, 1908: The Hudson Tubes open, providing a subway link between New York City and the New Jersey cities of Hoboken, Jersey City, Harrison and Newark. 

Construction had begun in 1873, but it was a long process, with many accidents, including one in 1880 that killed 20 workers. In 1883, the project was abandoned.

The Hudson and Manhattan Railroad Company bought the rights to resume construction in 1902. It was run by William Gibbs McAdoo, who would later marry Eleanor Wilson, daughter of President Woodrow Wilson, and serve as his Secretary of the Treasury. They built a tunnel under 6th Avenue from 33rd Street in Midtown, just south of Herald Square, to 9th Street in Greenwich Village, then turned right under Christopher Street, then crossed the Hudson River.

From there, the tubes turned in 2 different directions. The northward tube went to Hoboken, and connected with the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad Terminal, now the Hoboken Terminal of New Jersey Transit. The southward tube opened in 1912, going to Jersey City, with stops at Newport-Pavonia, Grove Street, and Journal Square.

The H&M's plans to link the system to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, the Communipaw Terminal of the Central Railroad of New Jersey in Jersey City, and through Newark all the way to Montclair were abandoned. But in 1937, the line was extended to Harrison, and then across the Passaic River to Newark's Pennsylvania Station.

By 1962, the H&M was bankrupt, and was bought out by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The Hudson Tubes were rebranded as the Port Authority Trans-Hudson, or PATH, system, although there are still a few tiled signs in the system mentioning "HUDSON TUBES" or "H&M."

In 1971, with the World Trade Center under construction, PATH extended the system to Exchange Place in Jersey City and to the World Trade Center. A plan to extend the Newark portion of the line to Newark International Airport and all the way to Plainfield was abandoned, paving the way for the creation of New Jersey Transit, which took over a Jersey Central line and turned it into the Raritan Valley Line, which included 2 stations in Plainfield, and going further into Somerset and Hunterdon Counties, terminating at High Bridge.

There have been 4 fatal incidents aboard the system:

• On July 22, 1923, a collision near Manhattan Transfer killed one person and injured 15 others.
• On April 26, 1942, a six-car H&M train derailed at Exchange Place. Five people were killed and 222 more were injured. A subsequent investigation found that the motorman was intoxicated.
• On December 17, 1945, a seven-car H&M train collided with a steel barrier on the Dock Bridge west of Harrison, killing the motorman and injuring 67 passengers.
• On July 23, 1963, a PATH train collided with a Pennsylvania Railroad engine east of Harrison, killing two passengers and injuring 28 more.

In 2017, the PATH system was used as a film substitute for the New York Subway for a scene in the film John Wick: Chapter 2.

The idea of extending the line to Newark Airport was renewed in the 2000s, and was approved in 2017, with construction set to begin in 2020, with service to be inaugurated in 2025. Then the COVID epidemic hit in March 2020, putting everything on hold. As of February 26, 2022, it's not clear when construction will begin.

UPDATE: The Port Authority announced in March 2023 that it was deferring funding for the Newark Airport extension to a future capital plan. In 2025, the Hoboken station was closed for a month, so that repairs left over from the 2012 Hurricane Sandy could be made all at once, instead of one weekend at a time over the course of an entire year.

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February 26, 1908 was a Wednesday. Tex Avery, the animator who helped developed the cartoons of both Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Warner Brothers, was born on this day.

Baseball and football were out of season. Professional basketball barely existed. Even hockey was not fully professional. So there were no games on this historic day.

There were challenges for the Stanley Cup that Winter. On January 9 and 13, the Montreal Wanderers, "the Little Men of Iron," featuring later NHL team bosses Lester Patrick of New York and Art Ross of Boston, beat the Ottawa Victorias -- not to be confused with the Ottawa Hockey Club/Silver Seven/Senators. On March 10 and 12, they beat the Winnipeg Maple Leafs -- not to be confused with the later Toronto team of that name. And on March 14, they beat the Toronto Professional Hockey Club, keeping the Cup for another year.