January 8, 1902: A southbound steam train, approaching Grand Central Depot in Manhattan, overruns signals in the smoky Park Avenue Tunnel, and collides with another southbound train, killing 15 people and injuring more than 30 others. At the time, it was the worst transit disaster in New York City history.
The Tunnel opened in 1875, to connect Grand Central with the New York Central Railroad and its branches as it spread out north of Manhattan Island, including what would eventually become the Hudson Line, the Harlem Line, and the New Haven Line of Metro-North Commuter Railroad.
This crash directly resulted in the construction of the modern-day Grand Central Terminal, and the development of Park Avenue as a residential destination and a metaphor for wealth. A week after the crash, New York Central president William H. Newman announced that all of the railroad's suburban lines to Grand Central would be electrified, and the approach to the station would be put underground.
The New York state legislature subsequently passed a law to ban all steam trains in Manhattan beginning on July 1, 1908. By December 1902, as part of an agreement with the city, New York Central agreed to put the approach to Grand Central Station from 46th to 59th Streets in an open cut under Park Avenue, and to upgrade the tracks to accommodate electric trains. Overpasses would be built across the open cut at most of the cross-streets.
Following Newman's pledge to electrify New York Central rail lines, plans to electrify the Park Avenue line and replace the then-overcrowded Grand Central Depot were announced. In March 1903, William J. Wilgus, the railroad's chief engineer -- a designer, not a train operator -- presented a more-detailed proposal to the New York Central board, describing a modern railroad terminal with separate levels for commuter and intercity railroads, among other things.
Wilgus' plan was approved, and subsequently Grand Central Depot was demolished in phases, and replaced with the Beaux Arts-style Grand Central Terminal in 1913. As part of the project, the rail yard and the approach from 59th Street were placed underground and electrified. Electric locomotives were placed in regular passenger service in January 1907. In October, the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad also began running electric trains in.
With the elimination of the noise and pollution from steam locomotives, this once-undesirable section of Park Avenue, from 42nd Street to the emergence of the line above ground at 97th Street, and the land freed by the covering-over of the rail yard became prime New York City real estate.
The area became one of the city's most attractive residential areas as mansions and high-class apartments were constructed along Park Avenue, including the 2nd Waldorf-Astoria Hotel between 49th and 50th, replacing the one that had been demolished to make way for the Empire State Building; and 1049 Park Avenue between 86th and 87th, which became famous as the site of the TV show The Odd Couple.
"Park Avenue" -- and, also, "the Upper East Side," which was essentially created by all of this -- became a metaphor for wealth, not just in America, but worldwide. In a 1944 Tom and Jerry cartoon, Million Dollar Cat, Tom inherits $1 million from an eccentric aunt, on the condition that he not harm another living creature, "even a mouse." He moves into the penthouse of 1 Park Avenue -- in real life, between 32nd and 33rd, with Park Avenue South extending to 14th Street and Union Square -- while Jerry, to test him, moves to "1/2 Park Avenue."
On a 1956 episode of The Honeymooners, sewer worker Ed Norton (played by Art Carney) claims he always catches a cold while working in a sewer under Park Avenue, because, "They're air-conditioned."
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January 8, 1902 was a Wednesday. There were no scores on this day: Baseball and football were out of season, and basketball barely existed. On January 23, the Winnipeg Victorias won the Stanley Cup, defeating the Toronto Wellingtons in two games of what was meant to be a best-two-out-of-three series.
