Excerpt from Interborough Rapid Transit: The New York Subway, Its Construction and Equipment

In March, 1900, when the Mayor with appropriate ceremonies broke ground at the Borough Hall, in Manhattan, for the new road, there were many well - informed people, including prominent financiers and experienced engineers, who freely p'rophesied failure for the enterprise, although the contract had been taken by a most capable contractor, and one of the best known banking houses in America had com mitred itself to finance the undertaking.

In looking at the finished road as a completed work, one is apt to wonder why it ever seemed impossible and to forget the difficulties which confronted the builders at the start.

The railway was to be owned by the city, and built and operated under legislation unique in the history of municipal governments, complicated, and minute in provisions for the occupation of the city Streets, payment of moneys by the city, and city supervision over construction and operation. Questions as to the interpretation of these provisions might have to be passed upon by the courts, with delays, how serious none could foretell, especially in New York Where the crowded calendars retard speedy decisions. The experience of the elevated railroad corporations in building their lines had shown the uncertainty of depending upon legal precedents. It was not, at that time, supposed that the abutting property owners would have any legal ground for complaint against the elevated structures, but the courts found new laws for new conditions and Spelled out new property rights of light, air, and access, which were made the basis for a volume of litigation unprecedented in the courts of any country.

An underground railroad was a new condition. None could say that the abutting property owners might not find rights substantial enough, at least, to entitle them to their day in court, a day which, in this State, might Stretch into many months, or even several years. Owing to the magnitude of the work.

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