Sixth Avenue Elevated Station at 8th Street.

• Price: $22,500.00
  

  SKU: 103760

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• ARTIST: Stow Wengenroth

• MEDIUM: Drybrush drawing on illustration board,

  DATE: circa 1935.

• EDITION SIZE: Image size 13 3/8 x 17" (34 x 43.2 cm).

• DESCRIPTION: Estate signed, inscribed with artist name and initialed HW. (Harriet Wengenroth, the artist's wife). <BR><BR> The Sixth Avenue El was the second elevated built in Manhattan, the first was the Ninth Avenue El. The Gilbert Elevated Railway Company began construction of the Sixth Avenue El in the mid-1870s, and it opened for service on June 5, 1878, running between Rector Street and 58th Street. In 1879, it was sold to the Manhattan Railway Company, which was running the Ninth Avenue El, and in 1881, the line was connected to the rebuilt Ninth Avenue Elevated. <BR><BR> The Sixth Avenue El was not well received by the businesses along Sixth Avenue; in fact, it was hated, so it was the first elevated railway in Manhattan to be demolished in 1939 to make way for the Sixth Avenue Subway project underway. To get the project passed the Gilbert Elevated Railway Company hired the artist/architect Jasper Francis Cropsey to design the stations starting at 14th Street and going north. The stations featured ornamental ironwork, peaked roofs, and gingerbread work common in Victorian architecture. <BR><BR> The city purchased the elevated from the Manhattan Railway Company for $12,500,000 and recovered $9,010,656 in back taxes and interest. A little-known fact about New York's subway and elevated train system is that it was mostly built with private funds. Some of the leases stated that the company could operate the system for 50 years, after which it would become the property of New York City. The entire system became the property of the city in the late depression, due to the bankruptcies of most of the companies operating it.

• ADDITIONAL INFO:

• CONDITION: Good condition.

• REFERENCE:

• CATEGORIES: 20th-21st Century Subjects , New York City , Manhattan - Downtown