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Gunther and His
Railroad
Preface
New York City's massive rapid transit
system has many origins.
Many parts were built
by the City for operation by itself or by private operators, financed by
bonds secured by the rich city's credit.
Other
parts were built with the aid of private capital, sometimes with
the involvement of people we called "robber barons," with all
the trappings of monopoly capitalism.
Still other parts were built by hopeful entrepreneurs, who sometimes
succeeded. Some of these ventures failed before laying a single
rail.
And then there were the
seat-of-the-pants operations, laid out by folks who may have had
the golden spike of the Transcontinental Railroad in their hearts,
but had to hold together their little ventures with chewing gum and
bailing wire on the ground.
Such a man was
Charles L. Gunther. The following story tells of the earliest days of what
is now the Brooklyn run of the "B" train of New York City Transit, known
to older Brooklynites as the West End Line of the
BMT.
This article originally appeared in 1906
in the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company's employee publication. It was
written by Morton Morris, who had been a conductor on the Brooklyn, Bath
and Coney Island RR, which became the Brooklyn, Bath and West End before becoming a part of today's subway
system.
Continued on page 2
A Little More About Charles
Gunther
Morton
Morris'
article tells us that Mr. Gunther was a.elected a sachem (chief) of
Tammany Hall and ran for and was eventually elected Mayor. One might get
the impression that he was a Mayor of Brooklyn or some other municipality,
but Tammany was the famous New York City Democratic political organization
and, in fact, Gunther was Mayor of New York City from 1864-1866
which, at the time, included only New York County—that is,
Manhattan and part of The Bronx.
It is
rather remarkable, in light of modern politics, to consider that Gunther
was New York's mayor at the same time that he was running
a transportation business in one of the suburbs. One could only
imagine the outrage if a modern Mayor of New York were running such a
business in Suffolk or Westchester.
Copyright © 1975 by Third Rail Press, © 1999 by The
Composing Stack Inc.
Reprinted by permission. Not
responsible for typographical errors.
The Third Rail and The Third Rail
logo are trademarks of The Composing Stack
Inc.
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