Transportation Innovation and the Real Estate Frenzy of Harlem
(Stern, New York 1880; image courtesy of New York Historical Society)
In the first decade of the nineteenth century, Harlem was a suburb of New York dotted with large estates, summer homes and a few shanties. But it lacked sufficient transportation for those making sporadic trips to escape the congested and dense city to enjoy the benefits of country living—farming, fishing and hunting. Located approximately seven miles from the southern end of Manhattan, Harlem’s most reliable forms of transportation were steamboats (seasonal) and stagecoaches (slow and inefficient). The need existed for a dependable year round method of transporting commuters between New York and Harlem that was reliable, inexpensive, and relatively unaffected by weather conditions.
On April 25, 1831, the New York State Legislature granted a charter to construct rail service along Fourth Avenue (now Park Avenue) from 23rd Street to Harlem (amended to extend from City Hall). Hoping to quicken and ease travel, the New York and Harlem Railroad (now Metro-North Railroad) was the first attempt to connect Harlem to New York with efficient and speedier transportation. Track construction began in 1832, extending to Harlem in 1837, transporting passengers from City Hall to as far north as 133rd Street. Although still rudimentary and frequently behind schedule and notorious for long delays, rail transportation was the best alternative mode of transportation compared to the seasonal steamboats and slow stagecoaches.
The New York and Harlem Railroad, with annual revenues of one million dollars and ridership nearly three million a year, was the impetus that boosted population and improved access to Harlem, spawned residential development and transformed the area from a countryside to the beginnings of an urban setting. Harlem’s rural characteristics began to vanish, as marshes were filled in, Manhattan’s grid system extended uptown, and technological improvements in the infrastructure of water supply, sanitation, energy, and communications arrived with the city’s annexation of Harlem in 1873.
When the elevated subways were completed in the 1870s to transport large numbers of people faster between southern Manhattan and the developing northern reaches of the city, large scale residential construction commenced. The first elevated lines were along Greenwich Street and Ninth Avenue as far 29th Street. Hazardous service caused low ridership and the first “el” train was a failure. Reorganized a year later, new lines were developed: the Third Avenue line (1878) ran from the south ferry to 129th Street; the Second Avenue line (1880) ran between Chatham Square to 129th Street; and the Ninth Avenue line (1881) was a rebuilt double track that extended north to 155th Street. The “els” remained in service until the 1930s when they were dismantled to raise property values near the lines.
(Dolkart, Touring Historic Harlem)
Center: Construction on the subway line at 141st Street and St. Nicholas Avenue. In the foreground, St. Nicholas Presbyterian Church in 1926. (Dolkart, Touring Historic Harlem)
Left: New York and Harlem Railroad traveling up Fourth Avenue (Park Avenue) through the Harlem flats from 100th to 116th Streets, 1870. (Grogan, Coming of New York and Harlem Railroad)
By the 1880s, this transportation innovation ignited a building frenzy. Speculators flocked to Harlem to make fortunes buying and reselling lots and real estate. The quest to get rich quickly in Harlem real estate attracted big business and smaller investors.
The first era of large-scale residential construction began near or adjoining the Second and Third Avenue elevated lines. In 1881 the year of the most pronounced building activity more then two thirds of the buildings were completed east of Third Avenue and north of 100th Street. Newly designed dumbbell tenements and older railroad flats predominated on Third Avenue, establishing the roots of East Harlem. Criticized and scorned, these dumbbell tenements and railroad flats failed to provide decent accommodations, suggesting that Harlem was one of the most depressing quarters in New York. However, tenement legislation re- form tore down most of the earlier construction and it was replaced with smaller three-story brownstones and five- and six-story tenement buildings. Similar brownstones could be found in the less populated sections of Lexington, Madison and Fifth Avenues some of the area’s finest homes where Harlem’s most affluent residents lived. These brownstones include parlors, maid’s quarters, and fine detailed woodwork.
Left: Washington Apartments, 2034-2040 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, 1888. The Washington was the first apartment building erected in Harlem for middle-class families. (Stern, New York 1880; Image courtesy New York Historical Society)
In 1893 Harlem’s building boom came to an end with a national recession. Real estate sales plummeted and new construction came to a halt. The economy recovered two years later, and Harlem’s development began as new tenements, row houses, and elevator buildings were erected in previously unoccupied sections of Madison, Fifth and Lenox Avenues.
For the next three decades, Harlem recaptured its prestige as an exclusive community for the elite and upper middle class. Land speculation and construction were frantic. Elegant rows of brownstones like Strivers’ Row and Astor Row and luxury apartment dwellings like the Washington and Graham Court were built to attract a stable upper class community. Wealthy New Yorkers, native-born and successful immigrants, were drawn uptown. Almost overnight, Harlem’s housing inventory was built during the frenzy from 1890 to 1905.
