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The 63rd Street Tunnel is a double-deck subway and railroad tunnel under the
East River The East River is a saltwater Estuary, tidal estuary or strait in New York City. The waterway, which is not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island, ...
between the
boroughs A borough is an administrative division in various English language, English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History ...
of
Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
and
Queens Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the ...
in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
. Opened in 1989, it is the newest of the East River tunnels, as well as the newest rail river crossing in the
New York metropolitan area The New York metropolitan area, also called the Tri-State area and sometimes referred to as Greater New York, is the List of cities by GDP, largest metropolitan economy in the world, with a List of U.S. metropolitan areas by GDP, gross metropo ...
. The upper level of the 63rd Street Tunnel carries the IND 63rd Street Line of the
New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system in New York City serving the New York City boroughs, boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. It is owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Tr ...
. The lower level carries
Long Island Rail Road The Long Island Rail Road , or LIRR, is a Rail transport, railroad in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County, New York, Suffolk County on Long Islan ...
(LIRR) trains to Grand Central as part of the
East Side Access East Side Access (ESA) is a public works project in New York City that extended the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) two miles from its Main Line (Long Island Rail Road), Main Line in Queens to the new Grand Central Madison station under Grand Cent ...
project. Construction of the 63rd Street Tunnel began in 1969. The tunnel was holed through beneath
Roosevelt Island Roosevelt Island is an island in New York City's East River, within the Borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan. It lies between Manhattan Island to the west, and the borough of Queens, on Long Island, to the east. It is about long, wit ...
in 1972, but completion of the tunnel and its connections was delayed by the
1975 New York City fiscal crisis It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 – Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...
. The upper level was opened in 1989, twenty years after construction started. The lower level was not opened at that time because of the cancellation of the LIRR route to Manhattan. The tunnel was long referred to as the "tunnel to nowhere" because its Queens end did not connect to any other subway line until 2001. Construction on the East Side Access project, which uses the lower level, started in 2006; the lower level opened on January 25, 2023. During construction, the lower level was used to move materials between the work sites in Manhattan and staging areas in Queens.


History


Planning

In February 1963, the
New York City Transit Authority The New York City Transit Authority (also known as NYCTA, the TA, or simply Transit, and branded as MTA New York City Transit) is a New York state public-benefit corporations, public-benefit corporation in the U.S. state of New York (state), New ...
(NYCTA) proposed a two-track East River subway tunnel under 76th Street with unspecified connections to the rest of the transit network, at a cost of $139 million. The proposed site of the tunnel was switched to 59th Street on a May 2, 1963, report. On May 24, Mayor Wagner suggested that a tunnel around 61st Street "be built with all deliberate speed". Several months later, on October 17, the Board of Estimate approved a new East River tunnel sited at 64th Street, noting that it would cost $30 million and take seven years to build. The 64th Street site was said to be $5.3 million less expensive, "because of easier grades and smaller curves". The route was changed to 63rd Street because officials at Rockefeller Institute at 64th Street feared that vibrations from heavy construction and train movements might interfere with the institute's delicate instruments and the research being conducted. A third track was added to the plans for the tunnel in April 1966. The track would serve
Long Island Rail Road The Long Island Rail Road , or LIRR, is a Rail transport, railroad in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County, New York, Suffolk County on Long Islan ...
(LIRR) trains to east Midtown, alleviating train traffic into Pennsylvania Station. That August, a fourth track was added to the plans after it was determined that LIRR trains would be too large to run on subway tracks. This amendment increased the number of LIRR tracks to two, and provided dedicated tracks for the LIRR and the subway. In November 1967, voters approved a $2.5 billion transportation bond issue, and in early 1968, under the
Program for Action Metropolitan Transportation: A Program for Action, also known as simply the Program for Action, the Grand Design, or the New Routes Program, was a proposal in the mid-1960s for a large expansion of mass transit in New York City, created under t ...
, officials provided detailed plans for how it would be used. Among many other projects, the proposal included the construction of the 63rd Street Tunnel to host a proposed 63rd Street–Southeast Queens subway line on the upper level (connecting to a "super-express" line and the Archer Avenue lines in Queens), and an LIRR branch traveling to a new railroad terminal in Manhattan on the lower level.


Construction

Construction on the project began on November 24, 1969; the Kiewit Corporation was the main contractor. Four prefabricated sections of the 63rd Street Tunnel were constructed at Port Deposit, Maryland, then towed to New York and sunk under the East River. The first of the tunnel segments was delivered in May 1971 and was lowered into place on August 29, 1971; the last section was lowered on March 14, 1972. The double-deck, tunnel under the East River was "holed through" on October 10, 1972, with the separate sections of tunnels being connected. The estimated cost of the project was $341 million, and the MTA applied for $227 million in federal funds. One section of the tunnel was controversial because it called for of
cut-and-cover A tunnel is an underground or undersea passageway. It is dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, or laid under water, and is usually completely enclosed except for the two Portal (architecture), portals common at each end, though ther ...
tunneling, which would require digging an open trench through
Central Park Central Park is an urban park between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, and the first landscaped park in the United States. It is the List of parks in New York City, sixth-largest park in the ...
in Manhattan. In June 1970, Mayor
John Lindsay John Vliet Lindsay (; November 24, 1921 – December 19, 2000) was an American politician and lawyer. During his political career, Lindsay was a U.S. congressman, the mayor of New York City, and a candidate for U.S. president. He was also a regu ...
told city engineers to write a report that studied ways to reduce the project's impact. The results of the report, released in January 1971, called for using
tunnel boring machine A tunnel boring machine (TBM), also known as a "mole" or a "worm", is a machine used to excavate tunnels. TBMs are an alternative to drilling and blasting methods and "hand mining", allowing more rapid excavation through hard rock, wet or dry so ...
s underneath Central Park to reduce disruption. The following month, the NYCTA published advertisements in newspapers, seeking construction bids for the tunnels under Central Park, but withdrew them after objections from community and conservation groups. The NYCTA agreed to halve the width of the proposed -wide cut, which resulted in a proportionate decrease in the area of affected parkland. The NYCTA also agreed to reduce disruption to the Heckscher Playground, located above the proposed subway tunnel's path, by cutting construction time from three years to two years and by constructing a temporary playground nearby. The sections that connected to the existing Broadway and Sixth Avenue Lines were holed through on October 11, 1973. Construction on the section between 5th Avenue and Park Avenue began in August 1974. The project involved digging a -high cavern underneath the street. On March 20, 1975, New York mayor Abraham Beame announced significant cutbacks to the plan. Construction of the Southeastern Queens extension was deferred until 1981, and the Long Island Rail Road extension through the lower level of the 63rd Street tunnel was canceled for the foreseeable future. The tunnel was 95% complete by January 1976, but later that year, the NYCTA announced that "it will take an extra five or six years—until 1987 or 1988—to complete the new Manhattan–Queens trunk subway line from Central Park to Jamaica via the new 63rd Street tunnel." The main cause of the delay was a proposed 5.8-mile "super express" bypass in Queens. The upper level was completed in 1976, but due to the
1975 New York City fiscal crisis It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 – Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...
, there was no funding to extend the tunnel in Queens east of the 21st Street–Queensbridge station. ''The New York Times'' reported that the lower level of the 63rd Street Tunnel was still under construction by 1976, even though it would remain unused indefinitely. Richard Ravitch, the MTA chairman, said that to stop the work was "so costly as to make it impractical subsequent to the construction of the subway portion." Therefore, the lower level of the 63rd Street Tunnel was completed along with the upper subway level, but could not be used due to its lack of connections at both ends. In 1979, the MTA started studying four options for making the upper level of the tunnel more useful. The ultimately agreed-on plan was to connect the tunnel to the local tracks of the IND Queens Boulevard Line in Queens, at a cost of $222 million, and a timetable of at least eight years. By June 1985, the project was again delayed indefinitely after it was found that the tunnel had been flooded with of water, and several girders and electrical equipment had also deteriorated. Two contractors were hired to assess the structural integrity of the tunnel, and the delay was estimated at two years. By February 1987, the MTA's contractors had concluded that the tunnel was structurally sound, although federal funding had not yet been released. The MTA approved a new plan to have the tunnel open to 21st Street/Queensbridge by October 1989.


Opening of upper level

The IND 63rd Street Line went into service on October 29, 1989, twenty years after construction began, with new stations at
Lexington Avenue Lexington Avenue, often colloquially abbreviated as "Lex", is an avenue on the East Side (Manhattan), East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The avenue carries southbound one-way traffic from East 131st Street (Manhattan), 131st Street to Gra ...
,
Roosevelt Island Roosevelt Island is an island in New York City's East River, within the Borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan. It lies between Manhattan Island to the west, and the borough of Queens, on Long Island, to the east. It is about long, wit ...
, and 21st Street/41st Avenue in Queens. The connector to the Queens Boulevard Line had not yet started construction. It was nicknamed the "tunnel to nowhere" due to its lack of connections in Queens. Planning for the connection to the IND Queens Boulevard Line began in December 1990, with the final design contract awarded in December 1992. Two build alternatives were evaluated: a connection to the local tracks of the Queens Boulevard Line, and a connection to the local and express tracks. The goal of the project was to increase capacity on Queens Boulevard by 33% and to eliminate the dead-end terminal at 21st Street–Queensbridge. Bellmouths were constructed to allow for a future bypass line through Sunnyside Yard. The remaining section from 21st Street to the Queens Boulevard Line, which cost $645 million, began construction on September 22, 1994. The construction project involved a number of other elements, such as extending the lower level LIRR tunnel and widening the Queens Boulevard Line tunnel above. In December 2000, the 63rd Street Connector was opened for construction reroutes, and opened for off-peak reroutes on January 13, 2001. while signal work was performed in the 53rd Street Tunnel. Regular service was expected to begin by August or September of that year, but the
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...
delayed the commencement of regular service. The connector came into regular use on December 16, 2001.


Completion of lower level

Plans were made in 1995 to bring LIRR service to East Midtown, and had resurfaced by the turn of the century. By that time, the LIRR was the busiest commuter railroad in the United States, with an average of 269,400 passengers each weekday in 1999. Penn Station, located on the West Side, was operating at capacity due to a complex track
interlocking In railway signalling, an interlocking is an arrangement of signal apparatus that prevents conflicting movements through an arrangement of tracks such as junctions or crossings. In North America, a set of signalling appliances and tracks inte ...
and limited capacity in the East River Tunnels. In 1999, the MTA proposed a $17 billion five-year capital budget, which included a $1.6 billion LIRR connection to a new station under
Grand Central Terminal Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to as Grand Central Station or simply as Grand Central) is a commuter rail terminal station, terminal located at 42nd Street (Manhattan), 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York Ci ...
, to be built as part of a project called
East Side Access East Side Access (ESA) is a public works project in New York City that extended the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) two miles from its Main Line (Long Island Rail Road), Main Line in Queens to the new Grand Central Madison station under Grand Cent ...
. The project's final
environmental impact assessment Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is the assessment of the environmental impact, environmental consequences of a plan, policy, program, or actual projects prior to the decision to move forward with the proposed action. In this context, the te ...
(FEIS) was released in March 2001. Two months later, the
Federal Transit Administration The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) is an agency within the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) that provides financial and technical assistance to local public transportation systems. The FTA is one of ten modal administration ...
(FTA) gave a favorable "Record of Decision", a mark of approval, to East Side Access after reviewing the project's FEIS. The September 11 attacks underscored the need to bring LIRR service to Grand Central. As LIRR president Kenneth J. Bauer stated, "If something happened at the East River tunnel, you wouldn't be able to run trains to Penn Station." In 2002, Congress passed a bill that allocated $132 million for infrastructure projects in New York State, of which $14.7 million was to go toward funding East Side Access. Approval of a final design for East Side Access was granted in 2002, and the first properties for East Side Access were acquired in 2003. The construction contract for a tunnel in Manhattan westward and southward from the dormant lower level of the 63rd Street Tunnel to the new station beneath Grand Central Terminal was awarded in July 2006. The first tunnel boring machine was launched westbound then southbound from the 63rd Street Tunnel in September 2007, and it reached Grand Central Terminal in July 2008. The second machine began boring a parallel tunnel in December 2007 and had completed its tunnel at 37th Street on September 30, 2008. On the Queens side, work included extending the tunnel under
Northern Boulevard New York State Route 25A (NY 25A) is a state highway on Long Island in New York (state), New York, United States. It serves as the main east–west route for most of the North Shore (Long Island), North Shore of Long Island, running ...
and boring four tunnels under Sunnyside Yard. This was a particularly delicate and expensive task due to the existence of the elevated BMT Astoria Line and the underground IND Queens Boulevard Line directly above. A temporary narrow-gauge railway and a conveyor belt system were constructed behind the tunnel boring machines and through the 63rd Street Tunnels to the Queens bell mouth. An $83 million cut structure was built, which extends the tracks under Northern Boulevard into the Sunnyside Yard, and then was covered with a deck. In September 2009, the MTA awarded Granite-Traylor-Frontiere Joint Venture a $659.2 million contract to employ two 500-ton slurry tunnel boring machines to create the tunnels connecting the LIRR Main Line and the Port Washington Branch to the 63rd Street Tunnel under 41st Avenue. The four tunnels, with precast concrete liners, total in length. The two tunnel boring machines began digging on the Queens side in April 2011. On December 22, 2011, breakthrough was achieved in Tunnel "A" of the four Queens tunnel drives from the 63rd Street Tunnel bellmouth. By July 25, 2012, all four Queens tunnel drives were complete. The project was initially scheduled to be completed by 2009, but the opening date was pushed back several times, finally opening on January 25, 2023. The MTA upgraded cellular service within the
Grand Central Madison station Grand Central Madison – also known colloquially as the Madison Concourse or simply Grand Central – is a commuter rail terminal for the Long Island Rail Road, Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) in the Midtown East, Manhattan, Midtown East neighbor ...
and surrounding tunnels in late 2023. Additionally, at the time of the Grand Central Madison station's opening, the LIRR did not own a "rescue locomotive" that was small enough to tow disabled passenger trains through the 63rd Street Tunnel; its existing locomotives could only fit the larger dimensions of the East River Tunnels. In early 2024, the MTA board voted to buy a battery-powered locomotive that could fit in the tunnel.


Construction methods

The 63rd Street Tunnel's river portions were built using the
immersed tube An immersed tube (or immersed tunnel) is a kind of undersea tunnel composed of segments, Modular construction, constructed elsewhere and floated to the tunnel site to be sunk into place and then linked together. They are commonly used for road an ...
method. Trenches were dug in the river bed, and four long prefabricated concrete sections of tunnel fabricated in Port Deposit, Maryland were floated into position and then sunk into the trenches. Two tubes were placed on each side of Roosevelt Island, each of which were prefabricated sections. The tubes extended under the water, from 63rd Street and FDR Drive on the Manhattan waterfront to 41st Avenue and Vernon Boulevard on the Queens waterfront. The construction shafts at Queensbridge Park in Queens, as well as on Roosevelt Island, were turned into ventilation shafts after the conclusion of construction. Other portions of the tunnel were built using cut-and-cover construction or rock tunneling. Waste material from the 63rd Street Tunnel's construction was deposited at the tip of Roosevelt Island, as well as off the coast of
Astoria, Queens Astoria is a neighborhood in the western portion of the New York City Boroughs of New York City, borough of Queens. Astoria is bounded by the East River and is adjacent to four other Queens neighborhoods: Long Island City, Queens, Long Island C ...
. Over of soil had to be extracted.


Usage

The tunnel has two levels. The two tracks on the upper level, connecting the IND Queens Boulevard Line in Queens to the IND Sixth Avenue Line in Manhattan via the IND 63rd Street Line, are used by the . There are also track connections to and from the BMT 63rd Street Line, west of the Lexington Avenue–63rd Street station. The tunnel west of 21st Street/Queensbridge was placed into service in 1989, and the final section of the 63rd Street Tunnel, connecting the 21st Street station to the Queens Boulevard Line, officially opened on December 17, 2001. The two trackways on the lower level were unused when the tunnel construction project was halted in the 1970s. On January 25, 2023, they carried their first revenue passengers, over 50 years since the tunnels were first holed through. Since then, they are used by the
Long Island Rail Road The Long Island Rail Road , or LIRR, is a Rail transport, railroad in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County, New York, Suffolk County on Long Islan ...
to connect Queens and the
Grand Central Madison station Grand Central Madison – also known colloquially as the Madison Concourse or simply Grand Central – is a commuter rail terminal for the Long Island Rail Road, Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) in the Midtown East, Manhattan, Midtown East neighbor ...
, which was constructed as part of the
East Side Access East Side Access (ESA) is a public works project in New York City that extended the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) two miles from its Main Line (Long Island Rail Road), Main Line in Queens to the new Grand Central Madison station under Grand Cent ...
project. During construction, the lower level of the 63rd Street Tunnel was used to transport equipment. The laying of permanent tracks started in September 2017. Due to low vertical clearances in the lower level,
bilevel rail car A bilevel car (American English) or double-decker coach (British English and Canadian English) is a type of Passenger railroad car, rail car that has two levels of passenger accommodation as opposed to one, increasing passenger capacity (up t ...
s, such as the LIRR's C3 fleet, are not able to serve Grand Central Madison. During the tunnel's construction, an alignment underneath Central and Queensbridge Parks was decided as the only feasible route for the tunnel. Because the 63rd Street Tunnel is at such a deep level, there are several ventilation shafts along its route. In Central Park, near the Central Park Zoo, there are several ventilation grates that are at the same level as the ground, covering about of surface area. A ventilation building was deemed to be architecturally unacceptable, hence the inclusion of several grates. On the other hand, gratings at Queensbridge Park were declared to be unfeasible due to the park's small usable area. Therefore, a ventilation building stands in Queensbridge Park, measuring . Additional ventilation shafts are located at Second Avenue and 63rd Street in Manhattan, and on the western shore of Roosevelt Island. When the 63rd Street Connector was constructed in the 1990s, additional ventilation structures were built at 29th and 39th Streets in Queens. File:63dsttunneljeh.JPG, Tunnel vents in Central Park File:E63d St Ventilating Tower jeh.JPG, 63rd Street ventilator, east of Second Avenue File:63 tunnel Rooselvelt Island jeh.JPG, Ventilation structure on Roosevelt Island File:63rd Tunnel 41st Av 4547 jeh.JPG, Ventilator and emergency exit in Queensbridge Park


Awards

The 63rd Street Tunnel and the 63rd Street Tunnel Connector received the Construction Achievement Project of the Year Award from the Metropolitan Section of the
American Society of Civil Engineers The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) is a tax-exempt professional body founded in 1852 to represent members of the civil engineering profession worldwide. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, it is the oldest national engineering soci ...
in 1973 and 2000, respectively. The 63rd Street Tunnel Connector was also selected as the Transit Project of the Year in 1999 by ''New York Construction News''.


Notes


References

{{Authority control Crossings of the East River Immersed tube tunnels in the United States New York City Subway infrastructure Bridges and tunnels of the Long Island Rail Road Program for Action Railroad tunnels in New York City Roosevelt Island Tunnels completed in 1989 Tunnels in Manhattan