A spooky remnant of the Third Avenue El still stands on East 99th Street

Officially, the era of the elevated train in Manhattan ended in 1955. (Not subways that go above ground at certain points but actual elevated train lines.)

That’s when miles of track and trestles were removed from the borough’s Third Avenue El, the last of the mighty above-ground railroads that roared up and down four major avenues starting in the late 1860s and helped reshape Gotham northward.

But even though the infrastructure of the elevated trains has vanished from the streetscape—along with the grime they attracted and the ear-splitting noise they produced—some remains of their existence can still be found in the modern city.

One of these remainders stands at Third Avenue and East 99th Street. This stately granite and brick building, partially dug into the side of a hill on an East Harlem tenement block, has the bureaucratic-sounding name of Substation 7.

Opened in 1901, its function was to produce the electricity needed to power the Third Avenue El—which like the elevated lines on Second Avenue, Sixth Avenue, and Ninth Avenue switched from steam power to electricity by 1903, according to Under the Sidewalks of New York: The Story of the Greatest Subway System in the World, by Brian J. Cudahy.

The operator of all the elevated lines at the time was the Manhattan Railway Company—and the company name is still (faintly) visible on the front of the substation. (Click the second photo to enlarge it and view the name.)

Other substations can still be found in New York City. But Substation 7 “is the only Manhattan substation that dates from the electrification of the pre-subway elevated system and also retains its original appearance,” stated engineering historian and New York City electricity systems expert Joseph J. Cunningham, in a 2013 article about the substation in the New York Times.

That original appearance gives it a spooky vibe, with bricked-in windows and a carriage house-style front entrance blocked from the public via a metal security shutter and iron fence.

Yet even once the Third Avenue El was supplanted by the underground subway, Substation 7 continued its role as a power station (above, in 1901, almost complete and surrounded by elevated tracks).

“No. 7 was the primary supply of power for the upper portion of the Lexington Avenue subway from 1918 into at least the late 1970s, when other substations were constructed underground,” states the New York Times piece.

Despite its abandoned feel, the substation now serves as the MTA’s “fire extinguisher shop.” Thanks to its long use from the late Gilded Age through much of the 20th century, it was never converted to commercial use and remains a part of the Manhattan’s transit present—and a ghost of its turn of the century past.

[Second image: NYPL Digital Collections; fourth image: MCNY, F2012.53.103C]

Tags: Elevated Trains in New York City, Substation 7 Electrical Power Station, Substation 7 Manhattan, Substation 7 Third Avenue, Substation 7 Third Avenue Elevated, Substations in New York City, Third Avenue El in NYC