BusTalk

[HwyHaulier]

Frankie -

Spotted that, too! With the - then - newer and larger coaches going into service, it was quite plain this Station became obsolete.

In Photo shown, the maneuvers were a "pro driver" challenge! Guys likely didn't get paid enough for doing it right...

.........................Vern..................

[traildriver]

The old bus terminals were designed for buses that carried from 29 to 37 passengers--max 33 or 35 feet long, 96" width, and 10 foot height. Then the 40 footers came out, with 51 transit seats, followed by Scenicruiser's and Eagles that were 11 feet tall, then the MC-6X 12 feet tall by 102" wide, and now 45 footers, as well as 'artics'......In most cases, they just had to learn to adapt these larger buses into spaces that were never intended for them.

[Mr. Linsky]

Seen sometime in 1974 on Main Street passing 39th. Avenue in Flushing and heading from College Point south to 160th. Street and Jamaica Avenue on the Q65 line is fleet # 199 - a 1974 AM General Model 10240A operating on a one year demonstration lease by Queens Transit Corporation of College Point, New York.

Built in Mishawaka, Indiana for the U.S. market and designed by Western Flyer of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the domesticated AM General, while pleasant to look at, didn't really make the grade in competition with GM and Flxible with only 5,431 being built between 1974 and 1978.

In fact, the only New York City based operator that did buy AMG's was Queens Transit's sister company Steinway Transit Corporation with an order of ten 1978 Model 9640B-8's numbered 401 to 410 that were already off their roster by 1985.

Photo by Vintage-Vault75 and sold recently on eBay after a minor bidding war.

Mr. Linsky - Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, New York

[traildriver]

I was out of New York from 1971 until 1989, so I missed seeing those on QTC. I lived in the Denver area, where the RTD had an abundance of them. I thought that they were a nice looking, conservatively and practically styled coach, and wondered why they went out of the business so quickly...

[Mr. Linsky]

'Another day, another strike settled' - that's about all you heard around New York bus circles through the fifties.

But the strike of January 1st. 1953 that lasted until the 29th. of that month really wasn't ended but was halted when drivers and mechanics of eight of the city's private and city owned bus lines agreed to resume operations pending settlement of grievances by a state arbitrator (the ninth company, Green Bus Lines, was not involved in the walkout).

Shown below in a UPI photo taken on January 29th. is Surface Transportation System driver Richard Schmoldt happily pointing to a Daily News front page headline heralding the end of the dispute as he readies himself behind the wheel to return to work in The Bronx.

Photo courtesy of the New York Bureau of the Chicago Tribune Archive and is available as 'Buy It Now' through tribunephotos (item # 280903645156.

Mr. Linsky - Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, New York

[JimmiB]

While searching NY architecture pictures I came across these from the Smithsonian archives.
The first is dated 1942. The colorized second photo is dated 1943.

[Mr. Linsky]

JimmiB,

When I was a kid (and, believe it or not, I was a kid at one time!), my parents used to take me with them to an annual family society luncheon at the old Astor Hotel which was directly across Broadway from the Camel sign.

The room that the luncheon was held in had windows overlooking Broadway where I could stand and watch the smoke bellowing out of the model's mouth and across the Great White Way about every ten seconds or so and later learned that it was done with the aid of a steam jenny.

In the top photo we see a mid thirties Yellow Coach Model 728 following another Yellow Coach Model TD 4502 from 1942 and both operating for the New York City Omnibus Corporation (NYCO).

The bottom color photo shows two 1942 Yellow Coach Model TD 4502's passing one another and also with NYCO.

Great images.

Regards,

Mr. 'L'

[Mr. Linsky]

While passenger traffic and revenues during the seventies were at their highest in the history of Manhattan's Avenue B and East Broadway Transit Company (the only private operator left in the borough at the time), it wasn't enough to sustain both maintenance programs and new bus purchases and, what equipment that was procured during the period was already well worn with most not even repainted to the company's traditional cream over red livery.

In fact, the last group of pre owned buses to see a spray gun at all were nine sixteen year old TDH 5302's from Rochester New York's Regional Transit Service received in 1976 with # 511 (pictured) as one of them.

While the city finally did intervene in early 1980 by ordering thirteen new forty foot Flxibles to be owned by the Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority (MABSTOA) and leased to Avenue B, their arrival came too late to save the company which succumbed to state takeover at the end of March in that year.

Avenue B and East Broadway will be remembered as the last vestige of the most colorful era in Manhattan's transit history.

Photo courtesy of 4509bus and is up for bid on eBay as item # 350581560024.

Mr. Linsky - Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, New York

[Mr. Linsky]

Among the very first coaches purchased by the Third Avenue Railway System's newly formed Surface Transportation System of New York bus division in August of 1924 were twenty-six 1928 62 passenger doubled decked configured Model 66's manufactured by the Six Wheel Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and were numbered from 100 to 125 (a single demonstrator (pictured) was purchased two years earlier as fleet # 21 and eventually became #126).

Weighing in at just over six tons, the all metal Fitzgibbon and Crisp bodied Six Wheel's Model 66 boasted a unique feature in automotive engineering at the time with four rear drive wheels assembled in tandem in a single unit and powered by a 109-hp 6-cylinder Continental Model 15-H Red Seal bus engine (it was felt that the tandem arrangement would afford more and better traction under severe conditions).

Among the sixteen routes that Surface was first granted franchises to take over were two Grand Concourse lines in The Bronx between Mosholu Parkway and 110th. Street and 5th. Avenue in Manhattan which had been temporarily operated by Fifth Avenue Coach for the city (that's why the destination sign on #21 might look somewhat familiar).

By 1933, all of the model 66's were rebuilt as single-decks.

Photo courtesy of the Motor Bus Society.

Mr. Linsky - Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, New York

[Mr. Linsky]

In all the years that I lived in the environs of New York City, I must have traversed the two lane auto tunnel on Fourth Avenue (A/K/A Park Avenue South) between 34th. Street and Grand Central Terminal at 42nd. Street hundreds of times and never realized that it had once been the right of way for the New York and Harlem Railway line between Park Row downtown and Harlem.

Commonly known as the 4th. and Madison Line, it was abandoned by the railroad in 1933 at which time the city's Department of Plant and Structures placed temporary bus service on the route which remained until the Madison Avenue Coach Company - a subsidiary of New York City Omnibus Corporation - was created as a permanent replacement in 1936.

The image below (top) was taken looking north from the Murray Hill Tunnel Station, at 38th Street, on July 17, 1923 and, below that, a schematic of the entire Fourth and Madison system.

It is said that the tunnel was built at the insistence of the architects of Grand Central in an effort to duplicate the landscaped center malls found on Park Avenue north of the terminal.

Tunnel photo courtesy of the New York City Municipal Archive with special thanks to Jeff Marinoff.
Schematic drawing by B. Linder.

Mr. Linsky - Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, New York

[NorthShore]

The'happy go lucky' fellow in the photo of the North Shore Twin Coach is Joseph Rauchwergen, owner of North Shore.
The pre-war Twin Coaches were bought when North Shore took over the Bee Line's (L.I.) southern Queens routes in 1936. The buses replaced a delapidated Bee Line fleet. The Q44 was based at their Jamaica garage.
The buses were gray with a green belt stripe and silver roof.
After many deliveries of pre-war Twins for the southern routes, the last buses North Shore purchased for these routes were GM 4507's delvered right after City takeover in 1947. The post-war buses purchased for the northern routes were all Twin Coaches. All post war buses were metallic gray (not quite silver) and green.

[Hankg42]

Technically, Park Ave. South (4th Ave.) becomes Park Ave. at (north of) 32nd Street. Having worked during my lifetime at 2 Park, 1 Park, and 470 Park Ave So. (diagonally south across 32nd from 1 Park), I've spent plenty of time in that neighborhood.

In addition, as many know, the pedestrian crossing at 33rd and Park, at the south end of the tunnel, was traditionally the most dangerous crossing in NYC. Even when people would wait for the Walk sign (not very often!), cars exiting the tunnel southbound very often "missed" the red light. I believe traffic is only allowed northbound through the tunnel now.

[Mr. Linsky]

Seen in a photo taken in September of 1972 at Brooklyn's East New York Depot is fleet # 6149 - a 1972 GM Coach Model T6H 5309A operating for the New York City Transit Authority (all 434 coaches of this series were built exclusively for both the Transit Authority (in the 6000's) and the commonly owned Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority (in the 4000's).

# 6149's fare box is in the process of having its coins rapidly sucked out to be cleaned, sorted, counted and vaulted and all done automatically at the rate of six-hundred coins and tokens per minute (a far cry from the days when we had to tote heavy canvas bags of change up to the cashier's window at Green Line (NY).

In the image, taken by Ernie Sisto of the M.T.A., we see chauffeur James Breland behind the wheel while Jack Belsky, General Superintendent of Surface Transit, looks on.

Chicago Tribune New York Bureau photo available on eBay as either by bid or 'buy it now' through tribunephotos as item # 390441888785.

Mr. Linsky - Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, New York

[Hart Bus]

Ah Mays! Another falllen flag among NYC Department Stores.

[N4 Jamaica]

The destination sign without a route number puzzles me. I suspect 6149 is on the B20, but the only route-less destination signs I have seen have been like Garage or No Passengers.
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Contrast the photo of 6160 from bus.nycsubway.org, also in 1972.
http://bus.nycsubway.org/perl/show?1792
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Joe McMahon