Photographing The Construction Of The New York Subway System

The New York Subway is over 115 years old. In addition to digging a huge network of underground tunnels, the system had the foresight to create the New York Transit Museum, part of which is what remains of the over 100,000 8x10” glass negatives created by photographers Pierre and Granville Pullis in their over 30 years of work.

Occasionally the Museum mounts an exhibition of the Pullis’ documentation of the digging of the tunnels, and some images are available for viewing online. The portions of the subway created by the “cut and cover” method also review street scenes of early 20th century New York.

Midtown 7th Ave and 42nd Street (detain) by Pierre P. Pullis, 1914, from the NY Transit Museum website