72nd Street Subway Kiosk (Control House)

History and architecture

The 72nd Street Subway Kiosk, or Control House, which occupies a prominent site at the intersection of Broadway and 72nd Street, is one of only three such structures surviving in the city. Built to serve New York City's first subway system, it was opened near the end of 1904. Designated by the architectural firm of Heins & LaFarge in the Flemish Renaissance style, the control house is a distinctive and important architectural feature on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and a significant reminder of the early subway system.

Proposals for an underground rapid transit system to alleviate traffic congestion in New York had been put forward as early as the 1860s. In 1864 the Metropolitan Railway Company was incorporated; the intent was to build an underground railroad.

Because of political opposition and the competition for franchise rights, the scheme was not successful. Instead elevated steam railroads were built beginning in 1868.

The New York State Legislature created a Rapid Transit Commission in 1891 to explore the possibility of a subway system. To meet the problem of construction costs, the City of New York was authorized in the Rapid Transit Act of 1894 to issue bonds and enter into a contract with a private corporation to build and operate an underground railroad.

Although several years of delay and litigation followed, a contract was finally let by the City on October 11, 1899, to the Rapid Transit Subway Construction Company, formed by John B. McDonald with the financial backing of banker August P. Belmont, Jr. Belmont created the Inter-borough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) in 1902 to lease the subway from the City and to operate it for fifty years.

The 1899 contract called for the construction of a subway system according to the route and plan that had been devised by William Barclay Parsons (1859-1932), Chief Engineer of the Rapid Transit Commission, in 1895 and revised in 1897. This route began with a loop under City Hall, went up the east side of Manhattan along Lafayette Street and Fourth Avenue to Grand Central Station at 42nd Street, then went west to Times Square and turned north along Broadway to 96th Street; there it branched into two lines, leading to the Bronx. Construction began in March 1900. A second contract extended the route south from City Hall into Brooklyn where it terminated at the Long Island Railroad Terminal at Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues. Work was begun on this section of the route in 1902.

While the system and the station plans were determined by the engineers of the Rapid Transit Commission working under Parsons, a consulting architect was sought to design the decoration of the underground stations, the control houses, and the kiosks of the subway, and a search committee was appointed in 1901. The firms of Carrere & Hastings and Robert Gibson were considered, but on March 7, 1901, the firm of Heins & LaFarge was selected.