| abstract
| - The Third Avenue Line, or Third Avenue El, was an elevated railway in Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City. It passed into the ownership of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) and eventually the New York City Subway. In the 1940s, as part of the integration of the different subway companies in New York City—the IRT along with Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit (BMT) and Independent Subway System (IND)—the Third Avenue El and its counterparts on Second, Sixth, and Ninth Avenues came under criticism from New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and his successors. The Els were regarded as blights to their communities and obsolete, given that subways were being built, or were on the drawing board, to replace them. The IND Sixth Avenue Line and the IND Eighth Avenue Line did indeed render the Sixth and Ninth Avenue Els obsolete. Save for a small shuttle service for the Wikia:baseball:Polo Grounds on the Ninth Avenue Line, they were closed by 1940 and demolished by 1941. The Second Avenue El was also gradually demolished from 1940 to 1942, leaving only the Third Avenue El, which was intended to stay in use until and the Second Avenue Subway was built to replace it. However, government bureaucracy and pressure from private developers, eager to redevelop Third Avenue, forced the closure of the El prematurely with no adequate subway replacement, leaving residents on the East Side of Manhattan with the overcrowded IRT Lexington Avenue Line as the only subway east of Fifth Avenue. The system was closed in sections from 1950 to 1973. First, the South Ferry spur was closed in 1950, which connected South Ferry to Chatham Square in Manhattan. This forever closed the South Ferry elevated station, which had serviced all four IRT El lines that originally ran in Manhattan. Next to close was the City Hall spur in 1953, which started at Park Row in Manhattan and then connected with the South Ferry spur at Chatham Square. On May 12, 1955 the main portion of the line from Chatham Square to East 149th Street in the Bronx closed, ending the operation of elevated service in Manhattan. Finally, the remaining portion of the line in the Bronx from East 149th Street to Gun Hill Road closed in April 1973. In the Bronx, the portion of the line between The Hub and Fordham Center was replaced by the Bx55 Limited bus route making the same stops the former line made. Other than a route extension on weekdays (on 15-minute headways, 7:00 AM–7:00 PM), the portion between Gun Hill Road and Fordham Road is serviced by the Bx41. TheBx41 throughout its route runs close to where the el formerly was. The route still mimics a subway line headway and employs articulated buses. While no night service is provided, the Bx15, a local complement of the Bx55 Limited, runs every 20 minutes, a standard subway headway for late nights. The Bx41 also offers late night el replacement service between Gun Hill Road and Fordham Road.
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