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| Question on Fifth / Madison 2 and 2A Routes, 1966-1969 (324339) | |||
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Question on Fifth / Madison 2 and 2A Routes, 1966-1969 |
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Posted by W.B. on Thu Jun 22 02:21:45 2017 I'd posed this question on one of the almanac threads, but decided to place it on its own thread.This is related to the two Route 2's in place at the point of the Jan. 14, 1966 one-way conversions of Fifth Avenue to southbound and Madison Avenue to northbound - the ex-NYCO Madison and Lenox Avenues route, and the ex-FACCo Fifth and Seventh Avenues line, both of which opposite-direction paths were redirected to the respective other avenues, and on to 1969 when one of those routes was shifted to two other one-way avenues and totally renumbered. Wikipedia claims, in their "Fifth and Madison Avenues Line" entry, that the two were "combined" into a hybrid pair with two "branches" not unlike ex-FACCo Rt. 3's (today's M3) Convent Avenue and St. Nicholas Avenue branches. This supposition was based upon a passage in The New York Times' Jan. 17, 1966 article relating to Traffic Commissioner Henry Barnes' suggesting the start of express bus service along both Fifth and Madison. They went first into a capsuled description of several lines on both avenues (for this, just one - "No. 2 - Up University Place or Fourth Avenue, Park Avenue South to 25th, then on Madison. Down unchanged." - which describes the ex-FACCo, heretofore Fifth/Seventh route which until 1974 would be designated 2A [reverted to M2 in 1974], something that wasn't even mentioned in this article). Then there's the detailed description of the changes, which sound like the writer (the fancily-monikered Farnsworth Fowle) didn't know what he was talking about, or something: "ROUTE NO. 2 "The designation is changed from '168th Street-Edgecombe Avenue-Washington Square' to 'Fifth and Madison Avenues via Seventh and Lenox Avenues.' Southbound the only change will be that the buses will join Lenox Avenue at 147th Street and turn east on 116th Street to Fifth Avenue for the straight run south. The buses will turn east on Eighth Street for a final stop just east of Fifth Avenue, then continue east to Astor Place for the turnaround. "Northbound, they will form up at East Ninth Street and Fourth Avenue, go west on Ninth, north on University Place, east on 14th Street, then north on Union Square East and Park Avenue South to 25th Street. There they will turn west to Madison Avenue, then north on Madison to 110th Street. The main route then goes west to Seventh Avenue and north to the West 115th [sic - should be 155th] Street viaduct, joining Edgecombe Avenue to continue north to 167th Street and the turnaround at 168th and Broadway. "Some No. 2 buses will continue north on Madison to 116th Street, then west to Lenox Avenue and north on the avenue to 147th Street. Others will start north on Fourth Avenue from Ninth Street and rejoin the main route at Union Square East." This whole description raises more questions than it answers. In the three-year span up to 1969, if that whole passage from that Times article seems to imply, did both 2's have their northern terminus at 168th and Broadway, with the 'via Lenox' NYCO-derived 2 turning in its northbound path at Lenox and 147th (which is one-way westbound) onto Seventh Avenue on its way to 168th and Broadway, and then southbound turning from Seventh to 146th Street (one-way eastbound) onto Lenox, etc., etc.? Or was its northern terminus always at 147th and Lenox? Did they have a different northbound path from its southbound trek? That's to say nothing about what was which 2's path between 9th and 14th Streets. I presume the only way we'll know at this point is if photos taken in that 1966-69 period along the northbound route of both 2's, with pertinent front roll signs, turn up (was there, for example, any '2 TO 168 ST-BWAY VIA LENOX' or '2A TO 168 ST-BWAY VIA 7 AV'?). What is known, is that after March 2, 1969, 'via Lenox' 2's entire route below 116th Street was moved further east to Third Avenue northbound and Lexington Avenue southbound and rebranded as M-101A (today's M102), with only 'via Seventh Avenue' 2A (now M2) still treading along Fifth and Madison. Again, I am only expostulating what was suggested by that passage in that Times article. I am aware that as far as both 2's were concerned, they were two separate routes both before and after Fifth and Madison's one-way transitions. |
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