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Posted by
W.B.
on Tue Sep 10 02:36:22 2019
September 10, 1956 - The Book of First Runs
Manhattan, New York
Surface Transportation Corporation of New York
Fifth Avenue Coach Lines, Inc.
On this date, new fleets of buses take to the streets for two of the private bus companies.
For Surface Transportation (whose merger with Third Avenue Transit Corporation into Surface Transit, Inc. will occur officially within three months), 29 new buses built by Mack Trucks enter service in Manhattan and the Bronx. The buses, model C-49-DT, are numbered 2962-2989 plus a former demonstration bus numbered 800. In 1963 MaBSTOA will renumber 800 as 4910 and 2962-2989 as 4962-4989. Together with one previous and one subsequent order to Mack (for 1954 buses 2990-2999 [later 4990-4999] and 1958 buses 3000-3009 [later 4900-4909]), these will remain a fixture on Manhattan and Bronx streets through 1967.
For Fifth Avenue Coach Lines, a two-week series of tests starts on another experimental air-conditioned bus, a 40-foot long, 96-inch wide GMC model TDH-5106 numbered 3100 (serial #0919). Unlike fellow experimental air-conditioned bus 3200, this will remain on the city streets for a much longer period of time. 3100 was also the first bus built with a push-type rear exit door, wrap-around rear seating and fluorescent lighting. The bus was an immediate hit with the public, and this initial two-week test (which saw it running on several routes) was followed by later ones; but as this stand-alone bus entered regular service, constant problems with the air-conditioning system led to the rear-mounted cooler and its cover being removed by MaBSTOA after its 1962 takeover. It remained in regular service, increasingly in the Bronx, through the early 1970's, then spent a few years in service to the Transit Police. 3100 would later be restored (with a mockup of the rear-mounted air-conditioning unit atop the back of the bus) and is today part of the Transit Museum collection.
(Sources: "New Buses to Run Here," The New York Times, September 11, 1956; "Public Hails New Bus," The New York Times, September 28, 1956.)
September 10, 1967 - The Book of Route Extensions
The Bronx, New York
Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority
(Surface Transit Division)
Route Bx-5 - Bruckner Boulevard is extended to the area around Jacobi Hospital at Pelham Parkway and Seymour Avenue.
(Source: "Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority: The First Ten Years" by Bernard Linder. Motor Coach Age, May 1972.)
September 10, 1989 - The Book of Last Runs and Route Service Changes
Manhattan, New York
New York City Transit Authority
Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority
In one of the most sweeping changes of bus service in Manhattan, several routes, most in the area around 57th and 59th Streets, are altered thus:
- M5 - Fifth Avenue/Riverside Drive: Transition points relocated from 57th Street to 59th Street
- M28 - 57th Street Crosstown: Merged with M103 - 59th Street Crosstown (which, in this form, is discontinued) into M57; with this change, its western terminus is shifted from 54th Street and 12th Avenue to 73rd Street and Broadway, traveling along 11th and West End Avenues between 57th and 72nd Streets.
- Another crosstown route along 57th Street, designated M58, is also launched; it terminates at Columbus Circle to the west, and 72nd Street and York Avenue to the east. (This route will be merged with, and absorbed into, the M31 - York Avenue line in January 1994.)
- M30 - 72nd Street Crosstown: Western terminus cut back from 72nd Street and Central Park West to Columbus Circle; at this point operating in rush hours only
- Meanwhile, another 72nd Street crosstown route, designated M72, begins service; it travels directly through Central Park via the 65th Street Transverse, and terminates west at Freedom Place.
- M18 - 86th Street Crosstown: Renumbered as M86.
(Source: "Introducing the M57, M58 and M72 Routes: Announcing Improved Manhattan Crosstown Bus Service - Starting Sunday, September 10, 1989." New York City Transit Authority, 1989.)
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