100 Years After New York’s Deadliest Subway Crash

Now, this was a great story, thank you. Some terrific comments. As an aside, I noticed in the photo of the car interior, an ad for Horlick's Malted Milk. That was a brand out of Racine, Wisc. The Horlick brothers (James and William) were immigrants from Britain and they developed their malted milk formula as easy nourishment for infants and invalids. A random connection considering the infant mortality angle of this story. The two men became wealthy and James even sponsored an early NFL team in Racine. Today the Horlick's brand continues to be sold in the UK and many of its former outposts. If you go to Tea & Sympathy on Greenwich Ave., you can buy some!

Wow, Born and raised in Brooklyn (‘55-‘78) and never heard of this tragic accident. Very interesting but sad story.

Reminds me so very much of the Trump administration.

Now as then, the interference of elected officials is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

I rode the D line from Chelsea to Coney Island last week, as I did in the '40s from Yonkers via the 3rd Ave EL on my birthday every year. New Yorkers have my sympathy. While the stations are clean, and trains are frequent, the speeds of travel are absurdly low. My GPS speedometer read 40mph, briefly, once. The journey took an hour...maybe 10mph average. Here in Portland our light rail trains routinely cruise at 55mph, and even faster in Dallas and SLC and LA. As an aviation safety expert, I can see no rationale for the extreme restrictions on train speed. The operator only identified work crews as a reason, so maybe New Yorkers have never experienced normal train speeds. Do you have safety engineers, who estimate the probabilitess of harm as a function of speed...or just timid politicians demanding "go-slow" as a means of safety? Speed it up and maintain equal safety for passengers! This is easily possible.

My late father-in-law, Nathan Brodkin, was chief engineer of New York's subway system from 1958 to 1967. While recently visiting NYC I was horrified to see how the subways have deteriorated. Overcrowding, cancelled weekend trains, the upcoming cancellation of the only train going to Williamsburg, Mr. Brodkin must be turning over in his grave to see how bad the subways have become since he was in charge. There is lots of money in this city. Why is it not going to rapid transit?

My first trip to the New York Transit Museum, I heard this story while sitting in one of cars similar to the wooden one in this story. Can’t recommend going there more. Favorite museum in NYC.

I think it is incredibly significant that Mr. Lewis had "been recruited as a scab motorman during a strike by locomotive engineers protesting the B.R.T.’s failure to follow the War Labor Board’s order to rehire 29 employees fired for their union activities." This is yet another point in favor of unions.

Having grown up in Sunnyside, riding the subways because my parents didn't drive, I spent many years riding the subways to high school, college, etc. I've read about this accident a few times, but it still amazes me to read about the lead up to, and the aftermath of the accident. As many others have noted in the comments, NYT please give us more like this.

Fascinating article. As something of a train buff, I'd read about this crash before, but did not know all of the details about the man operating the train that fateful evening. It's kind of amazing that he survived at all. It's also kind of amazing that he wasn't subjected to any sort of vigilante justice as a result of the accident; perhaps changing his name to hide his Italian identity worked? Even the comments today about him are pretty forgiving. I wonder how many people who live or work around Empire Blvd today even know that it was once named Malbone Street, and why it no longer is. Perhaps some will learn about it today. Thanks for an excellent piece!

A wonderful article. Exactly the type of well-written, informational article about something completely unknown to me that I seek out in this paper. I do have one question though. A sentence reads, "That Tuesday, Mr. Luciano had buried the second of his three daughters who had died from the pandemic." Is this sentence saying that he had three daughters who died in the pandemic and he had buried the second one that Tuesday? Or is it saying that he had three daughters, and the second one died in the pandemic, and he had buried her that Tuesday? If that's the case, then maybe add a comma after daughters? Would that make it more clear? I've confused myself!

Excellent article. I was born and raised on Empire Blvd. An avid map collecter, I spent years looking for an antique map with my old street on it. Strangely, I discovered that pre WW I maps would not have an Empire Blvd. Malbone St. was in its' stead. I read as much as I possibly could about the incident. Not only did it lead to significant changes in train safety as well as reorganization of the subway system, it was instrumental in improving emergency medical response as well as the public hospital system. For years I have felt that the Malbone St Incident would make a great plot for a movie. There is a lot to learn yet from this tragedy.

Decades ago, the MTA tried to eliminate the Franklin Avenue shuttle but public outcry helped save the route. Also, the Brighton one is no longer served by the D line, having rerouted it to the West End Line during massive budget cuts a while back and replacing it with the weekdays-only B line.

Excellent article. All the articles I had read stated Mr Luciano disappeared after the trial. It sounds like he was eventually able to get on with life after multiple tragedies. I had not heard of what had personally preceded the wreck, only the use of an unprepared motorman. I have to also wonder about how he might be treated. People of Italian descent, 100 years ago, were treated as the unwanted immigrants of the day.

great article; great comments; thanks NYT

Wonreful piece about a tragic day in NYC transit! IRT, IND, and BMT! How many folks under fifty know those terms?!

Interesting article. It differs in quite a bit from the very detailed account of the crash in "Uptown Downtown" by Stan Fischler (Hawthorn Books, NY, 1976). The train had a complicated pneumatic braking system, and Lewis was completely incompetent to operate it. He overran the switch that should have turned the train toward Brighton Beach because he couldn't work the brakes in time. Fortunately switchman saw the train approaching too fast for the turn and didn't throw the switch. Lewis finally stopped and backed up, losing time and making him more desperate to catch up to the schedule and keep his job. He needed funeral expenses for his daughter. He raced past the Consumers Park station because he was on a downgrade and couldn't work the brakes correctly. Then into the 6-MPH S-curve at over 30 MPH. Estimates of 100 dead, 400 injured are imprecise because ambulances were overwhelmed, and people passing in private cars took some of the injured, as they staggered or were carried out of the tunnel mouth, to any hospital they knew. I think the S-curve is still in service, where the Franklin Avenue shuttle approaches the Prospect Park station. I rode in the first car a year ago today as a sort of commemoration. The train took the curve very slowly.

An excellent article on a subject that was totally unknown to me. What a tragedy. It was totally avoidable and it us a shame those responsible were never convicted. One bit of irony: check out the picture of the largely destroyed car in what appears to be a rail yard. It has a sign which reads “out of service”. I would have thought that was obvious.

Wonderfully written piece about a sad story. Nice job of tying the many elements that came together to create this tragedy. I had no idea about the motorman's life post-accident -- some nice research there. I've read several accounts over the years, and this is perhaps the best. Thank you.

The NYC subway is like the Timex of transit systems - it is not the fanciest, but it takes a licking and keeps on ticking - 24/7. I hope that they upgrade the signal system to improve on time performance and maybe do something about all those rats... Anyway great article. The poor people killed - that could have been any of us. And Billy Lewis, the engineer who found himself in waaaay over his head at the wrong place at the wrong time with forces way beyond his control working against him.

This was a terrible tragedy at a time when people were dying from the Pandemic Influenza breakout. For the Motorman to have buried his children just the day before shows how desperate people were to save their Jobs at any cast. A very well researched and reported article. I would hope that in this day and age that if there was another Pandemic (which could happen) that all Trains and Buses would stop running and people would stay home and get well.

For such a short piece it was a very good story. I appreciated their period lives being revealed, however limited.

Hello! Never knew about this subway tragedy that occurred a century ago. We all learn and adjust from mishaps and loss. I really like this article because it shows how New York was back then and get to appreciate what we have now. We still have a lot of room for improvements but we are getting there!

To think he was alive until 1985. Wow to hear his side of the story would have been a coup!

Please do more stories about old New York, or major events in the city's history. So much more satisfying than constantly reading about Trump. Great writing. Fascinating that his daughter never knew.

Having read a great deal about the Malbine Street crash, I was impressed by its accuracy and details. But there was one glaring mistake: the D train currently runs on the West End line in Brooklyn; it’s the B train that currently provides express service on the Brighton line while the Q runs as a local.

This is real journalism right here. We need more of this.

I love NYC and I love the subway. And I was in NYC and used the subway within the last month. It's weak. The Paris Metro is great and the subway in Washington DC is nice. The New York Subway needs help. Such a great city with such a bad system. It's not clean, not bright, not up to par with the City. (Somehow I only used the oder lines, not the new ones.) I think Joe Biden was right, if not particularly politic, to say that LaGuardian was like a 3rd World Country. I flew into LaGuardian and have seen the progress. The Subway should be next.