On this day in New York · November 1, 1918
The Malbone Street Wreck
A dispatcher with under three hours of training took a Brooklyn subway curve at five times its speed limit, and the wooden cars behind him came apart.
The facts
- Date and time
- November 1, 1918, around 6:42 p.m., during evening rush hour
- Location
- The reverse curve tunnel under Malbone Street at Willink Plaza, Flatbush, Brooklyn, now Empire Boulevard
- The motorman
- Antonio Edward Luciano, a 25-year-old BRT dispatcher with under three hours of training, filling in during a motormen's strike
- Speed vs. limit
- The train ran 30 to 40 mph through a curve posted for 6 mph
On the evening of November 1, 1918, a Brooklyn Rapid Transit train packed with rush-hour riders hit the sharp reverse curve beneath Malbone Street in Flatbush, near Prospect Park, at 30 to 40 miles an hour, a curve rated for 6. The wooden cars shattered against the tunnel wall. At the controls was Antonio Edward Luciano, a 25-year-old crew dispatcher pressed into service as a motorman during a strike, with less than three hours of classroom instruction and no certification. At least 93 people died and roughly 250 were hurt, the worst death toll in New York subway history. The company that ran the line, BRT, was bankrupt within weeks, and the city renamed the street itself a month later so the disaster wouldn't keep a permanent address.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
-
I lost control of the damn thing. That's all.
Antonio Edward Luciano, the train's motorman, to survivor and lawyer Charles Darling after the crash
Source: Wikipedia -
a darkened jungle of steel dust and wood splinters, glass shards and iron beams projecting like bayonets
The New York Times, describing the wreckage
Source: Wikipedia
Why it still matters
A labor dispute that put an untrained dispatcher in a motorman's seat killed dozens of New Yorkers and forced real safety and training standards onto the young subway system, a reminder that who's actually running the train matters more than the schedule.
Sources
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