The Suicide Curve

In a picture from 1900, the elevated train follows an S curve, from heading north-south on Ninth (Columbus) Avenue at 110th Street, east to heading north-south Eighth Avenue (Central Park West / Frederick Douglass Boulevard). Given that the area was barely built up at the time, and some of the streets weren’t even opened yet, that curve seems odd. Its nickname, the Suicide Curve, was neither a comment on railroad safety nor an exaggeration: the S curve was the highest point, relative to grade, in the elevated system, and was used by a number of people as a way to jump to their deaths.

The Ninth Avenue elevated opened in 1870, starting from the financial district downtown and originally going as far north as Chelsea. It was gradually extended north, and new els built over Sixth, Third, and Second Avenues. The Sixth and Ninth Avenue els shared tracks north of 59th Street: Sixth Avenue is blocked by Central Park, so the Sixth Avenue line headed west and joined the Ninth Avenue line. Ninth Avenue is a block west of the park, and for a long time the el was the best way to get to the somewhat isolated Upper West Side.

The Third Avenue el is in red, the Second Avenue el is in black next to it. The Harlem River Railroad is dashed in at Fourth Avenue next to it as well, on its way south to Grand Central. The Ninth Avenue el and its S curve are up at the top. (The heavy black line is a crease or seam in the map, not part of the information.) In this line map, the curve looks rather odd. It could be argued that the curve moved the line closer to the east-west center of the island in Harlem, north of the park, but given how little populated the whole area was in 1881, when this map was made, that feels like a stretch. My standard go-to when trying to understand the physical history of Manhattan, the Viele Map, gives a more likely answer:

Most of the Upper West Side is on an elevated plateau, which ends to the north at a valley near 125th Street. Another elevated plateau starts to the north of that valley and continues up to the end of the island. The land to the east is lower and more level, which is why in pre-1900 descriptions you will sometimes find the names Harlem Heights and Harlem Flats. The east edge of the plateau, not quite a cliff but rather steep, happens to coincide with the line of Ninth Avenue that was laid out to the south. The stretch of Ninth Avenue between 109th and 115th Streets in particular would have required a great deal of grading to be in any way feasible to build. The city eventually abandoned the idea of opening the street on that line, substituting the curving Morningside Drive up at the top of the bluff and the curving Morningside Avenue at its bottom. Since Ninth Avenue wasn’t opened when the el was built, it wasn’t a feasible route for the train; the flat land of Eighth Avenue was probably very attractive.

The reason the S curve was the highest point in the system is that the tracks had to gradually slope down to the lower Eighth Avenue elevation from the plateau. Even today, with the el long gone and the streets regraded, 110th Street has a noticeable slope down from Amsterdam (Tenth) Avenue to Central Park West.