Site of the Malbone Street Wreck in Brooklyn, New York

The Malbone Street wreck was the worst catastrophe in the history of the New York City subway system and the worst train crash in New York State. Almost 100 people died—an exact number was never determined—and around 250 riders injured, roughly half of the passengers. Many factors contributed to the Malbone Street wreck; mechanical deficiencies, circumstantial events, human error. Despite the number of dead and the horrific way in which they died, the disaster was not formally memorialized until a century later. (In fact, the city’s Board of Alderman changed the name of Malbone Street to Empire Boulevard scarcely one month after the accident, eliminating even a verbal, nominal, geographic reminder.) In addition to the centennial memorials, it is possible to spot the location of the 1918 crash from the Franklin Avenue Shuttle and the street. Intracity rail service at the turn of the last century was so different from now that it is difficult to imagine it. Today, the quasi-public Metropolitan Transportation Authority operates steel-body trains on track engineered with numerous safety systems. On Friday, November 1, 1918, the privately-owned Brooklyn Rapid Transit (BRT) ran 30-year-…

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