Following my essays, you know my dad patrolled New York subways from 1931 to 1965. I was a Transit cop from 1966 to 1992.

In researching those olden, but not-so-golden days, I found articles in various newspaper and other sources.. Maybe these news items and photos can help all Americans—and those around the globe—better understand the evolution of NYC subway patrol.

My dad originally worked for Brooklyn Rapid Transit, a private rail company formed in 1896. BRT operated freight and passenger trains in Brooklyn and Queens. In 1919, BRT became insolvent and was restructured as the Brooklyn Manhattan Transit Company, or BMT.

When my dad started as a trainman in 1922, he was paid fifty cents an hour. The pay was for the actual hours on a train—not for the time he was present and ready. In 1931, he took a better job as a Special Patrolman for the BMT. He was paid thirty-four dollars for a sixty-hour week, but he was paid for all his hours on the job.

In my dad’s employee pay record below, I saw that the DOB he used made him old enough to be hired and not the teen that he still was. He needed the job to support his widowed mom.

The story of the NYC subway started as an open-air carriage on rails.

The private subway guards were a far cry from the police officers who patrol the subways today. Their pay was meager, they had no benefits, and their duties were “flexible.” They were not conductors, but they worked the train doors, calling out station announcements at each stop. On stations, they pushed people onto the crowded trains, much like the Japanese subway agents in later years:

1909 ode to a Subway Guard:

1909, The NY Sun:

Here is a 1910 Subway Guard shoving trial; this newspaper article of the times revealed an acquiescence by the court and the newspaper writer to fight the guards:

1917 Women Subway Guards?

1917 Women Subway Guards:

1917, a Female Subway Guard and other officials inspect a train issue

May 3, 1924, No more mustaches:

1930, Feb 9th, NYTimes:

In the 1930s pervs were as plentiful as today:

1933: Subway Guard off post?

Early 1900s train passes an unidentified station.

Early subway surfing:

1935 Subway Guards accused of assaulting passenger:

1935 assault continued:

1935 Bill introduced to curb rough handling:

1935 Yale grad takes Subway Guard job:

1938, My dad, Patrolman LeRoy Winters re: Malicious Mischief arrests:

1939 Fare Five cents:

1940 Subway Guard assaulted. Again, no big thing says article which ecourages such practices.

An idyllic portrait of riding the el:

1943, first talk of a transit police merge with city police. It did finally happen, half a century later.

The war years, Canal St. NYC:

1945 War Corps NYC subway patrol:

1954, an excerpt from my dad’s personal police memo book:

Electronics on patrol in 1960s CCTV:

1965 Power failure on tracks:

1960s Transit Police one-man train patrol:

1970 A peril of one-man patrol: This link is only one of the many Transit Police Officers killed in one-man patrols.

A 2018 memorial service for P.O. Michael Mellchiona:

NYC subways 1980s

Transit Police firearms range. Revolvers were later replaced with 9 mm pistols:

The Transit Police force expands, 10-26-65 NY Times, Mayor Wagner ordered an officer to be on every train and station between the hours of 8:00 pm to 4:am:

The riding public was glad to see a cop on every train and station.

July 7, 1973, NY Times: Head of Transit Police Union Asks 2‐Man Subway Patrols

The head of the Transit Authority Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association called upon the city yesterday to establish two‐man patrols on the subway in the aftermath of the fatal shooting Tuesday of a transit plain clothes patrolman.

John T. Maye, president of the 3,200‐man transit police union, urged the immediate addition of 1,800 officers and extended overtime provisions to make possible the strengthening of subway patrols.

Mr. Maye spoke at a news conference at the Royal Manhattan Hotel arranged after the killing of the transit patrolman Tuesday afternoon on the platform of a Bronx elevated station.

A suspect, Victor Cumberbatch, 21 years old, an alleged member of the underground Black Liberation Army, has been charged with murder in the shooting of the patrolman, Sidney Thompson. The killing took place when the patrolman apparently attempted to question two men on the southbound elevated platform of the station at 174th Street.

The police sought one or more other men in connection with the shooting. Mr. Cumberbatch, who was wounded, is in Bronx Lebanon Hospital under heavy guard. He had been under Investigation in connection sought by the Federal Bureau with the holdup of a First National City Bank branch at 505 Southern Boulevard, the Bronx, last Feb. 9.

Mr. Maye, at the news conference, warned that a “critical situation was in prospect for the summer.”

Mr. Maye said that members of street gangs were roaming the subways day and night, particularly in the South Bronx and upper central Manhattan.

Twenty‐two youths, believed to be members of the Black Spades, a South Bronx street gang, were arrested at 1 A.M. on May 26 in the 241st Street IRT subway station. After the incident, Mr. Maye said, telephone calls were received by the transit police in which the callers said they were members of the gang and “they were going to kill a transit cop a day this summer.”

After midnight on May 29 at the Rockaway Parkway station on the IND line, Mr. Maye said, “Two militants stuck a shotgun in the face of Transit Patrolman John Visco—the gun did not fire, but they struck him over the head and face with a bludgeon and the gun butt, injuring him seriously.”

On Monday, two youths walked up to another transit policeman, Louis Panteleone, in an IRT train at the 233d Street station on the White Plains Road line and shot him in the shoulder. The assailants escaped.

“These attacks on the police and the types of weapons that are being used are just one aspect of the armed rebellion facing the police,” Mr. Maye said. “This will be a hot summer as far as the police are concerned.

“If these militants are bold enough to threaten an armed police officer with a shotgun, what do you think they are going to do to an ordinary citizen?”

The Transit Police K-9 Unit, initiated by P.O. Henry Melchiona, brother of killed Transit Police officer Mike Melchiona, brought new partners aboard:

1991, the notorious Devil on the D train:

The NYC Transit Police Robbery Squad knew who they wanted; they just couldn’t find him:

Finally, through the work of the Transit Police Warrant Squad, of which I was a proud member, the devil was found in GA, arrested, and brought back to NYC on Oct 10, 1991.

In 1995, NYC Transit Police ceased to exist. However it was one of only two departments in New York State to be fully accredited police departments when they merged with NYPD, which had not earned that accreditation.

The NYC Transit Police was not only a professional, accredited police department but a Brotherhood of dedicated officers. They are proud to still carry the title “Transit.”

2015 K-9 partners are ubiquitous:

2024, the NYPD Transit Bureau two-man patrol arrives. Finally, and may they be safe protecting all those who ride the rails.

Be well,

Lee,

shedding a little light where the sun don’t shine.

Please see my sunny side photo essays, Leebythesea