Imagine New York City in the early 1970s: nearly broke, with a new subway tunnel stalled for years underground and new residents on a narrow East River island lacking a good way to reach Manhattan. So, the state decided to build a ski-lift-style cable car over the river. An assessment was commissioned in 1979 by the U.S. Urban Mass Transportation Administration to evaluate the Roosevelt Island Tramway, as one of the first urban transit systems in the country built on aerial cableway technology, drawing on site visits, interviews, and several years of early operating records. Now, in 2026, the "temporary" tram turns 50, and it is still running.
A subway that took forever to arrive
Roosevelt Island was not always the quiet, apartment-lined area it is today. For much of the twentieth century, it was known as Welfare Island and was largely made up of hospitals and asylums. It was in the late 1960s that New York State began planning to develop the island into a new town with mixed incomes right in the middle of the East River. That plan needed a dependable way to move people into Manhattan.
The obvious solution was the 63rd Street subway line that had already begun construction way back in 1969. However, its completion took decades due to the financial crisis in the mid-1970s. The upper section of the tunnel opened only in October 1989, two decades after its construction started. In the meantime, the first inhabitants of the island already settled there in mid-1975 without any subway lines and only a roundabout bus route through Queens to reach the city.
