the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad (or with the
Central Railroad of New Jersey, which was the New York connection of the
Reading) by a tunnel from the foot of Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, under
the Battery and New York City, and directly across the North River to
the terminal of the Central Railroad of New Jersey. Surveys, borings,
and thorough investigations were made, and the Metropolitan Underground
Railroad Company was incorporated in the State of New York to construct
this railroad. Mr. Corbin, however, was aware that, in the
transportation problem he had in hand, the Central Railroad of New
Jersey and the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad were not as important
factors as the Pennsylvania Railroad, and, in consequence, he abandoned
the scheme for a tunnel to the Central Railroad of New Jersey for a line
direct to the Pennsylvania Railroad terminal in Jersey City.

Meantime, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, as a result of its
investigation of the matter, in June, 1891, thought that the most
feasible project seemed to be to build tunnels for rapid transit
passenger service from its Jersey City Station to the lower part of New
York, connecting there with the rapid transit systems of that city, and
also extending under New York on the line of Cortlandt Street, with
stations and passenger lifts at the main streets and elevated railroads.

The late A. J. Cassatt, then a Director of the Pennsylvania Railroad
Company, and previous thereto as General Manager and Vice-President (and
later as President) of that company, was deeply interested in obtaining
an entrance into New York City, but was not satisfied with the proposed
rapid transit passenger tunnels which required the termination of the
Pennsylvania Railroad trains at its Jersey City Station. Therefore, upon
his request, in September of the same year, another study and report was
made by Joseph T. Richards, M. Am. Soc. C. E., then Engineer of
Maintenance of Way of the Pennsylvania Railroad, on a route beginning in
New York City at 38th Street and Park Avenue on the high ground of
Murray Hill, thence crossing the East River on a bridge, and passing
around Brooklyn to Bay Ridge, thence under the Lower Bay or Narrows to
Staten Island and across to the mainland, reaching the New York Division
of the Pennsylvania Railroad at some point between Rahway and Metuchen.
Mr. Cassatt also had in mind at that time a connection with the New
England Railroad, then independent, but