The Brain Train

A New York Subway Line Has Served a 14-Mile Corridor of Iconic Schools for Generations.

During my Baby Boomer adolescence, every school-day I boarded the Broadway Local No. 1 train on West 96th Street and rode it all the way up to its terminus at 242nd Street in Riverdale, the Bronx.

My destination was Manhattan College High School, or Manhattan Prep as it was better known, and I wasn’t done till I’d climbed the more than 100 outdoor steps to the center of campus, where the red-brick Prep building fringed a quarter of the small quadrangle.

At every station along the way, hordes of students got on or off that train, depending on which high school or college they attended, a string of academic institutions that were grooming a generation of highly inquisitive, often rebellious, always thrill-seeking kids, brimming with hormones and incessant chatter.

Many of these schools were academic standouts, including Columbia University, Barnard College, City College of New York (CCNY), Yeshiva University, and Manhattan College on the higher ed level, and Riverdale Country School, Horace Mann, Fieldston, and other elite schools on the secondary tier.

And this was just the northern sector of the 1 train’s route.

Beginning its 38-station journey at South Ferry on Manhattan’s tip, the stalwart local also shuttled its brainy cargo to and from such world-class learning centers as New York University, The Juilliard School, High School of Performing Arts (of “Fame” fame), Fashion Institute of Technology, and Trinity School, to name a few.

There was Power Memorial Academy on West 61Street, a serendipitously named basketball power that won 71 straight games fueled by future NBA legends Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then Lou Alcindor), Len Elmore and Chris Mullin, and named the #1 high school team of the century. (I once sat opposite Kareem on the subway and our knees almost touched.)

Looking back, I often wonder how many of those students I rode with went on to prominence in business, politics, sports, music, art, entertainment, finance, couture, and many other fields for which the energy and cultural richness of New York City proved an exceptionally fertile breeding ground.

So I did a little research, dating as far back as the route’s debut in 1904.

I was floored. Not just by the sheer number of celebrity-bound students who might have hopped on the 1 train to take them to class. (They could fill a book.)

But what they achieved.

We’re talking Presidents, Supreme Court Justices, Secretaries of State, Academy Award and Nobel Prize winners.

So, boarding The Brain Train at South Ferry, here are some of the schools (and stops) along the way, with a small sampling of the prodigies each sent out into the world and how high they soared:

New York University (Christopher St. - Sheridan Square):

Lady Gaga, Singer and Songwriter

Martin Scorsese, Oscar Winning Filmmaker

Shimon Peres, Prime Minister and President of Israel

Carl Icahn, Financier

Robert Mueller, FBI Director

Fashion Institute of Technology (28^th Street):

Calvin Klein, Fashion Designer

Michael Kors, Fashion Designer

Norma Kamali, Fashion Designer

Zac Posen, Fashion Designer

Brandon Maxwell, Fashion Designer

LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts: (Lincoln Center)

Al Pacino, Oscar Winning Actor

Jennifer Aniston, Emmy Winning Actress

Liza Minnelli, Oscar, Emmy, Grammy and Tony Winning Entertainer

Timothée Chalamet, Actor

Nicki Minaj, Rapper and Songwriter

The Julliard School (Lincoln Center):

Viola Davis, Oscar Winning Actress

Patti LuPone, Tony Winning Actress

Itzhak Perlman, World-Renowned Violinist

Renee Fleming, Metropolitan Opera Singer

YoYo Ma, World-Renowned Cellist

Trinity School: (86^th Street)

T.S. Eliot, Pulitzer Prize Winning Poet

John Kenneth Galbraith, Economist, US Ambassador to India

J. William Fulbright, US Senator

David Rockefeller, Chairman Chase Manhattan Bank

Cyrus Vance, US Secretary of State

Barnard College (116^th Street):

Margaret Mead, World-Renowned Anthropologist

Martha Stewart, Entrepreneur and Television Personality

Greta Gerwig, Filmmaker and Actress

Joan Rivers, Comedian and TV Host

Erica Jong, Author

Columbia University (116^th Street):

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States

Barack Obama, President of the United States

Madeleine Albright, US Secretary of State

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, US Supreme Court Justice

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Inc.

City College of New York (137^th Street):

Felix Frankfurter, US Supreme Court Justice

Colin Powell, US Secretary of State

Robert F. Wagner Sr., US Senator 

Bernard M. Baruch, Wall Street Financier, Adviser to Presidents

Jonas Salk, Inventor of Polio Vaccine

Yeshiva University (181^st Street)

Alan Dershowitz, Attorney

Chaim Potok, Author

Howard Dean, Governor of Vermont

Ralph Lauren, Fashion Designer

Herman Wouk, Pulitzer Prize Winning Author

George Washington High School (191^st Street):

Henry Kissinger, US Secretary of State, Nobel Lauriat

Harry Belafonte, Singer and Actor

Rod Carew, Major League Baseball Hall of Famer

Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve

Jacob Javits, US Senator

Ethical Culture Fieldston School (Riverdale):

Barbara Walters, Broadcast Journalist

A. G. Sulzberger, Chairman and Publisher, The New York Times

Sophia Coppola, Oscar Winning Filmmaker

Stephen Sondheim, Tony and Grammy Winning Composer and Lyricist

Robert Moses, Master Designer and Builder

Horace Mann School (Riverdale):

Charles Evans, Founder of Evan-Piccone and Film Producer

Jack Kerouac, Author

James Schlesinger, US Secretary of Defense

Ira Levin, Author

William Carlos Williams, Poet and Pulitzer Prize Winner

Manhattan College (Riverdale)

James Patterson, Best-Selling Author

Raymond Kelly, Commissioner, NYPD

Eileen Murray, CEO Bridgewater Associates

Stephen Squeri, Chairman & CEO American Express

Patrick Joseph Hayes, Cardinal Archbishop of New York

Riverdale Country School (Riverdale):

John F. Kennedy, Jr., Journalist, Son of President

Jeff Zucker, President of NBCUniversal

Felix Rohatyn, Investment Banker, US Ambassador to France

Chevy Chase, Actor and Comedian

Elizabeth Ashley, Tony Award Winning Actress

To put this in perspective, the 1 train’s 14-mile corridor is just a sliver of the vital education industry that spans the city’s 302 square miles.

Which itself is just a sliver of the diversity of industries of which New York is a globally recognized leader, some even named after legendary city streets: Broadway (Theatre); Wall Street (Finance); Madison Avenue (Advertising); Seventh Avenue (Fashion).

Contrary to what many are gaslighted to believe, all of it is still thriving, overflowing with vitality, creativity and bustling activity, despite pandemics, despite the influx of migrants (we handled more than 12 million of them from 1892 to 1954), despite the politically drummed-up reports of rampant crime when the overall rate has actually been dropping.

So if you’re cowed by the negative news the media are only too happy to spew, you’re missing out on a kaleidoscopic metropolis whose heartbeat is constantly pumping out a lifeblood of knowledge, culture, innovation, diversity, leadership, and acceptance to the rest of the country.

This is America at its intended best. Don’t cut yourself off from it at the bidding of doomsayers and downers who can’t stomach the success and progress of others.

Go out and embrace the incomparable wonder that is New York City.

(And take a ride on the Brain Train and enjoy some of its edifying stops along the way.)

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© 2024 Jerry McTigue

Jerry McTigue has written for major city newspapers and national magazines, is the author of seven books and a member of the American Society of Journalists & Authors (ASJA).