Let's also not forget how some of those older subways were built; on the backs of workers who often died, and people who couldn't find any other work or were new to the country. Construction deaths were considered to be part of the cost of doing business up until WWII.
If the city announced that they were going to re-build the line for a cost of $500 million and were going to do it by importing labour from Haiti, Philippines, etc and were anticipating approximately 100 worker deaths in the process; there would be outrage.
And even if they tried that in the late 70's it still wouldn't have flied.
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