It's crazy how these guys did this with little to no machinery and it lasts a hundred years. Great inventions that still amuse us nowadays!
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That first photo appears to be the Unon Square station downtown bound 4/5/6 line platform. I recognize the stairway leading to the low-ceiling mezzanine which is still there today.

I love that I can comment on how I love these photos on the Disqus I love.

let's exhume these workers and put them on the 2nd avenue line...

 You fool!  Don't encourage the zombie apocalypse!

great photos - keep scouring that archive!

I know it's not your fault Jen, but those are some of the worst captions possible.   "Church with Ionic columns at right."  Yes, I can see that.  What church is it though?  Not St Paul's. 

But bad-ass photos.  Great post!

 I think it's St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church.

Good call, you're probably right.

I'm 90% sure you're blaming a clerical archivist from half a century ago for not providing you with specific details soley for the purpose of slightly enhancing your pleasure of looking at amazing photos while you gorge on a bagel wtih cream cheese and giant ice coffee.

And you'd be wrong.  I don't care so much about the details but the painful obviousness of the captions. 

For example: "Subway tunnel under construction: laborers look at camera" Why add that the men are looking at the camera?  We can clearly see they are. 

It's crazy how these guys did this with little to no machinery and it lasts a hundred years... now we can barely get a road to stay pothole free for a month.

The pre-union days - when things actually got done....

why fix it once when you can have union labor fix it 10 times

I mean labor unions are an issue, but the main problem is just poor manufacturing practices now. Everything you see go into a building nowadays on a new construction project will last 20-30 years depending on the quality of maintenance.  All the manufacturing companies have been cutting costs and corners for so long.  You know those little green circulator pumps on your home boiler?  At least 25% of those things fail immediately after installation, wait a couple months and that will jump up to 40%+.

We're at the end of the life cycle for all those hundred year old water mains that keep busting and flooding parts of the city.  What people don't talk about enough is that the new shit going in won't last half as long and that it's just going to be a constant cycle of emergency maintenance... there will probably won't be a chance to get a substantial preventative maintenance plan in our lifetime

 Not all NYC street are a mess, the 100+ year old Belgian block streets are in fine shape.

Upstate, the Erie Canal was built with no power equipment of any type. 

We're all a bunch of whiny losers now.

Yeah that's exactly my point, only the old stuff with the real materials works anymore.  You install a water main now you're lucky if it will last you 20 years without a break

Elbow grease and intelligent planning.  Something that's largely absent from modern times.

That's because of child labor laws- Elbow grease was extracted from Irish and Italian, then later Chinese children (until the Exclusion Act of 1923, of course) until WWII, when non-cartliage synthesized grease was developed.

First I can't slaughter whales for their fat, then I can't have a kid crawl down my chimney, then I can't club baby seals, now I can't blow cigar smoke into people's faces when they eat.

How else am I supposed to sup on the misery of others?  Damn regulations are killing me! 

Oh, wait, latino kids.  They're probably illegal anyway, I'm sure I could extract a pint or two for old time's sake...