Street scene from Lenox Avenue & 123 Street with the 1537 Metropolitan Street Railroad Harlem Trolley car heading uptown.

The first streetcars in Manhattan – and in the world – were the horse cars of the New York and Harlem Railroad, which began operations on the Bowery on November 26, 1832.Because the service was poor and the trip long by the end of 1865, Manhattan had eleven north-south lines on most of the major avenues, and several crosstown lines, operated by twelve companies.  This number had increased to about twenty companies by 1886, with only two leases in effect at the time: the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street Railroad to the Third Avenue Railroad (1870) and the Bleecker Street and Fulton Ferry Railroad to the Twenty-third Street Railway (1876). Harlem was annexed to New York in 1873, and by 1881 three lines of the elevated had reached as far north as 129th Street, precipitating the development of new neighborhoods.

Today the 1537 is called the Metro North.