Much has been and will be made be made about tomorrow's centenary of New York's other great disaster, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. But if you prefer your anniversaries to be a little less filled with burning women and labor unrest, perhaps you'll be interested to know that today is the 111th anniversary of the ground breaking for New York's first subway line, once known as Tunnel Day. Really!

And what a day it was! Here's the just start of the original Times write-up the event (you can read the whole thing here):

When Mayor Van Wyck, silver spade in hand, lifted the first shovel of dirt from a small excavation in the flagging in front of the City Hall yesterday, the rapid transit tunnel was officially begun. Around New York's Chief Magistrate were grouped the men whose persevering work of years had at last made rapid transit a certainty in New York, city officials who have aided them more-or-less in their efforts, financiers who came to the rescue when their aid was most needed, citizens whose names are a power in the professional and commercial world. and beyond all these, banked in almost solid phalanx from the sidewalks of Broadway across the park to the tall buildings in Park Row, were thousands of citizens of all degrees of life, who fought and struggled for position to witness one of the most important events in the history of the city.
Higher up, at the windows and on the roofs of the surrounding skyscrapers. were more people, while at the windows of the old City Hall. that has witnessed many stirring events in its time, were groups of men and women all intent upon seeing the high priests of rapid transit give official sanction to a great work well begun, officially, but not actually. for the first real Bleecker Street to-morrow morning.

Over the mass of people flags in confusion of color fluttered smartly in the March wind. Above all the sun looked down from a serene sky on a Spring day that could not have been bettered, considering the season, and incidentally put to blush the weather forecaster, who had confidently announced all sorts of bad weather.

Tunnel day, for as such it will be known. was a great day for every one concerned, even to the Celebration Committee and the police, over whom the crowd prevailed and became an unruly mob when it should have been orderly and respectful.

Tunnel day was a greater day to the people, for it marked a beginning of a system of tunnels in future years and for future generations which will have wide extensions not only in Manhattan but eventually will go down under the waters of the East and North Rivers, and whose ramifications will find lodgment in Brooklyn and Jersey City, and possibly even Staten Island before this town is a very great many years older. Tunnel transit. moreover, means that Harlem, One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, will be reached in thirteen minutes, says Chief Engineer Parsons, who has worked it out to a mathematical certainty. and points beyond with proportionate celerity. Therefore the people rejoiced, for they have been promised great things.

What we find most amazing about Tunnel Day is that just four years later, amongst much public interest, the IRT was opened to the public (to that end, Forgotten NY has a fun tour of the original 28 stations). If only the Second Avenue subway could be so lucky.

So how to celebrate Tunnel Day? With a subway-themed greeting card and a trip on the 6, natch.