Harold Herman, center, holds a copy of "The Subway and the City," which he won as a door prize while attending a lecture given by authors John Henderson, left, and Stan Fischler, right. Strange words were being uttered in the library's auditorium on March 23 at 1:30 p.m., but somehow these seldom-used words evoked murmurs of recognition from the capacity audience."IND" "Sea Beach," "BMT," "West End," "IRT" and "Culver" may be meaningless words to today's youth, but a whole generation of suburbanites who grew up in the city immediately recognized these terms as the names of various subway and elevated lines of the New York City transit system. The current practice of assigning members instead of names to the different routes caused the city to lose some of its valuable history.

This was one of the fascinating tidbits of information offered by Stan Fischler and John Henderson, subway historians and authors of scores of books describing the growth of the New York City subway system. Comparisons were made with subway systems throughout the world. The accompanying slide show also served as reminders of the past. Fascinating anecdotes were included in the lecture, including a vivid description of the November 1918 Malbone Street subway disaster in which 97 riders were killed and scores injured. So devastating were the psychological effects of the tragedy that the name of Malbone Street was changed to Empire Boulevard.

Harold Herman was the lucky winner of the door prize, a copy of the authors' latest book "The Subway and the City."

Funding for this program was provided by The Friends of the Library.