docks in Manhattan, from there it would go east along 42nd Street to Grand Central and carry straight on under the East River. In Long Island City, the tunnel portals were to be between 5th Street (now 49th Avenue) and 4th Street (now 50th Avenue). It would go under Jackson Avenue and finally Thomson Avenue, intersecting LIRR tracks at Hunterspoint Avenue. The total cost of the tunnel was to be US$11.7 million. The estimated total cost exceeded the financial capabilities of the company by far. In July 1891, piano maker William Steinway, a major landowner in Astoria, Queens, started to fund the tunnel. He became a major shareholder and became the new chairman of the company, so the tunnel was named after him. Steinway advised the company to utilize electricity to power the tunnel, believing that the construction of the tunnel would increase real-estate values within the vicinity. The route was finalized in the City of New York in 1890 and in Long Island City by 1891. Construction was started on June 7, 1892, as a NY&LIRR project, and the bottom of the tunnel shaft was reached in December of the same year. However, soon after the start of construction, there were many complications. The project was difficult due to complex geological formations beneath the river, and there were frequent blowouts and floods. Construction was curtailed following an accident on December 28, 1892, during an attempt to heat frozen dynamite from an shaft at the corner of Vernon Boulevard, Jackson Avenue and 50th Avenue. An uncontrolled explosion killed five and injured fifty, and heavily damaged numerous surrounding houses. Due to high compensation claims, the company was financially ruined, and attempts to raise additional funds failed because of the stock market crash of 1893. Work was stopped as a result, and it was boarded up. Investors refused to fund the tunnel because they feared that it was unsafe. Attempts to resume construction were occasionally made until Steinway died in 1896. The Belmont era In 1900, the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), headed by August Belmont Jr., was awarded the contract for construction and operation of the city's subway line and a few years later the IRT engineered a takeover of Manhattan's elevated railways, thus gaining a monopoly on the city's rapid transit services. In February 1902, the IRT bought the New York & Long Island Railroad and tram operators New York