the southwestern corner of Madison Avenue and 42nd Street was also authorized. In Fiscal Year 1915, the eastern mezzanine was extended to connect with a building at the northeastern corner of 42nd Street and Vanderbilt Avenue. In March 1916, the Public Service Commission authorized the IRT to build a new mezzanine passage at the station to reduce platform crowding for $6,000. As part of the project, a passageway would be constructed connecting the existing mezzanine immediately to the west of Vanderbilt Avenue on the north side of 42nd Street over the express tracks with the southbound platform with a new stairway approximately to the west of the existing eastern stairway. The Lexington Avenue Line station opened on July 17, 1918, with service initially running between this station and 167th Street via the line's local tracks. Service on the express tracks began two weeks later, on August 1, when the "H system" was put into place, with through service beginning on the new east and west side trunk lines, and the institution of the 42nd Street Shuttle along the old connection between the sides. The shuttle station was not ready in time, and therefore wooden flooring was temporarily laid over sections of the trackways at Times Square and Grand Central. The shuttle was heavily used, and the crowding conditions were so bad that the shuttle was ordered closed the next day. The shuttle reopened September 28, 1918. Track 2 at the Grand Central station was covered over by a wooden platform. A New York Times columnist later said that former southbound express track 2 was still usable for the first few hours of the shuttle's operation, but the wooden platform was placed over that track later the same day to allow shuttles to use former northbound express track 3, due to high demand for the shuttles on the former local tracks, numbered 1 and 4. The cost of the extension from Grand Central was $58 million. The construction and opening of the Lexington Avenue Line north of Grand Central resulted in the construction of expensive apartments along Park Avenue, Madison Avenue, and Lexington Avenue. Canceled Hudson & Manhattan Railroad platform The H&M's Uptown Hudson Tubes had opened in 1908, stretching from New Jersey to 33rd Street and Sixth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. Not long after the Uptown Hudson Tubes opened, there were proposals to extend the line to Grand Central. The