 He opposed the massive subway expansions proposed in 1929 and 1939.However, the last large expansion of the subway system, combined with the merger of privately owned Interborough Rapid Transit and Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit subway companies with the city-owned Independent Subway System under city ownership, made the subway largely what it is today.New York, long a great American city with many immigrants, became a culturally international city with the brain drain of intellectual, musical, and artistic European refugees that started in the late 1930s.