The new line, which extends 1.8 miles under Second Avenue from 63rd Street to 96th Street, with new stations at 72nd Street, 86th Street and 96th Street, opened for revenue service on New Year’s Day. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo was aboard the inaugural train, which left the 96th Street station a few minutes after noon.

“Rest assured I’m not driving the train,” Cuomo told the passengers, in a comment that recalled an episode in 1904 with the first train to run on the city’s subway. That train was piloted by then-Mayor George McClellan. By all accounts it was a thrilling ride as Mayor McClellan, who was asked to ceremonially start the train, refused to yield control as the train hurtled along the line from City Hall to 103rd Street at breakneck speed.

One of the dignitaries on board that day in 1904 was William Barclay Parsons, the subway’s chief engineer and the founder of Parsons Brinckerhoff. More than a century later, Parsons’s great-granddaughter, Kitty Benton, was on the inaugural train of Second Avenue Subway, along with her daughters and grandsons. “My great-grandfather’s vision has been vindicated,” Benton said.

A subway along Second Avenue was first proposed in 1920, but it was not until 1972 that construction began. The project was soon abandoned, however, because of the city’s fiscal crisis, and was not resumed until the 1990s, when the MTA announced plans to build an 8.5-mile subway along Second Avenue from Hanover Square in Lower Manhattan to 125th Street in Harlem.