In this April 12, 2007 file photo, a Metropolitan Transit Authority employee climbs the stairs to the street from the partly finished track of the 2nd Avenue subway prior to the ground breaking ceremony in New York. Construction first started 45 years ago, but New Yorkers’ long wait to take a subway under Manhattan’s far Upper East Side ends at noon Sunday, Jan. 1, 2017, when a stretch of the new Second Avenue line is set to open to the public.