Deep under the New York Bay near Brooklyn, covered in mildew, seaweed and other gunk, is what thousands of commuters would consider a hidden treasure: the start of a subway tunnel linking Staten Island to the rest of New York City.

“The idea of a subway to Staten Island really goes way back,” said Stan Fischler, a subway historian. “Way, way back.”

The plan, first proposed in 1890, was approved. Maps were drawn up. Groundbreaking ceremonies were held. Construction began.

What followed were dozens of missed opportunities that could have prevented the fastest-growing borough in recent decades from becoming the most isolated.

Even today, skepticism is high that the M.T.A. will ever consider adding a Staten Island subway to its list of capital projects, especially amid the recent tug-of-war over L train repairs, in which the plan to shut the line down for 15 months was suddenly, and very questionably, scrapped.

James Oddo, the borough president, said in an email that the Staten Island subway had “no chance of happening.”

“I choose to continue focusing my attentions and energies on more realistic projects,” he added.

Building a tunnel under five miles of waterway in a crowded city is an arduous and costly endeavor, but it would offer immense relief.

About a third of the borough’s 476,000 residents take mass transit to work, most of them relying on the Staten Island Ferry for part of the trip. Of those, about 40 percent spend at least an hour commuting each way to work, a larger proportion than in any other county in the country, according to 2017 data from the United States Census Bureau.

“You would think somebody would wake up in the morning and say, ‘We could do better,’ ” said Dr. Jonathan Peters, a research fellow at the University Transportation Research Center at City College of New York. “This is not an unsolvable problem.”

For Dr. Peters, the unfinished project is more than research — it’s also personal. His great-grandmother chose to raise her family on Staten Island, relocating from the Bronx in the 1920s because she heard there would be a subway. Every day she slogged to her job in Manhattan’s garment district, telling herself a better commute was on the horizon.

“My family has been disappointed now for 97 years waiting for the subway,” he said.

To be sure, Staten Island does have a train. The mostly elevated Staten Island Railway runs along the east side of the borough, from St. George in the north to Tottenville in the south. But it is the only borough in New York City without a rail link to Manhattan.

Over more than a century, no less than seven official ideas have been floated for connections to Staten Island. One imagined a line from New Jersey. Another proposal claimed its train would zip commuters to Manhattan in a mere seven minutes. A more recent study even considered a sky tram.

None of those proposals, needless to say, have panned out.

The one idea that was approved, in 1912, would have connected Staten Island’s North Shore with Brooklyn, merging with the 4th Avenue line (now the R train) near Bay Ridge.

At the time, a major subway expansion was underway across New York City. The first underground system opened in 1904, propelling riders across Manhattan. The system stretched into the Bronx in 1905 and to Brooklyn in 1908. It would eventually expand to Queens in 1915.

The subway to Staten Island even had a name: Route 51.

“Staten Island Expects a Boom,” read a New York Times headline from 1912. “Proposed Subway Under Narrows Has Stimulating Effect on Realty.”

But the man who was one of the biggest champions of the project, Mayor John F. Hylan, was also its greatest hindrance, said Joseph Raskin, author of “The Routes Not Taken: A Trip Through New York City’s Unbuilt Subway System.”

“Very little got built or moved ahead under Hylan,” said Mr. Raskin, a retired M.T.A. employee.

“Hylan’s attitude about transit issues was definitely his downfall as mayor,” he added.

And yet Staten Island named its longest thoroughfare Hylan Boulevard, in part because “they thought they would get a rail tunnel out of him,” Mr. Raskin said.

Long before he was mayor, Hylan was a train operator in Brooklyn. He would prop up his law school books in the corner of his cab and study when he could, Mr. Raskin said. He got into a crash and was fired.

Hylan was elected mayor in 1918. A boorish man who maintained a grudge against the subway companies, he actively tried to halt funding to transit projects. Gov. Alfred E. Smith even opened an investigation into allegations that Hylan was being an obstructionist. Stories of their battles frequently occupied the front page of The Times, much like the coverage of a similar political rivalry does today.

One transportation project for the borough Hylan did support was a tunnel big enough to accommodate freight trains. The tunnel would connect New York City, by way of Staten Island, to the rest of the United States, and would be more direct than the existing routes. It was a move that he saw as revolutionary, one that could increase New York City’s potential as a commercial center and heighten his legacy for decades to come.

To sell the idea, he argued that the tunnel could serve both passenger and freight trains.

But there were critics, said Thomas Matteo, Staten Island’s borough historian. Some argued the funds should be used for subways in denser areas. Others questioned the long ride to Brooklyn and thought a train directly to Manhattan made more sense. Then there were the Staten Islanders who didn’t care for freight trains chugging through their backyards.

The borough’s population at the time was only at about 120,000, and few even commuted; many lived and worked locally.

“It was entrepreneurs and businessmen who wanted it,” Mr. Matteo said of the proposed subway. “It was never the local yokels.”

The freight factor was important — railroad companies were willing to pay for a portion of the cost to dig the tunnel if they could move freight through it. Without their support, the tunnel would be too costly.

Hylan sensed his opportunities were dwindling. He quickly ordered workers to build a tunnel that would be big enough, in his memorable phrase, to “take an elephant.”

In 1923, he hoisted a silver pick ax high above his head at groundbreaking ceremonies, where he aired his frustrations with pushback from state officials. “It takes a man of iron to deal with these people,” he said.

A number of events finally killed the plan. In 1925, the governor’s transit investigation determined it would cost $60 million instead of $20 million to build a tunnel to accommodate freight, and it recommended a passenger-only tunnel.

The Brooklyn Rapid Transit, the company that would have operated the subway, was in financial turmoil from a worker strike and from the aftermath of New York’s deadliest train disaster, which killed an estimated 100 people. On top of that, it was campaign season, and Brooklyn Rapid was denied a desperately-needed fare increase as politicians promised to make the price — a nickel — sacrosanct.

Then another more appealing idea emerged: building a bridge to connect Brooklyn and Staten Island.

In 1955, The Times said that not including train tracks on the bridge would be “one of the great planning blunders of our generation.” But that’s just what happened when the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge opened in 1964 under the auspices of the car-centric city planner Robert Moses.

There has been limited interest in a Staten Island subway since then.

In 2013, Joseph J. Lhota, the former M.T.A. chairman, asked city planners during his mayoral campaign whether the Verrazzano Bridge could support the weight of a train; it couldn’t, they said.

Even if a subway tunnel were feasible, there is the sense that it would never get enough support from Staten Islanders, said Allen P. Cappelli, a former M.T.A. board member who was a proponent of a Staten Island subway.

“Probably a fair number of people would love it,” said Mr. Cappelli, now a member of the City Planning Commission “and probably there would be old-timers that would hate it.”

Mark Cannon, who spent years commuting for an hour to his job as an attorney in Manhattan, embodied those conflicted sentiments. He feared a subway would make Staten Island a more desirable place to live. “The commute would probably be a lot better,” he said. “But the best thing about Staten Island is it’s kind of separate from the rest of the city. It would get too crowded.”

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