If I didn’t tell you where this sign is located, your natural assumption would be Manhattan, whose Broadway runs from the Battery to the Harlem River and beyond. Actually, I shot this out the window of the J train at the Myrtle Avenue station, which is on a center platform and thus allows you to get a photo from the door on the opposite side. When on a train traveling on an el, I always stand at the door, moving aside for people getting off or on, but always scanning the exterior for photo opportunities. Subway lines still using latitudinal seating in which you face a window at 90 degrees, such as the R or F, are getting few and far between these days, and the R never gets above ground. Thus, I’m always standing on an el train!
An unknown chiseler etched the street sign into the building exterior sometime in the early 20th Century. I was unable to see if a corresponding Myrtle Avenue sign was on the other side, but I can tell you that at this location, els came together, as the Myrtle and Broadway els met here until 1969, when the Myrtle was closed. There’s a remaining crossover allowing M trains to proceed to the surviving section of the Myrtle el that ends in Middle Village, marking the one and only current crossover between lines on a NYC el. Until 1950, the Brooklyn Lexington Avenue el also flowed trains onto the Broadway el.
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