WHILE riding on the B35 bus on Church Avenue in Kensington in the 1960s (my parents and I would take bus rides on all the local lines when I was a kid from age 6-9 in the 1960s) even back then, I was mystified why Church Avenue gains considerable width between East 5th and 7th Streets, crossing Ocean Parkway.
The answer was simple. There was a trolley crossunder there, allowing trolley cars on the #35 route to go beneath Ocean Parkway without having to bother with the considerable traffic. Church Avenue is the point where the Prospect Expressway (built from 1954-1960) becomes Ocean Parkway, which would have added to the traffic the last couple of years the trolley was running. The Church Avenue line was the final regular trolley line in service, as it survived until 1956; only the Queensboro Bridge shuttle trolley lasted longer.
Ocean Parkway predated the trolley by many years, having been suggested by Frederick Olmsted and Calvert Vaux and built from Prospect Park to Coney Island from 1874 to 1876.
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Photo from Al Ponte’s Time Machine – New York in Facebook.
10/16/22