In 1908 the IRT Subway was extended to Brooklyn for the first time, and Heins and LaFarge, the architects who constructed most of the subway’s early stations and stationhouses, erected this grand entrance house in the triangle formed by Atlantic, Flatbush and 4th Avenues, known as Times Plaza after the nearby offices of a long-disappeared newspaper, the Brooklyn Times-Union (1848-1937).
This is how I remember the entrance as a kid in the 1960s and 1970s. As you can see, it had been completely surrounded by the awnings of a grungy hot dog stand, which was there for many years. All this while, the equally grandiose Long Island Rail Road terminal across the street at Flatbush Avenue and Hanson Place, which had been built in 1907, was subject to the same amount of disrepair and decline as Manhattan’s great Penn Station. The LIRR Brooklyn terminal continued to crumble, until large sections of it began to be closed off. Eventually, there was only an underground entrance from the subway, the building came down in 1988, and there was a hole on the ground for about 20 years. Finally, a new, modern, utterly bland and purely functionary terminal was built on the site.
The little subway entrance, though, persevered all these years. By the 1980s, the hot dog stand was gone, and it stood, denuded and mostly a graffiti-marred shell, for about 20 years. In the early 2000s, as part of the overall renovations of what is now called the Barclays Center station, it was restored as a glorified skylight. You can’t enter the station from here any more, but at least it’s still there.
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6/19/23
16 comments
there should have been before and after shots of it.
I lived a couple of blocks away, around the corner from Brooklyn tech. This was from 1977 to 79. I remember that corner very well indeed. My dentist was in the big bank tower too.
I’m confused. What are those objects on pedestals in the middle of the photo? And there is another in the far left of the photo.
Public phones.
Just being facetious.
It was weirdly interesting in the late ’70s when an accretion dubbed “Triangle Trolley” was built around it housing (IIRC) a mediocre deli
Some interesting historical photographs of Times Plaza here… https://arrts-arrchives.com/TIMES%20PLAZA.html
Art Huenke always has good stuff. BTW, I found out the old Times Plaza Post Office was torn down too.
The restoration really makes the original ceramics pop. Does anyone remember when there was a big newsstand in this spot?
To be 100% correct, the name of the station complex is “Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center”. Just before Barclays Center was opened the stations in the complex were called Atlantic Av-Pacific St.
The complex is comprised of 3 different subway stations each with their own platforms:
2, 3, 4 and 5 trains
B and Q trains
D, N and R trains (this station was originally called Pacific Street)
For the sake of correctness, the station complex is called ‘Atlantic Av-Barclays Center’. Immediately prior to the building of Barclays the complex was called ‘Atlantic Av-Pacific St’.
It is made up of 3 separate subway stations:
2, 3, 4 and 5 lines
B and Q lines
D, N and R lines (this station was originally Pacific St)
Berlin: Why was it necessary for you to post a nearly identical comment 54 minutes after your original entry? Time for you to raise both hands over your head & step away from the keyboard.
The computer I was using was having connection problems so I thought that the post did not go thru. That is why I did it again – on a different computer.
If Kevin wants to remove one he can.
Actually, Allan, I confess that the same thing happened to me once (or twice?). It may not have been your computer; it might have been the server FNY uses but we’ll never know. Perhaps the webmaster enjoys
an echo chamber effect. Enjoy the weekend.
The last time I remember hot dogs being called franks was in the 1990’s, but that was later on dropped around the start of the millennium and just called hot dogs.
The Brooklyn Daily Times (later the Times-Union) moved its offices in the Spring of 1914 from the foot of Broadway in Williamsburgh to bigger quarters at the junction of Flatbush, Atlantic and Fourth Avenues. Times Plaza was applied to this intersection at about that time.
For those with Newspapers.com or using the Brooklyn Portal on the Brooklyn Public Library website, the Brooklyn Daily Times issue of March 28, 1914 is very interesting. (filed under Times Union)