ATLANTIC AVENUE BOAT

by Kevin Walsh

In downtown Brooklyn, Flatbush, Atlantic Avenue, and 4th Avenue all come together at a triangle called Times Plaza after a newspaper, long defunct, that had its offices nearby. In 1908 this was considered a remote redoubt indeed as far as the IRT Subway was concerned. It was that year that the original subway, which had expanded uptown into the Bronx via elevated between 1904 and 1908, made its first Brooklyn foray, opening stations between Bowling Green and Atlantic Avenue in 1908 — and it’d be 12 years again until the IRT pushed east and south to New Lots and Flatbush, though the BRT and its successor BMT set about building new lines and converting steam railroads in Brooklyn in the interim years.

In some stations considered worthy of special emphasis, original subway contractor Heins & LaFarge, who were responsible for the original IRT’s Beaux Arts and rococo touches, built freestanding entrance buildings, in railroad parlance called “headhouses.” Some of these, at Bowling Green and 72nd Street, are still standing, as is this one in the triangle at Times Plaza.

In its original scenario, Brooklyn’s 5th Avenue El ran down Flatbush Avenue, but this building stood alongside it. I first encountered it in the 1960s on bus rides with a parent on the B63 bus, which ran down 5th Avenue and Atlantic, winding up on Furman at the waterfront. By then an extra building hosting a hot dog stand had wrapped itself around the building, as seen on this FNY page, but I’ve recently come across older photos that prove it was surrounded with such excrescences as early as the 1920s. The el came down in 1940.

After the wraparound stand was eliminated, though, the station continued to slide into decrepitude. The Beaux Arts Long Island Rail Road station across the street, built in 1907, also deteriorated until by the 1990s the building was demolished entirely and access to the LIRR was via the subway entrances.

Things began to perk up when developer Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Terminal shopping center, featuring Brooklyn’s first Target, opened in the late 1990s; a new LIRR terminal building followed. Off to the right of the photo, you can see the Underberg kitchen supplies building at Flatbush and Atlantic; after a protracted land-use battle, it toppled by 2010 and was replaced with the rusty-appearing Barclays Center in 2012. The Pacific Park housing project, which no longer has Ratner as its developer, is set to rise over the trainyards in the 2020s.

As for the headhouse itself, it was renovated to what we have today, a glorified skylight. The MTA eliminated subway entrances in the building as part of its rebuilding process, rather than subject commuters to the pedal-to-the-metal traffic on the street surrounding streets.

However, there’s an art installation at the station that’s easy to miss if you don’t look up toward the skylight in the passenger concourse between the BMT and IRT. The installation is called “Hook, Line and Sinker” by artist George Trakas. The “Line” part of the installation is. a metallic superstructure of a boat hanging below the skylight. It also serves as a gangway workers can access to clean the skylight windows. The jagged edges on each side of the boat mark the location of a former staircase, and the remains of bricked windows can be discerned.

As “Star Hustler” Jack Horkheimer used to say, “Keep looking up!”

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10/23/23

11 comments

Kenneth Buettner October 24, 2023 - 5:23 am

Kevin, many thanks! I would never have caught that.

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Alan Greenstein October 24, 2023 - 7:33 am

The Dual Contracts resulted in the IRT and BMT running on adjacent trackage along Flatbush Av between Atlantic Av. and Eastern Parkway. This stretch opened in 1929, I think. This is the only instance in the entire subway system where the IRT and BMT run together for an extended distance. It was not until 1967 when a free transfer between the IRT and BMT was instituted at Atlantic Av.

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Tom+M October 24, 2023 - 8:00 pm

What about the Astoria & Flushing lines shared service?

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Allan Berlin October 28, 2023 - 2:04 pm

Yes, but in the case of the Astoria & Flushing lines the IRT and BMT use the same tracks.

Along Flatbush Av the IRT and BMT lines separate dedicated tracks for each line. After leaving Atlantic Av it was a 6 track section with the IRT on the outer 2 tacks on either side and the BMT on the inner tracks (separated by walls on either side) . With the exception of a couple of “cut-outs” in the tunnel walls the two lines never saw each other.

https://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?/img/trackmap/pm_southeast.png (look for Atlantic Av on the track maps and then follow it to the Bergen St IRT station and 7th Av BMT station. At Bergen St the IRT tracks & platforms are along the outer walls. At 7th Av the BMT tracks and platforms are along the inner walls (with the IRT passing by (local tracks) along the outer walls on both sides. The IRT express tracks are below the local tracks.

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Alan Greenstein October 24, 2023 - 7:35 am

Correction: In my previous comment, I meant to say 1920, not 1929.

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Tal Barzilai October 24, 2023 - 1:31 pm

I will remember that the next time I’m there assuming it won’t be removed.

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John B. October 25, 2023 - 7:58 am

It’s a small miracle that structure has survived…

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Kenneth Buettner October 25, 2023 - 8:02 am

Tom, I believe you are right. Before the northern half of the Queensboro Plaza station was torn down, trains ran from Astoria to QP on the BMT tacks and than out to Flushing on the IRT tracks, and vice versa. They came into the QP station at a dead end and reversed out in the other direction.

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Tom+M October 27, 2023 - 3:39 pm

From what I’ve read both lines were owned by the IRT but Both the IRT & BMT ran revenue trains on them. Strange to me.

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Anonymous October 28, 2023 - 2:14 pm

The IRT built the Astoria & Flushing (then called Corona) lines and opened them in 1917. In 1920 under the Dual Contracts agreement, the IRT and BRT (wasn’t BMT yet) agreed to allow each others trains to provide service along IRT tracks. They worked out a revenue sharing arrangement. The stations were built to IRT standards. In order for the BRT to provide service they ran their subway cars to Queensboro Plaza. From there they used their elevated cars to Astoria and Flushing.

https://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/BMT_Astoria_Line

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Allan Berlin October 31, 2023 - 7:50 am

Anonymous??? What happened – I posted that and my name did show up.

Reply

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