Using ARCGIS Pro 3-D to get a picture of 39th Street Brooklyn

The map above was produced using ARCGIS Pro and a 3-D option and a multi-patch  file from the City of New York Department of information and technology. You are looking west at New Jersey from above 39th Street around Ninth Avenue and looking at the waterfront.  The red lines are subway trackways of the "D" West End Line subway line.   The line most to the left is probably revenue trackage of the line and the other red lines are storage and yard trackage, not really shown accurately.  If you look towards the horizon you can see the Statue of Liberty and parallel to this at the Brooklyn shore is 33 rd Street, the site of the Luchenbach disaster in 1956.  At the foot of 39th Street, at First Avenue, and a little to the north is the turn around loop for the Church Avenue Trolley.

More to follow.

Mystery Solved: Link between Church and Ditmas Avenues Brooklyn

The above two pictures were taken off the web at various times.  I cannot give you the source, but my purpose is educational.  Church Avenue station on the Independent Subway System Prospect Park Line opened on March 20, 1933.  If we jump forward to October 30,  1954, we see that the link between Church Avenue and Ditmas Avenue was complete and thus "D" trains from the Bronx were able to reach Coney Island, or what is considered a one seat ride.   This link that enabled the extension of the Independent subway to Coney Island caused trolley service below on McDonald Avenue to be cut back.

In a earlier post, I showed that the incline with the trolley support poles were already built in the 1930s, perhaps at opening day.   The proof of this may be that there is a four track yard partially underneath the incline.  If you look between the tracks as the subway enters the incline, you will see ventilation grills and a street emergency exit just about where the track level reaches street level (West side of McDonald Avenue at the sidewalk).

What happened between 1933 and the pictures above from 1941?  I am not sure but the pictures seem to show that the incline existed without steel grid work with no built connection to the BMT Culver line.  I am not sure if the entire steel structure spanned completely from the end of the incline to the Culver Line in the 1940's   I do know that for many years there was a one track connection (North Bound IND Local Track) to the Ditmas Avenue Station.   Other parts of the steel structure had no tracks on them until 1954.    To be continued.

Thus the probable sequence:

• 1933:  Church Avenue Station and incline (non steel) to street level
• 1941: Steel Girders from street level to just south of curve of structure of Culver Line.
• 1942 - 1954? Steel girder connection between incline steel and Culver Line Structure, Track connection (one track) at the northbound local track at Ditmas Avenue to incline structure.
• 1954:  Incline and steel structure have tracks installed.  New Culver shuttle track built (southbound platform Ditmas Avenue).  Culver BMT line tracks severed from structure at Ditmas Avenue except one track.  Three tracks at Ditmas Avenue connected to four track incline.

39th Street Brooklyn as shown by at ARCGIS 3-D Map

39 th Street in Brooklyn, is an interesting street that  is adjacent to many objects of transit , present and past.  The part from 9th Avenue to the Waterfront is very interesting because there is big change of elevation; not as much as San Francisco but still interesting.  It is interesting to stand at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 39th Street looking west to the waterfront.  Although I never visited San Francisco, I imagined what it would be like to be on a street with trolley tracks looking down a hilly street to the harbor.  After streetcar service ended in Brooklyn in October, 1956, I had many occasions in which I took the B-35 bus or walked along the street.  For many years, the tracks and wires remained after abandonment.  On one side of  the street, I believe the southern side, trolley support poles supported power cables for  the Culver Line (shuttle) until the 1980's when the el was dismantled.  Even though the Culver Shuttle stopped running in 1975, the power cables remained intact for many years.  The power cables supported by black iron trolley support poles gave a feeling of what the street was like during streetcar days.  These cables stretched from it's source at Fifth Avenue and 39th Street to the Ninth Avenue BMT station of the West End (B, D, W) and the Culver Shuttle.  The wires crossed the Ninth Avenue yard, went along the South Brooklyn RR right of way and were connected under the Culver Line El structure on 37th Street all the way to around Cortelyou Road.  On the right of 39th Street, from Ninth Avenue to around Third Avenue was the 37th Street Yard and South Brooklyn Railway.  This was very mysterious to a child with all the hidden and abandoned ramps and enclosures.  Before Google Maps and the vast increase of availability of transit pictures, who knew what was there?  Not many libraries in the past had extensive rapid transit collections.  And how would a ten year old access it?  Rapid Transit topics were not fashionable in those days and information was simply not available.

In the map above, the thin blue line is the West End Line subway serviice (D), leaving the Ninth Avenue Station and running through some historic, mysterious track right of way to Fourth Avenue where it makes a hard right onto Fourth Avenue.  To the right of the blue line is the 37th Street yard where there are various ramps and tunnels.  At the intersection of Fifth Avenue near 37th Street stood a historic train station for various late 19th Century- Early 20th Century railroads.

To be continued....

  In the late 19th Century, 39th Street was a well traveled street because at the waterfront, the 39th Street Ferry provided transportation to Manhattan.  It seems that the Brooklyn Bridge at that time could not handle all the traffic even though trains did cross the Brooklyn Bridge.    Because of the 39th Street Ferry,  various streetcar lines reached it including  our well liked Church Avenue Line.  In the area was the elevated station at 36th Street and 5th Avenue and various railheads to provide service eventually to Coney Island and various race tracks.