Some Interesting Shots from the New York Transit Museum: Church Avenue, Cortelyou Road and McDonald Avenue Lines

  The New York Transit Museum, located in downtown Brooklyn has a photo archive of many historic shots of the transit system on all levels: elevated, subway, streetcar, trolleybus and so on.  It is not my aim to steal anything from them in this blog, but to introduce to you some interesting information that was not usually seen or available.  So please excuse me for the quality of the shots.  Many of the shots were taken in the late 1920's before construction started on the Independent Subway  on the Prospect Park Line to Church Avenue.

 

In this shot, you are facing west on Church Avenue.  You are looking at the 13th Avenue Station of the Culver Line.  The lumber yard was probably the site of the Nassau Electric trolley garage.  I remember the pointed building but if you look to the left of it, you see an annex.  At the extreme left you see a white chimney.  This building is still in existence.

 

Another shot of the lumber yard, but you are facing east.  Notice how close to the building the eastbound Church Avenue trolley track is.  You are technically at number 1 Church Avenue, at Old New Utrecht Road, which is a historic street and most of it does not exist today.

 You are looking north on Gravesend Avenue (McDonald Avenue) before the IND subway ramp was built.  The store is on the corner of McDonald Avenue and Cortelyou Road.  This shot is probably before the Cortelyou Road trolleybus line was established.   Notice that in the middle of Gravesend Avenue, the tracks are on its' own right of way and this was the historic path of the Culver Line when it was a steam railroad.

   Another view at the same location looking north from Cortelyou Road.  Notice that the private right of way ends further north.  The storage building is still in existence and southbound F Train riders greet it every day as the train descends into the tunnel.

 The same location but in 1944, slightly, to the south of Cortelyou Road.  You can see the two wooden troughs for the Cortelyou Road trolleybus wires (perpendicular to McDonald Avenue, under the El).  Notice that by 1944, the ramp to the IND subway was complete but only one track was installed.  This ramp would not come into service until 10 years later on October, 1954.  Notice the southbound trough for southbound streetcars.

 In this rare photo, you are looking east towards the junction of the original Culver Line and the Independent Subway.  This location is where the Cortelyou Road trolley bus curves onto Dahill Road near the 37th Street Park.  Notice the graceful trolleybus wire curve.  Like its' sister, the Cortelyou Road trolleybus died on the same day (including the McDonald Avenue Line) on October 31, 1956.

 The same location as above, but facing west.  The line just left Cortelyou Road and is swinging towards Dahill Road.  The trees are at the 37th Street Park.  The line will make a swing to the right unto 16th Avenue and eventually reach the BMT West End Station at 62nd Street.

This is at the same area as above, but from the Kensington Loop of the Church Avenue Line and McDonald Avenue Line, midway between Ditmas Avenue And Cortelyou Road. Notice the coal silo.  If you look in the shot above, just above the AAA sign, you can see the silo.  The silo was parallel with Dahill Road.

Of Baseball Fields and Trolley Loops

With a few hours, two commenters wrote on different subjects but dealing generally with the same area, namely the McDonald Avenue area in Brooklyn between the Ditmas Avenue and Avenue I stations.  One writer wrote about the Swedish Trolley car that ran in 1961 under wire power on McDonald Avenue.  I posted this picture before and the rights to the picture and the trolley itself is stored in the New York Trolley Museum in upstate  New York.  A second writer commented on my posted aerial 1924 view of Kensington Junction including the area around 16th Avenue.  The writer provided a link dealing with a lot between Gravesend Avenue (McDonald Avenue) and East 2nd Street between Cortelyou Road and Ditmas Avenue.  To my surprise, that block was the location of  important Baseball field before the 1920's.....  see comments from Artie:

Well, something that is lost in history is that large, rectangular shape at the bottom of the photo, just to the right of center. This plot of land between McDonald and E. 2nd, and Cortelyou Rd and Ditmas Ave. is "Suburban Oval." A multi-use athletic field on which H.S., Prep School, College AND Professional AND Semi-Profession Major League and Negro League Teams played. This included the Brooklyn Superbas in 1912 and 1913 featuring, among others, Casey Stengel. The owners lost their lease about 1916, and it fell into disuse until the mid-1920s when the land was developed.
More info can be found at http://www.covehurst.net/ddyte/brooklyn/semipro_parks.html

Some aerials of the area are shown below:

The same area before the labels where added:

 

The next two pictures come from new Daves Rail Pix.

This southbound PCC car 1023 on the 50 McDonald Route is just about to enter the lead track to the Kesington Loop to the left of the picture.  You can see that to the right of the trolley car, the east side of McDonald Avenue south of Cortelyou Road at least between 1951 and 1956 did not have many buildings on it.  Perhaps the shack was previously part of the base ball field?  From the structure of the elevated structure, it looks like the fourth track was not added yet for the future Culver Shuttle and the date of the picture must be the early fifties.  This is from the Dave Pirmann  collection from Joe Testagrose.  The photo of the Swedish streetcar posted is not from this spot.

A PCC car just completed the loop and is headed north.  From the Frank Pfuhler collection.  Notice that the fourth track to the Culver Line Ditmas Avenue station has been added. Also notice the coal bin in the extreme left of the picture.  The traditional Culver Line (mainline) takes a sharp curve east in the background towards the 13th Avenue Station.

Coal Bins at Gravesend and 16th Avenue Brooklyn

A reader was searching for coal bins at 16th Avenue and McDonald (Gravesend) Avenues in Brooklyn.  In this 1924 Aerial, you can see the coal bins near the historic Kensington Junction circled in red.  Also, the private right of way of the 16th Avenue Streetcar is also shown.  The private right of way was also known as Lott Place.  You can see Culver el swing to the left at 37th Street.  This is before the Independent Subway ramp was built connecting to the Church Avenue Station.  The Church Avenue station openned in the early 1930's.  By the 1950's, this group of coal bins was gone but others remained along the Culver right of way along 37th Street and McDonald Avenue.

Street Trackage Map: Source: B. Linder