Church - McDonald Streetcar Line died 10/31/56

/Tonight is the anniversary of the end of streetcars in Brooklyn on 10/31/56 which may have been also a Wednesday.   On this date, the Church Avenue, Church - McDonald and the Cortelyou Road trolleybus (B-23) also ended.  In this shot taken off the web shows a southbound Church - McDonald streetcar along the incline of the IND subway system between Ditmas and Church Avenue stations.  To the right of the PCC streetcar is a R-1-9 subway car going south towards the Ditmas Avenue station.  The Brooklyn - Queens Tram shown below is not doing well and around a week ago it was declared that the Staten Island Ferris Wheel is also dead.   I guess trolleys in Brooklyn, old or new and a ferris wheel in Staten Island were not meant to be.

Ashland Street Connection

Currently in subchat, there is a thread dealing with the Myrtle Avenue Line in Brooklyn and its demise.  There is some discussion stating how useful would the line be today if it was still in existence and a thought / experiment dealing with a re-introduction of the line.  Where would the line end in the western part of Myrtle Avenue now that Metrotech occupies the former Myrtle -Jay Street-Bridge Street area?

  Around 1969,  before transit became fashionable and the only way to do research was to go to the Public Library, I went to the  Research Division of the New York Public Library at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue.   I remember either looking at a early New York Regional Plan (the first? )  written in the early 1920's or the Brooklyn Manhattan Transit (BMT) document dealing with transit development, also dated in the 1920's.   Something was mentioned about an Ashland Street connection where an elevated line would be connected to the relatively new BMT subway in the area.  Dual Contracts was not finished and the BMT was having trouble building the Nassau Street Loop at this time.  For better service, it was proposed to connect one of the elevated lines to the subway and have the line go to one of the BMT branches in Manhattan.  I do not remember if the document had a map showing where this would be built.

    It would be very difficult these days to construct an elevated line in a residential area, however, something that I never saw before is happening today:   Large skyscrapers are being built near the elevated Flushing Line.   Attitudes are changing about being near rapid transit and younger persons may be less against elevated lines.

Myrtle Avenue and Flatbush Avenue Extension: Revisited

https://pcullinan.smugmug.com/Brooklyn/The-Myrtle-Avenue-El/Myrtle-Ave-El-Oct-1969/i-z5WGrVN

  For the last few weeks, there has been a thread going on in subchat dealing with the Myrtle Avenue El, whose anniversary of it's abandonment was in early October.  This line, the last one to end service with wooden cars, ended service in October, 1969.  I rode on that line, in the early afternoon of the last day.   Growing up, my mother used to take me to downtown Brooklyn for shopping in the big department stores on Fulton Street and as we walked, at each intersection to the north,  I saw views of the line about one block away.   When I was very small, I remember seeing gate cars on the line (prior to 1958), but no matter how much I begged my mother, should would not take me on the line.
In the picture above, taken off the web at the address indicated, is  view of Flatbush Avenue Extension and Myrtle Avenue.  You can see part of of green arched structure that I remember as a child.   As you look at the left of the picture, you can see black squares.   These are the air vents to the BMT Subway at the Myrtle Avenue station which is now abandoned.  I believe that on the Myrtle Avenue El, there was no station at Flatbush Avenue because Flatbush Avenue Extension was a street created to reach the Manhattan Bridge and it did not exist when the el was constructed in the 19th Century.  Thus this intersection was between the Navy Street and Bridge Street Stations.  When elevated service ended on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1944?, the line had to be reconfigured at the western end.   I believe the Bridge Street station was extended westward towards Jay Street with a passenger walkway to the IND Jay Street - Borough Hall (Now Metrotech) station.   Many people do not know that Myrtle Avenue continued westward towards Court Street or Adams Street with the el passing the Sand Street on it's route over the Brooklyn Bridge to Park Row in Manhattan.  The Supreme Court at Adams Street is the approximate location where Myrtle Avenue and its' el continued westward.
  I remember that there was some sort of unusual transfer procedures for Myrtle El  passengers that were established.  It went something like this:  Passengers paying fares at some westerly Myrtle Avenue El Stations got a ticket to transfer to the IND Jay Street Subway station at Myrtle and Jay streets.  They used the new walkway and gave the paper transfer to the agent.   According to the ticket, this transfer was also valid for streetcars on Jay Street (1944-1951) as well.  These streetcars were Park Row bound.   The ticket was only valid until the Broadway-Nassau stations (Fulton Street today).   Theoretically, the passenger who have to exit the subway at Broadway Nassau.   Going to Brooklyn, only those paying fares at Broadway Nassau got a ticket to transfer to the Myrtle El at Jay-Bridge Street station on the Myrtle El.  At some point, probably at nights, perhaps in the 1950's, the fare agent booths were closed at night and passengers paid there fares to conductors on the el trains.  I am sorry that the el is gone even though I have no business in this part of Brooklyn.   Els were considered as "old fashioned" and transportation planners considered smelly stinkeroo diesel buses as a solution to all our transit woes.  Picture from Brooklyn Public Library.   The arch was visible from many blocks away.  Myrtle-Gold Street station should be underneath the arch.   Thus at Myrtle - Flatbush,  you have subway, trolley and elevated service.  The area looks very different today.

Tramway Null()

New News About Waterfront Streetcar Plan

https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEJ9dk4yabILl_q8gpCXyDqEqFwgEKg8IACoHCAowjuuKAzCWrzwwloIY?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

Breaking News: City Announces BQX Next Steps

Breaking news about the Brooklyn Queens Connector:  Released 8/30/18 over 1 hr ago.

1. Shorter:  To Gowanas Red Hook Only from Long Island City
2. More Expensive to Build
3. Longer To Build 2029
4. Uses Overhead
5. More Inland
6. Depends on Government allocations for support

Interesting Article

https://placesjournal.org/article/roads-to-rails/?gclid=CjwKCAjwwo7cBRBwEiwAMEoXPHvesNGvNLJSCBcZavTyg_WRJ3CJJbFrItlJ1nHitEAHClNTYes-CRoCZWwQAvD_BwE

Related TopicsEric W. Sanderson, “Roads to Rails,”Places Journal, June 2013. Accessed 27 Aug 2018.https://doi.org/10.22269/130610

  I came across by accident this article dealing with streetcars and various other issues such a physics of motion, air  pollution, efficiency of motors and so on.     Although I just skimmed the article very lightly and the article was written in 2013, the view point of Mr. Sanderson is that the world would be a better place if there were a lot more electric streetcars in existence.  In my fast view of the article in a few minutes, Mr. Sanderson is picturing an electric economy where streetcars would be plenty and freight would be delivered by electric trains or trams.   In the past few years, looking over news accounts of new light rail or tram systems in the United States is showing that some are becoming out of favor and are considered by some people as a waste of money and resources.   Some recently opened tram systems are not doing well.   Here in New York City, the waterfront streetcar in Brooklyn and Queens appears to be dead ( like all the other tram projects but forth) and there does not appear to be even new proposals for new routes.  Remember my 20, 20 20 plan?  That is, twenty years to talk about a proposal,  twenty years to figure out how to pay for it and twenty years to build?  It is hard to believe that in Brooklyn New York and New York City as a whole, the anti-trolley movement started about a 100 years ago.  The last line built in Brooklyn, the Eighth Avenue in Bay Ridge started around 1918 -19?  After this line was built, the BRT or other private Brooklyn tram line operators could not get permission from the City of New York to build any more lines in Southern Brooklyn.

Don't forget that Mayor Walker from the 1920's was very anti trolley and many of the mayors that followed.   I believe that there is not a single exhibition of a electric trolley, such a trolley car in a Museum or on a side track anyplace in New York City.  I would be happy if we had such an exhibition.  We cannot expect anything more.

Related Topics

Eric W. Sanderson, “Roads to Rails,”Places Journal, June 2013. Accessed 27 Aug 2018.https://doi.org/10.22269/130610

Related TopicsEric W. Sanderson, “Roads to Rails,”Places Journal, June 2013. Accessed 27 Aug 2018.https://doi.org/10.22269/130610

Related Topics

Russian R-1 Tram Abandoned

http://www.metro-report.com/news/single-view/view/russia-one-tram-abandoned.html


Hi Folks:

 Remember in 2014 news came out about a very futuristic Russian tram that was about to go into production.    I just found out (see link above) that the project in 2017 was abandoned because the tram would be very difficult to build and maintain because of its' layout.   Also for this new car, the current trucks {bogies?) would not work.  The Staten Island Ferris Wheel, also something new, seems to be also dead due to legal or financial reasons

It was a beautiful tram.   Shows that form and function do not always follow.  The car looked beautiful but would be very difficult to build and operate.   Good luck to the designers in the future. Some of us here in New York City would be happy if we were able to have a heritage trolley using old, Russian, or any other tram cars from somewhere in the world such as second hand equipment running a few hundred meters.  It does not look like it will happen.  If the Russian R-1 design was successful in being a good operating streetcar, many new communities would have taken a look at trams for city transit.

Good luck next time,
Tramway Null(0)

July 27, 1960: Last Day of Regular Electric Surface Transit in Brooklyn, N.Y.

The picture above was taken from the nycsubway.org web site from their Trolleybus section.  This is a Brian Cudahy  picture from 1954 showing a Lorimer Street trackless trolley near the Myrtle Avenue El .  58 years ago service was stopped on the small ( 200 unit? ) trolleybus system for which mainly lasted ( most routes except Cortelyou Road) for only 12 years (1848-1960).

Today. chances are getting smaller for New York City to see a trolleybus system or a regular streetcar/light rail system.  Overhead technology is becoming obsolete and an "electric bus" does not require wires anymore.  Just a good battery or charging station.  Light rail, no way because it is expensive and will take away parking spaces.

I thought that trolleybus or light rail service will return to Brooklyn  in:

1961 because a report came out explaining about diesel bus pollution, but I was wrong.
I though that trolleybuses and streetcars might come back because of the 1960's environmental movement.  But I was wrong.

I though they would come back due to oil embargos in the 1970's and 1980's, but I was wrong.

I thought they would come back because of high oil prices, but I was wrong.
I thought they would come back because diesel bus fumes is the cause of lung diseases in Harlem and upper New York, but I was wrong.

I thought they would come back due to peak oil, but I was wrong.
I thought they would come back due to global warming, but I was wrong.
I thought they would come back to Second Avenue around 1992 because the MTA was interested in setting up a Select Bus Service using trolleybuses, but I was wrong.
I thought streetcars would come back on 42nd Street after various attemps, but was not signed off by the mayor.  But I was wrong.

I thought that streetcars would come back on the Brooklyn - Queens waterfront, but I was wrong.  Where will we park our cars and it is too expensive!

I guess I just was wrong!