Photo Shot from the Brooklyn Bridge on July 27, 2012

Another great shot by docjayva of the Brooklyn Bridge on Friday, July 27, 2012..  Fifty two years earlier, trolley bus service on the Flushing Avenue Line ended at High Street on July 27, 1960.  The line's end was very close to the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge from the Brooklyn side and probably in streetcar days, the Flushing Avenue trolley ran on the bridge to Park Row.

Downtown Brooklyn Streetcar Map 9-22-44 to 3-4-51

Source:  B. Linder, New York Division Bulletin, Vol. 21, No. 8, August, 1978, P.10.

Today is the 52nd Anniversary of the end of Trolley Bus Service in Brooklyn on July 27, 1960.

The attached map shows downtown  Brooklyn streetcar trackage at the end.  It does not show the trolley bus service wire that co-existed on some of the streets, such as Livingston Street during part of the period (1948-59).    When the last trolley car ran through the area on March 4, 1951 and the last trolley bus ran on Flushing Avenue to High Street on July 27, 1960, the end of the era of dependable electric street transportation came to end in New York City.  The way things that are going today in New York City, it is unlikely that any form of wired electric street transportation would ever return to the streets in our lifetime. 

Various Elevation Indicators near the Culver Viaduct in Brooklyn

   In the above map, I looked at elevation values near the Culver Viaduct in Brooklyn which is the concrete elevated structure that runs from south of Fourth Avenue and 9th Street to north of Carroll Street and Smith Street.  I used ARCGIS 10.1.  I brought in a subway stop file from several years ago and through a spatial join, I was able to assign the nearest elevation available near a subway station.  The problem with the elevation file is that most of the points given are at street level but others are the heights of structures, such as the viaduct itself, the expressway that goes over the canal and so on.  As far as coding is concerned, both street elevations and structure elevations are coded the same so I can not tell them apart.  Since I do not know how the height of a structure is defined, I would believe that the Transit Authority's official height of the Smith and  9 th Street station will not match mine.  Nevertheless, it would be interesting to look at the map anyway.  In the map, the white numbers are heights above sea level and comes from a contour height file.  The color dots are either street elevations or the elevations of a structure, however they are defined.  Here are my observations:

1. The 15th Street - Prospect Park station on the F and G lines is underground but the height assigned is 200 feet.  The nearest heights around the station are in the 132 to 249 feet range. but the contours show values around 164 feet.  My reading may be a mistake.
2. The 7th Avenue Station which is underground is listed as 100 feet.
3. The 4th Avenue Station on the F and G routes is above ground the the elevation is listed as 60 feet.  Heights around the station as street level is around  40 feet with a sharp downward slope towards the water.  The structure is is rising at this point as one goes westward.
4. The Smith and 9 th Street station is listed at 90 feet which is the height of the structure.  At the surface, which is at the canal, the heights are a few feet.
5. The viaduct takes a sharp turn here and decends downward towards the Carroll Street station. The Carroll Street station is underground and is listed as 50 feet.  These are the values at street level in the area.

It is interesting to note that the 7th Avenue station which is underground is 40 feet higher than the open air Fourth Avenue Station  and 10 feet higher at street level than the very high Smith and 9th Street Station.  Now you know why Park Slope is called Park Slope.

This material is not official and was an experiment.  To be verified.  Tramway Null(0)

Newark City Subway Video from 1982

Newark City Subway in 1982 video.

     I came across this video from the "subchat " website.  While this video is not of the highest visual quality, it has great music and it shows the Newark City Subway operating with  second hand PCC cars.  I made my visit to the Newark City Subway a few years earlier. After streetcars stopped running in Brooklyn in 1956 and across the Queensborough bridge in 1957, and trolleybuses in Brooklyn on July 27, 1960, I thought no other place on earth has streetcars accept San Francisco and some places in Europe.  I was a very small kid then and when I went to my local Brooklyn Public Library, only one or two books covered rapid transit.  As I got older, I started to visit research libraries and then I discovered how wrong I was.  I could not believe in 1969 that a Newark City Subway existed and that it was a PATH train away in New Jersey!  And it was operated with PCC cars similar to ones that used to run on Church Avenue.  Even people that were interested in rapid transit in New York City did not know about the Newark City Subway.  As an aside, watching TV as a young child in the 1950's and 1960's, I never came across (this is not a scientific sample)  a trolley story or picture, except for the famous cable cars of San Francisco.  "Dragnet" from the the 1950's did show, during the opening scene, Los Angeles City Hall framed through trolley wires.  It seems that during the 1950's and 1960's, rapid transit and trolleys did not exist in popular culture and perhaps they were considered soon to be extinct animals, at least on New York based TV.  So to my pleasant surprise, trolleys were a subway ride away and I visited the Newark City Subway.  The video below captures the feel of those years when I made my first visit.  Since that time, the Newark City Subway has been extended at the Franklin Avenue end and a short subway section was reopened and refurbished to serve on a new outside light rail section to the Broad Street Railroad Station.  New cars are used on the line, but I have been told, that they are not as exciting to ride as the old non air conditioned PCC cars.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=v2tt4FLNIO8

Downtown Brooklyn Streetcar Map: 10/12/41 to 3/5/44

Source: B. Linder, New York Division Bulletin, Vol. 21, No. 8, August, 1978, p.8.

An explanation regarding this map to follow in the future.  Tramway Null(0)

Another View from the Manhattan Bridge - July 2012

This beautiful shot was taken last week by docjayva from the Manhattan Bridge looking south to lower Manhattan showing the World Trade Center area.  Since we are on the subject of the Manhattan Bridge and some of my posts deals with the Culver Line, either as a subway line or as the Culver-Fifth Avenue Elevated line, I would like to tell you about an unusual Culver Line operation in the subway.  I will verify this in the future, but in the 1950's before the line was truncated at Ditmas Avenue and even afterwards, there was an unusual loop operation in the morning rush hour.  Trains would depart Ditmas Avenue and go north to 36th Street and 4th Avenue where they would run express to Pacific Street.  I am not sure if the Culver trains would stop at Dekalb Avenue but would go over the Manhattan Bridge and loop southward to the Nassau Street loop.  This connection does not exist today since the Chrystie Street Loop service began in 1967.  The Culver trains would now go southbound through the Nassau Street Loop, into the Montague Street tunnel and run local southbound on Fourth Avenue.  It would stop at 36th Street and finally end up at Ditmas Avenue were it started from!    The BMT Standard subway cars had two types of roll signs, large and small.  The description of the route was something like ".. Via Bridge to Manhattan and Southbound via Nassau  Street Loop..."  I am not sure of the exact wording but it was clearly not visible on the small size BMT Standard destination curtains.   This service ended in 1959 when the Culver Line really became a true shuttle between Ditmas Avenue and  Ninth Avenue. (To be verfiied and modified in the future.)
Readings on a BMT Standard roll sign is found below.  Taken from web.  Culver related items in red.

Ditmas Ave 36th St.-4th Av Forest Hills-Queens
Astoria
Via Tunnel thru
NASSAU LOOP Via Bridge to Bklyn
Via Bridge thru
NASSAU LOOP Via Tunnel to Bklyn
6th Av.Manh't'n
8th Av.Manh't'n
Myrtle Av.
Eastern P'kwy
Atlantic Av.
Canarsie
Bowery
Chambers St.
Canal St.
Jamaica
Crescent St.
111th St.
Metropolitan Av.
Broad St.
Whitehall St.
Queens Plaza
95th St.-Ft.H'ton
Prospect Park
Franklin Av.
Franklin-Nassau
Nassau St.
Brighton Beach
57th St. Manh't'n
Kings Highway
Times Square
Coney Island
Bay Parkway
62nd St. Bklyn
City Hall
Ninth Av.

Downtown Brooklyn Trolley Map 1939-10/12/41

Source:  B.Linder, New York Division Bulletin, Vol. 21, No. 8,  August, 1978, pp.5-7.

A quick look at the attached map reveals that the track network was getting smaller and less complicated.  According to B. Linder, this was the result of, in the late 1930's to 1941 to:

1. Arranging that all cars on one line should go only to one terminal.
2. By this time, one five lines crossed the Brooklyn Bridge; in 1930, ten lines crossed the Brooklyn Bridge.
3. By June 16, 1941, the removal of the Fulton Street Elevated line resulted in many reroutes.
4. These four lines were motorized:  Fulton Street (Aug. 10, 1941), Gates Avenue (Oct. 5, 1941), Putnam Avenue (September 29, 1941), Third Avenue (March 1, 1942.