Flatbush Avenue – Brooklyn College (IRT Nostrand Avenue Line)

Flatbush Avenue – Brooklyn College
New York City Subway rapid transit station

Looking down the platform
Station statistics
Address Flatbush Avenue & Nostrand Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11210
Borough Brooklyn
Locale Flatbush
Coordinates 40°37′56.5″N 73°56′50.95″W / 40.632361°N 73.9474861°W / 40.632361; -73.9474861Coordinates: 40°37′56.5″N 73°56′50.95″W / 40.632361°N 73.9474861°W / 40.632361; -73.9474861
Division A (IRT)
Line IRT Nostrand Avenue Line
Services       2  (all times)
      5  (weekdays until 8:45 p.m.)
Transit connections NYCT Bus: B6, B11, B41, B44, B44 SBS
MTA Bus: B103, BM2, Q35
Structure Underground
Platforms 2 side platforms
Tracks 2
Other information
Opened August 23, 1920 (1920-08-23)
Accessible
Traffic
Passengers (2015) 6,487,608[1]Increase 0.6%
Rank 68 out of 422
Station succession
Next north Newkirk Avenue: 2  5 
Next south (Terminal): 2  5 


Next north Church Avenue: 2  5 
Next south none: 2  5 

Flatbush Avenue – Brooklyn College is the southern terminal station on the IRT Nostrand Avenue Line of the New York City Subway. It is located at the intersection of Flatbush and Nostrand Avenues in Flatbush, Brooklyn, locally called "The Junction".[2] Served by the 2 train at all times and the 5 train on weekdays, it is also the closest subway station to Brooklyn College and Midwood High School.

History

Station tilework

This underground station, opened on August 23, 1920,[3] is the only "dead-end" terminal station in the subway system that does not have an island platform. It was built with two side platforms and two tracks to allow for a planned, but not carried out extension of the IRT Nostrand Avenue Line south towards Voorhies Avenue in Sheepshead Bay.[4] In various plans discussed over the years, the IRT Nostrand Avenue Line would be extended along Flatbush Avenue to Avenue U, or along Nostrand Avenue to Voorhies Avenue.[5][6] 21st Street – Queensbridge on the IND 63rd Street Line was also built like this before being connected to the IND Queens Boulevard Line in December 2001.[7]

In 1968, and again in 1989, the MTA gave consideration to extending the Nostrand Avenue Line approximately 1,000 feet (300 m) beyond the station to provide room for turnaround facilities to eliminate the operational restrictions caused by the current layout.[8]

The station was renovated in the late 1990s, when it received its elevator and kept its platform directional signs. The 1920s-style "Flatbush Avenue" name tablets, containing red backgrounds with blue borders, were restored on both platforms. The top and bottom of the platform walls contain a blue solid line with a colorful border trim. This results in a tiling scheme with blue tiles that create a wavy pattern that comes farther up whenever there is a "F" for "Flatbush" in the station's trimline.[9]

Station layout

G Street Level Exits / Entrances
P
Platform level
East Mezzanine Fare control, station agent
(Elevator at SE corner of Flatbush Avenue and Nostrand Avenue)
Side platform, doors will open on the left [note 1]
Track 3 toward Wakefield – 241st Street (Newkirk Avenue)
Track 2 toward Wakefield – 241st Street all times except rush hours and middays (Newkirk Avenue)
toward Nereid Avenue rush hours, Eastchester – Dyre Avenue weekdays until 8:45 p.m. (Newkirk Avenue)
Side platform, doors will open on the right [note 1]
West Mezzanine Fare control
Station sign showing which trains depart from which tracks.

The platforms are connected at the south end just past the bumper blocks (forming a "U" shape), mitigating what is otherwise an inefficient terminal design, in which passengers must know which track a train is departing from before going to one of the two platforms.[5] At this end, there is an unstaffed exit containing two HEET turnstiles and one exit-only turnstile. The single staircase here goes up to the west side of Nostrand Avenue north of Avenue H. The station's main entrance is on the Track 3 (eastern) platform.[9] Street stairs from either eastern corners of Nostrand and Flatbush Avenues lead to where the full-time token booth and two separate banks of turnstiles are. The single elevator from street level down to fare control is at the southeast corner. There is another entrance on the platform of Track 2 (west side). This entrance has two sets of street stairs adjacent to each other at the northwest corner of Flatbush Avenue and Nostrand Avenue. The token booth and turnstile bank are open weekdays only. A single HEET turnstile provides access to this entrance other times.

Although 2 and 5 trains will both arrive on either platform, on weekdays when 5 trains serve the station, all Manhattan-bound 2 trains depart from Track 3, and all Manhattan-bound 5 trains depart from Track 2. When the 5 does not serve the station, 2 trains depart from both tracks. Depending on the schedule, and the actual order that trains arrive in, a train that arrives as a 2 train may depart as a 5 train, and vice-versa. At all three entrances beyond fare control, train arrival message boards indicate which train is the next to depart from the station.

The station platforms have a lot of doors for various non-public uses, including crew quarters. A 2 train crew office is on the Track 3 side, and a 5 train crew office is on the Track 2 side. There are public restrooms along Track 3 just within the station's main entrance. The columns separating the two tracks are painted light-blue.[9]

The 1996 cast bronze relief artwork here is called Flatbush Floogies by Muriel Castanis.[4][9]

Exits

Station entrances on northwest corner of Flatbush Avenue & Nostrand Avenue

Track 3 (eastern platform) and Track 2 (western platform) are connected at the southern end of the station, so all exits technically serve both platforms.

Exit location Exit type Number of exits Platform served
NE corner of Nostrand Avenue and Flatbush Avenue Staircase 2 Track 3
SE corner of Nostrand Avenue and Flatbush Avenue Staircase 2 Track 3
Elevator 1 Track 3
NW corner of Nostrand Avenue and Flatbush Avenue Staircase 2 Track 2
NW corner of Nostrand Avenue and Avenue H Staircase 1 Both tracks

Notes

  1. 1 2 For arriving trains.

References

  1. "Facts and Figures: Annual Subway Ridership". Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Retrieved 2016-04-19.
  2. Blau, Reuven (September 30, 2013). "Proposal to widen traffic lanes would be a decongestant for clogged Flatbush Ave. passage". NY Daily News. Retrieved May 12, 2014. ...and at the major Nostrand Ave. intersection [with Flatbush Avenue], known as the Junction...
  3. "Brooklyn Tube Extensions Open: I.R.T. Begins Service on Eastern Parkway and Nostrand Avenue Lines". New York Times. August 23, 1920. Retrieved 2010-02-28.
  4. 1 2 "Station: Flatbush Avenue (IRT Brooklyn Line)". nycsubway.org. Retrieved September 17, 2012.
  5. 1 2 "Full text of "Metropolitan transportation, a program for action. Report to Nelson A. Rockefeller, Governor of New York."". Internet Archive. November 7, 1967. Retrieved October 1, 2015.
  6. "1968 NYCTA Expansion Plans (Picture)". Second Avenue Sagas. Retrieved December 2013.
  7. The Subway Nut — 21st Street – Queensbridge Pictures
  8. Feinman, Mark S. "The New York Transit Authority in the 1980s". nycsubway.org. Retrieved September 16, 2012.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Cox, Jeremiah (July 29, 2009). "Flatbush Avenue (2,5) - The SubwayNut". subwaynut.com. Retrieved September 17, 2012.

External links

U-shaped connection between the two sides of the station
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