Franklin Avenue station (Fulton Street)

For other uses, see Franklin Avenue Station.

The Franklin Avenue station is a station complex shared by the BMT Franklin Avenue Line and the IND Fulton Street Line of the New York City Subway, located at Franklin Avenue and Fulton Street in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. It is served by the:

• Franklin Avenue Shuttle at all times
• C train at all times except late nights
• A train during late nights

Franklin Avenue  ​
New York City Subway station complex
Entrance on south side of Fulton Street
Station statistics
Address	Franklin Avenue & Fulton Street Brooklyn, New York
Borough	Brooklyn
Locale	Bedford–Stuyvesant
Coordinates	40.681126°N 73.955712°W / 40.681126; -73.955712
Division	B (BMT/IND)[1]
Line	BMT Franklin Avenue Line IND Fulton Street Line
Services	A  (late nights) ​   C  (all except late nights)​    S  (all times)
Transit	NYCT Bus: B25, B48, B49
Levels	2
Other information
Opened	October 18, 1999; 24 years ago (1999-10-18)[2]
Accessible	ADA-accessible
Traffic
2023	1,210,340[3]  11.5%
Rank	256 out of 423[3]
Location Show map of New York City Subway Show map of New York City Show map of New York
Street map
Station service legend Symbol Description Stops all times except late nights Stops all times Stops late nights only

Station layout

2F	Side platform
	Westbound	← toward Prospect Park (Park Place) →(Demolished: Dean Street)
1F	Crossover	Connection to eastbound Fulton Street trains
G	Street level	Station house, exit/entrance
B	North mezzanine	Fare control
	Side platform
	Westbound local	← toward 168th Street (Clinton–Washington Avenues) ← toward Inwood–207th Street late nights (Clinton–Washington Avenues)
	Westbound express	← does not stop here
	Eastbound express	→ does not stop here →
	Eastbound local	→ toward Euclid Avenue (Nostrand Avenue) → → toward Far Rockaway–Mott Avenue late nights (Nostrand Avenue) →
	Side platform
	South mezzanine	Fare control

BMT Franklin Avenue Line platform

Franklin Avenue
New York City Subway station (rapid transit)
Two-car train of R68s terminating at Franklin Avenue
Station statistics
Division	B (BMT)[1]
Line	BMT Franklin Avenue Line
Services	S  (all times)
Structure	Elevated
Platforms	1 side platform
Tracks	1
Other information
Opened	August 15, 1896; 128 years ago (1896-08-15)[4][5]
Rebuilt	1924; 100 years ago (1924) (Dual Contracts) October 18, 1999; 24 years ago (1999-10-18) (shuttle refurbishment)
Opposite- direction transfer	N/A
Former/other names	Franklin Avenue–Fulton Street
Services Preceding station New York City Subway Following station Terminus Franklin Avenue Park Place toward Prospect Park
Non-revenue services and lines Preceding station New York City Subway Following station Terminus no service Dean Street demolished
Track layout Legend Bidirectional track to Park Place
Station service legend Symbol Description Stops all times

The Franklin Avenue station on the BMT Franklin Avenue Line has one track and one side platform. It is the northern terminal of the Franklin Avenue Shuttle.

History

This elevated station opened on August 15, 1896, to connect with the adjacent Franklin Avenue station of the Fulton Street Elevated (see § BMT Fulton Street Line platforms). It was a replacement for the August 18, 1878-built Bedford Terminal station originally built by the Brooklyn, Flatbush and Coney Island Railway.^[6] It was a two-track through station with side platforms. Just before the Fulton Street Line station, steam railroad trains from the Fulton Street Line turned south onto the BMT Brighton Line to access Brighton Beach. The station also had a connection with the Franklin Avenue Line streetcars,^[6] as well as Fulton Street Line streetcars.

In 1920, the track connection to the Fulton Street Line was severed as Brighton Line trains to Downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan were rerouted via a new tunnel under Flatbush Avenue. In 1924, the station was rebuilt as a single-track station. The former westbound (now northbound) track was decked over with a wood platform to accommodate crowds transferring between the Fulton Street and Franklin Avenue Lines. The station platforms were also extended south to accommodate longer trains. Originally accommodated for five elevated BU cars for a length of ~250 ft (~76 m), they were now able to hold six subway-type AB Standard cars for a length of ~402 feet (~123 m).

The next stop to the south was Dean Street but only for Brighton Line trains. The next stop to the west was Grand Avenue. When the BMT system was taken over by the City of New York on June 1, 1940, the Fulton Street Elevated Line was closed and later demolished while paper transfers were issued at Franklin Avenue for passengers to access the new IND Fulton Street Line subway.

In 1985, the station had only 210 paying daily riders on a typical weekday in 1985 not counting farebeaters, making it one of the least used stations in the system.^[7]

Rehabilitation

Platform awaiting shuttle train

This station was completely rebuilt between 1998 and 1999^[6][8] as a single-track station with a single platform on the west side of the track.^[9] The new platform is only 180 feet (55 metres) long and can accommodate a train of two 75 ft (23 m)-long cars, or three 60 ft (18 m)-long cars. The track ends at a bumper block at the north end of the platform.^[9]

The 1999 artwork here is called Life and Continued Growth by Eric Pryor. It consists of stained glass panels on the top of the entranceway to the shuttle platform.

Exit

At the north end of the platform is the station's main station house, a three-story building on the southwest corner of Fulton Street and Franklin Avenue that connects to both platforms of Franklin Avenue on the IND Fulton Street Line.^[10] One up-only escalator and one long staircase go down to the fare control area at ground level, where one staircase goes down to the southbound IND platform and one turnstile bank provides access to/from the station. A set of doors then lead out to the streets after the token booth.^[11]

The shuttle platform has another short staircase that goes down to a mesh-enclosed bridge above Fulton Street. On the other end is an elevator and one staircase going down to the northbound IND platform. A second elevator from the shuttle platform goes down to the overpass, main fare control area, and the southbound IND platform. These two elevators make the entire station complex ADA-accessible.^[11]

IND Fulton Street Line platforms

Franklin Avenue
New York City Subway station (rapid transit)
Southbound R32 C train leaving the station
Station statistics
Division	B (IND)[1]
Line	IND Fulton Street Line
Services	A  (late nights) ​   C  (all except late nights)
Structure	Underground
Platforms	2 side platforms
Tracks	4
Other information
Opened	April 9, 1936; 88 years ago (1936-04-09)[12]
Accessible	ADA-accessible
Opposite- direction transfer	Yes
Services Preceding station New York City Subway Following station Clinton–Washington Avenues A  ​C  toward 168th Street Local Nostrand Avenue A  ​C  toward Euclid Avenue
Track layout Legend to Clinton–Washington Avs to Nostrand Avenue
Station service legend Symbol Description Stops all times except late nights Stops late nights only

The Franklin Avenue station is an underground local station on the IND Fulton Street Line.

History

The Franklin Avenue station was constructed as part of the IND Fulton Street Line, the main line of the city-owned Independent Subway System (IND)'s main line from Downtown Brooklyn to southern Queens.^[13] The groundbreaking for the line was held on April 16, 1929, at Fulton Street and Arlington Place.^[14] This station opened on April 9, 1936, as part of an extension of the Independent Subway System (IND) from its previous Brooklyn terminus at Jay Street–Borough Hall, which opened three years earlier, to Rockaway Avenue.^[12] The new IND subway replaced the BMT Fulton Street Elevated, and this station replaced its namesake Franklin Avenue, which closed on May 31, 1940.^[15]

When Aretha Franklin died on August 16, 2018, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority pasted sticker signs with the word "Respect" on the walls of the Franklin Avenue station, as well as the Franklin Street station in Manhattan.^[16][17] A Brooklyn resident had suggested adding the signs after impromptu tributes to Franklin had arisen at these two stations.^[17]

Station layout

Opened on April 9, 1936,^[12] it has four tracks and two side platforms. The two center express tracks are used by the A train during daytime hours.^[9]

Both platforms have a light green trim line with a dark green border and small "FRANKLIN" tile captions below them in white lettering on a black background. The mosaic name tablets read "FRANKLIN AVE." in white sans-serif font on dark green background and light green border. Directional signs pointing to fare control are underneath some of them. Both platforms are entirely column-less.

Prior to introduction of the MetroCard, the Euclid Avenue-bound platform had a same-level fare control and a paper bus-style transfer was handed out at either IND fare control areas (the only place in the subway where this was still being done) for access to the shuttle station only. After the MetroCard was introduced, a paper MetroCard transfer was issued from a machine that resembled a bus farebox. These transfers were good for 20 minutes and were discontinued after construction of the in-system transfer.^{[clarification needed]}

Exits

Fare control areas are at the extreme east (railroad south) end of the platforms. On the Manhattan-bound side, there is an unstaffed turnstile bank and one staircase going up to the northeast corner of Franklin Avenue and Fulton Street. Inside fare control, one staircase and one elevator go up to the overpass above Fulton Street that connects to the shuttle platform. On the Euclid Avenue-bound platform, a staircase goes up to the main station house, where a connection to the Franklin Avenue Shuttle is available.^[10] An elevator from the platform goes up to the shuttle platform with intermediate stops at the main station house and overpass.^[11]

Directional signs obscured with paint, along with newly tiled rooms, point to evidence of a closed exits on the west (railroad north) end of the station, which went to both eastern corners of Classon Avenue and Fulton Street.^[18] These exits were closed in the 1980s.^[18] The exit to the Manhattan-bound platform is blocked by a trapdoor, while the exit to the eastbound platform is completely sealed.

BMT Fulton Street Line platforms

Franklin Avenue
Former New York City Subway station
Station statistics
Division	B (BMT)[1]
Line	BMT Fulton Street Line (formerly)
Services	None
Structure	Elevated
Platforms	1 side platform, 1 island platform
Tracks	3 tracks
Other information
Opened	April 24, 1888; 136 years ago (1888-04-24)
Closed	June 1, 1940; 84 years ago (1940-06-01)
Station succession
Next west	Grand Avenue
Next east	Nostrand Avenue
Station service legend Symbol Description Stops in station at all times Stops all times except late nights Stops late nights only Stops late nights and weekends only Stops weekdays during the day Stops weekends during the day Stops all times except rush hours in the peak direction Stops all times except weekdays in the peak direction Stops all times except nights and rush hours in the peak direction Stops rush hours only Stops rush hours in the peak direction only Station is closed (Details about time periods)

This original elevated station at this intersection opened on April 24, 1888, along the demolished BMT Fulton Street Line. It was originally built by the Kings County Elevated Railway, and was not only one of the original stations along the line, but the penultimate station, until it was extended to Albany and Sumner Avenues the next month, Rockaway Avenue by the end of the year, Van Siclen Avenue in 1889, Montauk Avenue in 1892, and Grant Avenue in 1894. In 1896, the Brooklyn and Brighton Beach Railroad connected the former BF&CI line to the station. It was a two-track through station with side platforms, gaining a third track along the south side at the point where steam railroad trains from the Fulton Street Line turned onto the BMT Brighton Line to access Brighton Beach. The southern platform was shared with the northbound Brighton Line platform, with the different sections of the platform located at right angles. As with the Franklin Street platforms, the station also had a connection with the Franklin Avenue Line streetcars.^[6]

When the extension of the Montague Street Tunnel under Flatbush Avenue rerouted Brighton Line trains to Downtown Brooklyn in 1920, the track connection to the BMT Franklin and Brighton Lines were severed.^[19] The connection to the now Franklin Avenue Shuttle was rebuilt in 1924 as a single-track station. The former westbound (now northbound) track was decked over with a wood platform to accommodate crowds transferring between the Fulton Street and Franklin Avenue Lines.

The next stop to the east was Nostrand Avenue. The next stop to the west was Grand Avenue. When the BMT system was taken over by the City of New York on June 1, 1940, the Fulton Street Elevated Line was closed^[20] and later demolished as the IND Fulton Avenue Subway station built four years earlier was used as a replacement.^[12] The portion of the Fulton Street Elevated line beneath the Franklin Avenue shuttle platforms remained standing until the reconstruction project of 1998 and 1999.^[21]

References

1. "Glossary". Second Avenue Subway Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement (SDEIS) (PDF). Vol. 1. Metropolitan Transportation Authority. March 4, 2003. pp. 1–2. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 26, 2021. Retrieved January 1, 2021.
2. Lueck, Thomas J. (October 18, 1999). "Subway Shuttle Gets $74 Million Makeover". The New York Times. p. B3.
3. "Annual Subway Ridership (2018–2023)". Metropolitan Transportation Authority. 2023. Retrieved April 20, 2024.
4. "New Route to Coney Island". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Brooklyn, New York. August 14, 1896. p. 12.
5. "First Trains to Brighton". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Brooklyn, New York. August 14, 1896. p. 7.
6. "The lore of the FRANKLIN AVENUE SHUTTLE - Forgotten New York". forgotten-ny.com. October 4, 1998. Retrieved July 21, 2016.
7. Levine, Richard (November 5, 1986). "COLUMN ONE: TRANSPORT". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 2, 2016.
8. Blair, Jayson (July 25, 1998). "18-Month Renovation for Brooklyn Shuttle". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 21, 2016.
9. Dougherty, Peter (2006) [2002]. Tracks of the New York City Subway 2006 (3rd ed.). Dougherty. OCLC 49777633 – via Google Books.
10. "MTA Neighborhood Maps: Bedford-Stuyvesant" (PDF). Metropolitan Transportation Authority. 2016. Retrieved July 5, 2016.
11. "Accessible Stations in the MTA Network". web.mta.info. Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Retrieved November 29, 2016.
12. "NEW SUBWAY LINK OPENED BY MAYOR; He Tells 15,000 in Brooklyn It Will Be Extended to Queens When Red Tape Is Cut". The New York Times. April 9, 1936. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved August 15, 2016.
13. Duffus, R.L. (September 22, 1929). "Our Great Subway Network Spreads Wider; New Plans of Board of Transportation Involve the Building of More Than One Hundred Miles of Additional Rapid Transit Routes for New York" (PDF). The New York Times. Retrieved August 19, 2015.
14. "New Fulton Street Subway Officially Started as Byrne Turns Earth; Ground is Broken For Subway Line Along Fulton St.; Byrne Turns First Spade of Arlington Pl. Earth as Merchants Applaud". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. April 17, 1929. p. 4. Retrieved August 28, 2016 – via Newspapers.com.
15. "Last Train is Run on Fulton St. 'El'". The New York Times. June 1, 1940. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 7, 2020.
16. Marcus, Lilit (September 3, 2018). "Aretha Franklin gets respect at 2 NYC subway stations". CNN. Retrieved December 9, 2021.
17. Yakas, Ben (September 4, 2018). "MTA Adds Aretha Franklin 'Respect' Tributes To Franklin Avenue & Franklin Street Subway Stations". Gothamist. Retrieved December 9, 2021.
18. "Review of the A and C Lines" (PDF). Metropolitan Transportation Authority. December 11, 2015. Retrieved January 19, 2016.
19. "Montague Street Tube, Brighton Subway Operation Begun". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. August 1, 1920. p. 53. Retrieved May 3, 2018 – via Brooklyn Public Library; newspapers.com.
20. "Fulton Street 'L' Was Last Word In Progreess at '88 opening". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. May 31, 1940. Retrieved February 19, 2016 – via Newspapers.com.
21. ""The New Franklin Avenue Shuttle," by Douglas Diamond (The Third Rail Online)". Archived from the original on September 26, 2015. Retrieved September 26, 2015.

External links

NYC Subway.org:

• nycsubway.org – BMT Franklin: Franklin Avenue
• nycsubway.org – IND Fulton: Franklin Avenue
• nycsubway.org — Life and Continued Growth Artwork by Eric Pryor (1999)

Station Reporter:

• Station Reporter — C Train
• Station Reporter — Franklin Shuttle
• Station Reporter — Fulton Elevated

Other:

• The Subway Nut - Franklin Avenue Pictures
• MTA's Arts For Transit — Franklin Avenue

Google Maps Street View:

• Franklin Avenue entrance to Manhattan bound Fulton Street Line
• Franklin Avenue entrance to Rockaway bound Fulton Street Line and Shuttle
• Overpass
• BMT platform
• IND platforms