Broadway Junction station

New York City Subway station in Brooklyn

The Broadway Junction station is a New York City Subway station complex shared by the elevated BMT Canarsie Line and BMT Jamaica Line, and the underground IND Fulton Street Line. It was also served by trains of the Fulton Street Elevated until that line closed in 1956. It is located roughly at the intersection of Broadway, Fulton Street and Van Sinderen Avenue at the border of Bedford–Stuyvesant and East New York, Brooklyn. The complex is served by the A, J, and L trains at all times; the C train at all times except late nights; and the Z train during rush hours in the peak direction only. The station is adjacent to the East New York Yard and a complex track junction between the tracks leading to the yard, the Canarsie Line, and the Jamaica Line. The structure of the elevated station still contains the ironwork for the trackways used by the old Fulton Elevated. The station has a single exit and entrance through a fare control building located at the eastern end of the Fulton Street Line station. There is evidence of closed exits from the Jamaica Line platforms. The station opened as Manhattan Junction as part of the BMT Lexington Avenue Line in 1885. In 1900, an elevated connection was made with the Fulton Street Elevated, resulting in a change in service patterns. Lexington Avenue and Fulton Street trains were through routed, going around the East New York Loop, with service to Cypress Hills requiring a transfer. The station started to be used by service to Canarsie in 1906. In 1919, the Manhattan Junction station was replaced by the current station which was then known as Eastern Parkway. The modern day Canarsie Line platforms, known as Broadway Junction, opened in 1928 when that line was connected to the 14th Street–Eastern District Line. The Independent Subway System's Fulton Street Line was extended to Broadway–East New York in 1946, and the three stations were combined as one station complex on July 1, 1948. The names of the stations in the complex were conformed to Broadway Junction in 2003. Although Broadway Junction ranked 166th in the system for passenger entries in 2016, with 3,085,401 total entries, it is Brooklyn's third busiest station in terms of passenger activity. It sees 100,000 passengers per day as of 2017, the vast majority of whom use it to make transfers. In 2017, the New York City Economic Development Corporation started studying options to rezone the surrounding area as a transit hub. TOC

The Broadway Junction station complex is shared by the elevated BMT Canarsie and BMT Jamaica Lines and the underground IND Fulton Street Line. Throughout the history of the area, this has been a key junction point between various different rail lines. What is now Broadway Junction sits atop the historical Jamaica Pass, the junction of the modern Broadway, Fulton Street, and Jamaica Avenue. The Pass is where these roads passed through the valleys of the area, which are part of the terminal moraine created by the Wisconsin glaciation.

The first rail service in the area was the Atlantic Branch of the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) at East New York station. The line opened as the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad in 1836, under lease to the LIRR, but did not include a station at East New York until early 1843. The Brooklyn and Rockaway Beach Railroad (the predecessor to the BMT Canarsie Line) began service in the area in 1865. The name Manhattan Junction or Manhattan Beach Junction was applied to the station on what is now the Jamaica Line when it opened in 1885; the area had been known as Manhattan Beach Crossing since before then, This connection, equipped with a third rail to supply electric power, was opened on August 9, 1900, and new service patterns were implemented: during times other than rush hours, Lexington Avenue and Fulton Street trains were through routed, and travel beyond Manhattan Junction required a transfer. This "East New York Loop" was unpopular, and was soon stopped; the next service to use the tracks was the BMT Canarsie Line to Broadway Ferry (later the 15 train), joined to the Fulton Street Line at Pitkin and Snediker Avenues in 1906. The name was changed from Manhattan Junction to Broadway Junction in 1913. The Dual Contracts were signed on March 19, 1913, between the City and the Interborough Rapid Transit Company and the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT). As part of the agreement, the BRT, which owned the elevated lines in Brooklyn, agreed to construct bidirectional express tracks on the Fulton and Broadway Elevateds. The Broadway express track was placed into service on December 23, 1916. The current Broadway Elevated station at Eastern Parkway opened on August 5, 1919, replacing the old Manhattan Junction station. The full BMT 14th Street Canarsie Line was completed on July 14, 1928, with the opening of the segment connecting Broadway Junction with Montrose Avenue. The Fulton Street Elevated was now redundant, and BMT service on the line closed entirely on April 26, 1956, with the eastern portion to Lefferts Boulevard connected to the IND. The New York City Board of Transportation announced plans in November 1949 to spend $325,000 extending platforms at several IND stations, including Broadway–East New York, to accommodate 11 car, 660 feet (201 m) trains. The lengthened trains began running during rush hour on September 8, 1953, with eleven car trains operating on weekdays. The project cost $400,000 and increased the total carrying capacity of rush hour trains by 4,000 passengers. The operation of eleven car trains ended in 1958 because of operational difficulties. The signal blocks, especially in Manhattan, were too short to accommodate the longer trains, and the motormen had a very small margin of error to properly align the train with the platform. It was found that operating ten car trains allowed for two additional trains per hour to be scheduled.

The entire complex was renovated from 1999 to 2001. The design bid for the project was awarded in May 1996. As part of the project, an abandoned mezzanine and adjacent staircases were removed, a new station booth was built and the public address system was improved. In 2001, as part of the work a piece of artwork made by Al Loving titled Brooklyn, New Morning was installed in the station. This piece of art consists of 75 unique glass panels arranged in a series throughout the complex and a mosaic mural wall that is This installation was part of MTA Arts & Design's program to install artwork in stations that undergo rehabilitations. Other necessary improvements were also completed as part of the project. For a long time, the stations within the complex went by three different names: the original Eastern Parkway on the BMT Jamaica Line, Broadway Junction on the BMT Canarsie Line, and Broadway–East New York (IND Fulton Street Line). Conformity between the station names was established in 2003. As part of a project initiated in 2017 in which 200 blocks of land in East New York were rezoned for housing and improvements to area parks and schools were planned, the New York City Economic Development Corporation initiated a study to foster economic growth around Broadway Junction as a transit hub with residential and commercial uses. In addition, the city government would spend $95 million to build pedestrian plazas around the station.

The fare control area is in the station house, with a token booth and turnstile banks. The structure was built along with the IND station. The station house leads to Van Sinderen Avenue between Fulton Street to the south, and Truxton Street and Broadway to the north. This is the only entrance to the entire complex. The station house is adjacent to Callahan Kelly Playground, and is recessed a short distance west from Van Sinderen Avenue.

The Broadway Junction station on the BMT Canarsie Line, served by the train at all times, has two tracks, one island platform and one side platform. Manhattan bound trains use the island platform for northbound service while Canarsie bound trains use the side platform for southbound service, similar to the configuration of the Bowling Green station on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line. However, unlike Bowling Green, the southbound trains can use the island platform if necessary. The station is between Bushwick Avenue–Aberdeen Street to the north and Atlantic Avenue to the south. The old style platform lights were removed and replaced with light fixtures that curve upward and split into two lights, widely seen elsewhere in the system. In March 2018, in preparation for the L train shutdown, the MTA announced that it would be installing two extra staircases to the BMT Canarsie Line platforms; at the time, there was only one passageway to each platform.

The Broadway Junction station is an express station on the BMT Jamaica Line that has three tracks and two island platforms. The ironwork for the old Fulton Elevated trackways can be seen under this portion of the complex from the platforms. Two staircases from each platform lead to the upper mezzanine of the complex.

Manhattan Junction was the original name for the Fulton Street Elevated platforms. It was located above Fulton and Sackman Streets, and was the second station to be built in the area of Broadway Junction. The station was built by the Kings County Elevated Railway on July 4, 1889. Manhattan Junction station had an island platform and two tracks, with a spur leading to the East New York Yard, as well as a side platform on the north side of the station that turned north along the East New York Loop, and ended on the south side of the BMT Jamaica Line platforms. In 1938, the Independent Subway System began constructing their own Fulton Street Subway and added an underground subway station named Broadway–East New York station. Stations west of this point were being made obsolete as many were being replaced by the subway stations. The subway station opened in December 1946, and the elevated station above it closed on April 26, 1956, along with all other stations east of Rockaway Avenue. The ironwork for the old Fulton Elevated trackways can still be found over Fulton Street between Van Sinderen Avenue and Williams Place, and can be seen under this portion of the complex from the Canarsie Line platforms. The severed connection between the station and the East New York Yard can also be seen below the Canarsie Line and above the north side of Fulton Street.

In 2016, the station had 3,085,401 boardings, making it the 166th most used station in the 422 station system. This amounted to an average of 9,189 passengers per weekday. In 2017, The New York Times wrote that 100,000 daily passengers used the station per day, meaning that the vast majority of passengers used the station to make transfers to other routes. By 2019, annual ridership had declined to 2,759,349 boardings, making Broadway Junction the 177th most used station in the station system. This amounted to an average of 7,813 passengers per weekday. Due to the COVID 19 pandemic in New York City, ridership dropped drastically in 2020, with only 1,292,868 passengers entering the station that year.