The Street railway journal (1894) (14572233357)

The Street railway journal (1894) (14572291938)

The Atlantic Avenue Railroad was a company in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

of New York, with a main line connecting

downtown Brooklyn Downtown Brooklyn is the third largest central business district in New York City after Midtown Manhattan and Lower Manhattan), and is located in the northwestern section of the borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is known for its office and r ...

with

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

along Atlantic Avenue. It was largely a

streetcar A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport a ...

company that operated its own trains, but the Long Island Rail Road operated both streetcars and

steam train A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

s over its main line. It later became part of the

Nassau Electric Railroad The Nassau Electric Railroad was an electric street railway company in the U.S. state of New York. The company operated throughout the borough of Brooklyn, as well as over the Brooklyn Bridge and Williamsburg Bridge into Manhattan. The company wa ...

, but is now divided between the active

Atlantic Branch The Atlantic Branch is an electrified rail line owned and operated by the Long Island Rail Road in the U.S. state of New York. It is the only LIRR line with revenue passenger service in the borough of Brooklyn. The line consists of two sectio ...

of the LIRR and the unused

Cobble Hill Tunnel The Cobble Hill Tunnel (also known as the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel) is an abandoned Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) tunnel beneath Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, New York City, running through the neighborhoods of Downtown Brooklyn and Cobble Hill. ...

, which is preserved in its original state, albeit without service tracks.

History

The Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad was the first railroad on Long Island, incorporated on April 25, 1832, to build from the

East River The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary in New York City. The waterway, which is actually not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates the borough of Quee ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. The Long Island Rail Road was chartered in 1834 to extend the line east to Greenport. When the Brooklyn and Jamaica was completed on April 18, 1836, its line was operated by the LIRR under lease. The original line ran from South Ferry on the Brooklyn waterfront east to a depot at the current 158th Street in Jamaica, with a ferry connection to lower Manhattan at South Ferry.Arrt's Arrchives, Brooklyn & Jamaica Rail Road, Atlantic Avenue Railroad 2
/ref> The Brooklyn Central Railroad was incorporated on August 31, 1859, to take over the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad, then operated by the Long Island Rail Road as a

steam-powered A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be tr ...

line, for a horse car service once the LIRR completed their new line to Long Island City. This happened soon after the LIRR was authorized to abandon service through the

to South Ferry in Brooklyn in exchange for ending steam power in the Brooklyn city limits. , March 2005 Edition The city authorized them on June 6 to lay tracks on Atlantic Avenue west of Boerum Place (where the Brooklyn and Jamaica passed through the Cobble Hill Tunnel); east of there, they would use the Brooklyn and Jamaica trackage. They were also granted on November 28, 1859, the right to build along Furman Street, the waterfront street from Atlantic Avenue north to Old Fulton Street, connecting the South Ferry (Atlantic Avenue) to the Wall Street Ferry (Montague Street) and Fulton Ferry (Old Fulton Street). The Brooklyn Central Railroad and Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad merged on August 8, 1860 , May 2004 Edition to form the Brooklyn Central and Jamaica Railroad. The company also opened a line from Atlantic Avenue south on

Flatbush Avenue Flatbush Avenue is a major avenue in the New York City Borough of Brooklyn. It runs from the Manhattan Bridge south-southeastward to Jamaica Bay, where it joins the Marine Parkway–Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge, which connects Brooklyn to the R ...

and Fifth Avenue to 37th Street at Greenwood, with a branch east along Third Street to the city line.Henry Stiles
A History of the City of Brooklyn, Volume 3: Part II, Rail Roads and Plank Roads
1867 The LIRR ended steam service on Atlantic Avenue on September 30, 1861. , May 2004 Edition The Atlantic Avenue line became the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railway in 1866 and the Atlantic Avenue Railroad in 1872.Felix Reifschneider

, 1925, reprinted winter 2001 in ''The Third Rail'' The

remained empty and unused (despite several

urban legend An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...

s about illegal use) until its rediscovery in 1981.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Atlantic Avenue Railroad Predecessors of the Long Island Rail Road Defunct New York (state) railroads Streetcar lines in Brooklyn Streetcar lines in Queens, New York Predecessors of the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation Railway companies established in 1872 Railway companies disestablished in 1899 American companies established in 1872