The Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) was an urban transit

holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...

, based in

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 ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, and incorporated in 1923. The system was sold to the city in 1940. Today, together with the IND subway system, it forms the

B Division B Division, Division B, or variant may refer to: * ''B Division'' (New York City Subway) * ''B Division'' (Irish League), association football * ''Division B'' (Scottish Football League) * ''Divizia B'' (Romanian Football League) * Moldovan "B ...

of the modern New York City Subway. The original BMT routes currently form the , , , , , and trains, as well as the

Franklin Avenue Shuttle The Franklin Avenue Shuttle is a New York City Subway shuttle service operating in Brooklyn. The shuttle service uses the BMT Franklin Avenue Line exclusively. The north terminus is Franklin Avenue, with a transfer available to the IND Fulton ...

, with the IND , , and using BMT trackage in Brooklyn. The train enters the IND via the Chrystie Street Connection after crossing the

Williamsburg Bridge The Williamsburg Bridge is a suspension bridge in New York City across the East River connecting the Lower East Side of Manhattan at Delancey Street with the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn at Broadway near the Brooklyn-Queens Expressw ...

, the , along with some rush-hour trains enter the IND from the BMT 63rd Street Line and the train enters the IND via the 60th Street Tunnel Connection. The train supplements the in the peak direction during rush hours only. Prior to city ownership, the BMT services were designed with numbers, and the current letter scheme was developed as a continuation of the IND nomenclature as the IND and BMT systems were integrated.

History

Company years

The Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation took over the assets of the

Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT) was a public transit holding company formed in 1896 to acquire and consolidate railway lines in Brooklyn and Queens, New York City, United States. It was a prominent corporation and industry leader using ...

in 1923 following the previous company's bankruptcy. Like its predecessor it controlled subsidiaries which operated the great majority of the

rapid transit Rapid transit or mass rapid transit (MRT), also known as heavy rail or metro, is a type of high-capacity public transport generally found in urban areas. A rapid transit system that primarily or traditionally runs below the surface may be ...

and

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 ...

lines in

with extensions into

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

and

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. One of these, New York Rapid Transit Corporation operated the elevated and subway lines. In 1923, their president, Gerhard Melvin Dahl, published a document called "Transit Truths" to explain the issues the company faced. In it he complained that the company had "met with the bitter, personal and unfair opposition of Mayor Hylan." In a separate letter to Hylan he said: "For seven years, you have been misleading and fooling the people in this community… For seven years, you have blocked every effort at transit relief. You, and only you, are to blame for the present…deplorable condition of the whole transit situation. You have used the transit situation as a political escalator". In the late 1930s, the BMT was pressed by the City administration of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia to sell its operations to the City, which wanted to have all subway and elevated lines municipally owned and operated. The City had two powerful incentives to coerce the sale: * the BMT was forced by provisions of the

Dual Contracts The Dual Contracts, also known as the Dual Subway System, were contracts for the construction and/or rehabilitation and operation of rapid transit lines in the City of New York. The contracts were signed on March 19, 1913, by the Interborough Ra ...

to charge no more than a five-cent fare, an amount set in 1913, before the

inflation In economics, inflation is an increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reduct ...

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. * the City had the right of “recapture” of those lines that had been built or improved with City participation under those ''Dual Contracts''. This meant that, if the City forced the issue, the BMT could have been left with a fragmented system and City competition in many of its market areas. The BMT sold all of its transit operations to the City on June 1, 1940.

Afterward

After World War II the city-built IND subway took over parts of the former BMT, starting in 1954 with the extension of the D train from its terminal at Church Avenue via a new connection with the former BMT Culver line at Ditmas Avenue. From 1954 the three remaining Culver stations between Ninth Avenue and Ditmas Avenue were used by the Culver Shuttle. The service was discontinued in 1975 because of budget cuts and was later demolished. The 60th Street Tunnel Connection between the IND Queens Boulevard Line and

BMT Broadway Line The BMT Broadway Line is a rapid transit line of the B Division of the New York City Subway in Manhattan. , it is served by four services, all colored : the on the express tracks and the on the local tracks during weekdays (the N and Q train ...

opened in December 1955. This new route was used by the BMT Brighton local, which formerly ran to Astoria, for service to Forest Hills along with the IND GG local. The next year saw the new extension of the IND Fulton Street Line ( train) in Brooklyn connected to the rebuilt section of the former BMT Fulton Street elevated at 80th Street in Queens in April 1956. The portion of the BMT Fulton Street El running west of 80th Street to Rockaway Avenue was demolished afterward. The late 1950s and early 1960s saw the biggest project of that era with the building of the Chrystie Street Connection, and the IND Sixth Avenue express tracks. This project connected the IND Sixth Avenue services to the BMT services that ran over the

and

s. Express services were directly connected to the Manhattan Bridge, and local services could use either the Williamsburg Bridge or the existing Rutgers Street Tunnel. Both connections opened in November 1967 and created the largest re-routing of train services in the history of the NYCTA. The BMT West End and Brighton Lines became served primarily by IND services as a result. From 1967, some IND Sixth Avenue trains called and later K, used the Chrystie Street Connection to the BMT Jamaica Line over the Williamsburg Bridge. That connection was discontinued due to budget cuts in 1976. In 1988, the BMT Archer Avenue Line was opened, connecting to what was then the east end of the BMT Jamaica Line. Two stations— Sutphin Boulevard–Archer Avenue–JFK Airport and Jamaica Center–Parsons/Archer—were added. In 1989, the BMT 63rd Street Line opened as an extension of the express tracks of the BMT Broadway Line, connecting to the IND 63rd Street Line at Lexington Avenue–63rd Street station. A connection from the Broadway/63rd Street Lines to the IND Second Avenue Line opened in 2017. In June 2010, as a result of more budget cuts, the Chrystie Street Connection was put back into revenue service use for service.

Operation

The BMT operated

(subway and elevated lines) through the New York Rapid Transit Corporation and

surface transit A surface, as the term is most generally used, is the outermost or uppermost layer of a physical object or space. It is the portion or region of the object that can first be perceived by an observer using the senses of sight and touch, and is ...

(

s and

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

es) through the Brooklyn and Queens Transit Corporation. The BMT was a national leader in the transit industry, and was a proponent of advanced urban railways, participating in development of advanced streetcar designs, including the PCC car, whose design and advanced components influenced railcar design worldwide for decades. The company also sought to extend the art of rapid transit car design with such innovations as ''articulated (multi-jointed-body) cars'', lightweight equipment, advanced control systems, and shared components with streetcar fleets. Unlike the

Interborough Rapid Transit Company The Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) was the private operator of New York City's original underground subway line that opened in 1904, as well as earlier elevated railways and additional rapid transit lines in New York City. The IRT ...

(IRT), the other private operator of subways in New York City, the BMT remained solvent throughout the Great Depression and showed a profit, albeit small in its last year, until the very end of its transit operations.

Surviving BMT Equipment

Several pre-unification BMT equipment have been preserved in various museums. While some of the equipment are operational, others are in need of restoration or are used simply as static displays. * BU cars 197, 659, 1227, 1273, 1349, 1362, 1365, 1404 and 1407 have been preserved. Cars 197, 659, 1227, 1349 and 1362 are located at the Shore Line Trolley Museum. Car 1365 is on static display at the St. Louis Museum of Transportation. Cars 1273, 1404 and 1407 are operational at the

New York Transit Museum The New York Transit Museum (also called the NYC Transit Museum) is a museum that displays historical artifacts of the New York City Subway, bus, and commuter rail systems in the greater New York City metropolitan region. The main museum is lo ...

. * BMT Elevated Instruction car 999 is preserved at the Shore Line Trolley Museum. * Q-type cars 1602A and 1612C have been preserved. Car 1602A survives at the Trolley Museum of New York, while car 1612C survives at the

. * AB Standards 2204, 2390, 2391, 2392 and 2775 have been preserved. Cars 2204 is located at the

, 2390, 2391 and 2392 are preserved by the Railway Preservation Corp, and car 2775 is preserved at the Shore Line Trolley Museum. * D-type Triplex sets 6019, 6095, and 6112 have been preserved by the

References

External links

Article about BMT rapid transit car designs
in ''The Third Rail'' by ''Paul Matus''
History site including articles about the BMT

Site dedicated to the history of the BMT

Early Rapid Transit in Brooklyn, 1878-1913
nycsubway.org * Maps: ** Interactive map of New York streetcar network *
BMT map
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brooklyn Manhattan Transit Corporation Defunct public transport operators in the United States Defunct New York (state) railroads History of the New York City Subway 1923 establishments in New York City 1940 disestablishments in New York (state)