The Park Row station was a major

elevated railway An elevated railway or elevated train (also known as an el train or el for short) is a railway with the Track (rail transport), tracks above street level on a viaduct or other elevated structure (usually constructed from steel, cast iron, concre ...

terminal constructed on the

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

side of the

Brooklyn Bridge The Brooklyn Bridge is a cable-stayed suspension bridge in New York City, spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East River. It w ...

, across from

New York City Hall New York City Hall is the Government of New York City, seat of New York City government, located at the center of City Hall Park in the Civic Center, Manhattan, Civic Center area of Lower Manhattan, between Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway, Park R ...

and the IRT's elevated City Hall station. It served as the terminal for

BMT BMT or bmt may refer to: Medicine * Bone marrow transplantation, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation Science and technology * 5-hydroxyfuranocoumarin 5-O-methyltransferase, an enzyme * Bangladesh Meteorological Department, the national ...

services operating over the Brooklyn Bridge Elevated Line from the

BMT Fulton Street Line The Fulton Street Line, also called the Fulton Street Elevated or Kings County Line, was an elevated rail line mostly in Brooklyn, New York City, United States. It ran above Fulton Street (Brooklyn), Fulton Street from Fulton Ferry, Brooklyn, in ...

BMT Myrtle Avenue Line The Myrtle Avenue Line, also called the Myrtle Avenue Elevated, is a fully elevated railroad, elevated line of the New York City Subway as part of the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation, BMT division. The line is the last surviving remnan ...

, and their feeders. Until the opening of the nearby

Williamsburg Bridge The Williamsburg Bridge is a suspension bridge across the East River in New York City, connecting the Lower East Side of Manhattan with the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. Originally known as the East River Bridge, the Williamsburg Brid ...

to elevated train traffic in 1913, it was the only Manhattan station available for elevated trains from Brooklyn and the only elevated station in Manhattan to be owned by a company other than the

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or its predecessors.

Early history

For the first fifteen years of its existence, it was used exclusively by trains of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge Railway, a cable-hauled line that spanned the length of the bridge between Park Row and another terminal at the Brooklyn end of the bridge. On June 18, 1898, elevated trains of predecessor companies of the

began using the station during off-peak hours, while the cable-hauled shuttle continued to run at rush hours. Traffic at the station peaked in 1907, during what was known as the "Brooklyn Bridge crush", and additional stairways from the street to the terminal station were built. On January 27, 1908, the shuttle was eliminated and elevated trains began running to Park Row at all times.Cudahy, Brian (2002)
How We Got to Coney Island: The Development of Mass Transportation in Brooklyn and Kings County
Fordham University Press. p. 168. At its height, Park Row Terminal had four platforms on four tracks in the main part of the terminal, and another three platforms on two tracks beyond (west of) the main train shed. This resulted in very complex scheduling and track shifting, so that most trains discharged their passengers at dedicated exit platforms and then were transferred to tracks on other platforms for loading of outgoing passengers.

Services

From 1898 until 1913, the following lines were hosted at least part-time at Park Row: *From Fulton Street Line ( Kings County Elevated Railway) ** Fulton Street Line ** Brighton Beach Line via Fulton Street Line from Franklin Avenue. *From Myrtle Avenue Line (Brooklyn Union Elevated Railway) ** Myrtle Avenue Line ** Lexington Avenue Line (Brooklyn) via Myrtle Avenue Line from Grand Avenue ** Fifth Avenue Line via Myrtle Avenue Line from Navy Street ** Culver Line via Myrtle Avenue Line and Fifth Avenue Line from 36th Street and 5th Avenue, Brooklyn via 9th Avenue lower level. ** West End Line via Myrtle Avenue Line and Fifth Avenue Line from 36th Street and 5th Avenue, Brooklyn via 9th Avenue upper level. ** Third Avenue–Bay Ridge Line via Myrtle Avenue Line and Fifth Avenue Line from 36th Street and 5th Avenue, Brooklyn (cars often attached to end of Culver trains during non-rush hours) ** Sea Beach Line via Myrtle Avenue Line, Fifth Avenue Line, and West End Line from Bath Junction (cars often attached to end of West End trains during slack times)

Gradual decline

As new bridges and new subways took the pressure off the Brooklyn Bridge services, ridership at Park Row gradually declined. In 1913, BMT built the nearby Chambers Street subway station below the yet to be completed

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, although nine years earlier IRT had built the Brooklyn Bridge subway station at Center Street and Park Row. October 27, 1913, was the last day of Sea Beach elevated service, in preparation for the new grade-separated line that began to use the

BMT Fourth Avenue Line The BMT Fourth Avenue Line is a rapid transit line of the New York City Subway, mainly running under Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn. The line is served by the D, N, and R at all times; the R typically runs local, while the D and N run express dur ...

on June 22, 1915. On June 23, 1916, West End trains began using the Fourth Avenue subway exclusively. This was followed by the withdrawal of Brighton Beach service on August 1, 1920, when Brighton Beach trains began using a new connection to the

BMT Broadway Line The BMT Broadway Line is a rapid transit line of the B Division (New York City Subway), 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 ...

subway, severing its connection with the Fulton Street Line. On May 30, 1931, some Culver trains were rerouted to the Fourth Avenue subway and the

BMT Nassau Street Line The BMT Nassau Street Line is a rapid transit line of the B Division of the New York City Subway system in Manhattan. At its northern end, the line is a westward continuation of the BMT Jamaica Line in Brooklyn after the Jamaica Line crosses ...

when the latter line opened. In 1936, Park Row was reconfigured to two tracks total (the two southern main shed tracks) due to declining use and to simplify operations. On May 31, 1940, in preparation for the

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takeover of the

system, the Fifth Avenue and Bay Ridge lines and services were abandoned, which also ended remaining Culver elevated service via those lines. The main line of the Fulton Street line was abandoned at the same time and, on June 1, a new service, Fulton–Lex, was introduced, bringing trains from the surviving outer portion of the Fulton Street Line to Park Row over the Broadway, Lexington and Myrtle Avenue Lines. On March 5, 1944, all remaining elevated lines stopped using Park Row, and the Myrtle Avenue, Lexington Avenue, and Fulton–Lex services were cut back to the Bridge Street station in

downtown Brooklyn Downtown Brooklyn is the third-largest central business district in New York City (after Midtown Manhattan, Midtown and Lower Manhattan), and is located in the northwestern section of the borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. The neighb ...

streetcar A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include s ...

s were shifted to the elevated tracks and used them until 1950, when all public transit was removed from the bridge. The streetcars did not use the Park Row terminal, but continued to use the trolley loops beneath the train shed, which was torn down.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Park Row (Bmt Station) Brooklyn Bridge Defunct Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation stations Former elevated and subway stations in Manhattan 1883 establishments in New York (state) 1950 disestablishments in New York (state) Railway stations in the United States opened in 1883 Railway stations in the United States closed in 1950