Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center station


Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center is a New York City Subway station complex shared by the BMT Fourth Avenue Line, the BMT Brighton Line and the IRT Eastern Parkway Line, located at Atlantic, Fourth, and Flatbush Avenues and Pacific Street in Downtown Brooklyn. The complex is served by the:
With nine subway services, this station complex is second to the Times Square–42nd Street/Port Authority Bus Terminal station in offering the most transfers to other services.
As of 2017, it is the busiest subway station in Brooklyn, with 13,571,093 passengers, and is ranked 21st overall. The control house has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1980, while the station complex as a whole has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 2004, and is ADA-compliant.

History

The IRT Eastern Parkway Line station was built first, in 1908, the terminal of a four-stop subway extension from Lower Manhattan to Downtown Brooklyn via the Joralemon Street Tunnel. The station's control house, a grand, ornate entrance to what was then the terminal of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company's Brooklyn lines, was designed by Heins & LaFarge, who also built the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights, Manhattan. This control house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980; however, the actual entrance is now removed and now serves as a skylight into the IRT station.
During the 1964–1965 fiscal year, the Brighton Line platforms at Atlantic Avenue, along with those at six other stations on the Brighton Line, were lengthened to 615 feet to accommodate a ten-car train of 60-foot IND cars, or a nine-car train of 67-foot BMT cars.
The station was overhauled in the late 1970s. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority fixed the station's structure and overhauled its appearance. It refurbished the wall tilings and replaced the old signs and incandescent lighting with modern fixtures. It also fixed the staircases and platform edges. On January 16, 1978, the ex-IRT and ex-BMT stations were connected into a single station complex, eliminating a "double fare" that formerly was required to transfer between the Atlantic Ave. IRT/BMT platforms and the Fourth Ave. BMT side of the station.
The station complex underwent another major overhaul from 1999 to 2003, using funds from the 1987 capital program; the $49 million in funding from that program had been delayed in 1994 due to the MTA's budget issues. This time the station received state of the art repairs and was updated for ADA-accessibility, with the installation of eight elevators in the station, as well as the widening or construction of fifteen staircases. The MTA repaired the staircases, re-tiled the walls and floors, upgraded the station's lights and the public address system, installed ADA yellow safety threads along the platform edge, installed new trackbeds for local and express trains entering the IRT station, and widened the 100-year-old passageways between the stations. An escalator was replaced at Hanson Place, the kiosk on Times Plaza was rehabilitated, and a new station entrance was added at Hanson Place. To achieve this, the entire IRT station had to be supported by large crossbeams hanging from the roof of the station box, a construction technique that had never been used previously; the station was also supported by conventional columns from below. The entire feat raised the subway infrastructure under Flatbush Avenue, as well as the avenue itself, by less than an inch while the passageways were widened from. In 2004, the entire station was made a NRHP landmark. Late that year, the MTA installed elevators on both sides of the platform and street level to accommodate wheelchairs and those with disabilities.
In June 2009, the MTA sold the naming rights of the station complex to Forest City Ratner Companies for 20 years at $200,000 per year, one of the few such renames in the system. Barclays Center, whose naming rights were bought by Barclays Bank, opened September 2012 and is part of Forest City Ratner Companies' Pacific Park project. As a result, the station was renamed to its present name, Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center, in May 2012. A new mezzanine and fare control area was built near the sports complex. Following this rename and the addition of a new exit, the MTA has considered selling the naming rights of other subway stations.

Station layout

The station consists of three levels. The shallowest below ground, the IRT Eastern Parkway Line platforms, is at the same level as the LIRR's Atlantic Terminal railway platforms and are only below street level. The second level below ground is the BMT Fourth Avenue Line platforms, which are deep and have a mezzanine, and a connecting passageway to the IRT Eastern Parkway Line and BMT Brighton Line, above the platforms. The deepest is the BMT Brighton Line platform, which are deep and have a mezzanine above them, which serves both the Brighton Line platform and the Eastern Parkway Line platforms.

Exits

To the Fourth Avenue portion of the complex:
To the Eastern Parkway/Brighton portion of the complex:
The Eastern Parkway Line platforms had an underpass with exits to the north and south sides of Flatbush Avenue between Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street. The exit to the north side was replaced with a larger single entrance near Barclays Center and sealed. The exit to the south side was retained as an emergency exit.

IRT Eastern Parkway Line platforms

Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center is an express station on the IRT Eastern Parkway Line which has four tracks, one island platform, and two side platforms. On the center platform, there are two old indicator signs which mark the next train, formerly used for non-rush hour short turn trains. An old style sign to the Brooklyn Academy of Music also exists. The trackway to the Long Island Rail Road Atlantic Branch is still visible at the north end of the northbound local track, although much of it is behind corrugated wall; more information about this and other unused trackways is at Bergen Street. The LIRR Atlantic Terminal platforms, slightly lower, are clearly visible through floor-to-ceiling railings.
This station has been completely renovated. The northbound local trackway and track have been completely redone with concrete base and welded rail.
The IRT Eastern Parkway Line platform has a passageway to the BMT Fourth Avenue and Brighton Lines under the platforms, with the Fourth Avenue Line to the southwest and the Brighton Line to the northeast. Another passageway between the Eastern Parkway and Brighton Line is present at the south end of the station, which also leads to an exit immediately adjacent to Barclays Center. The Barclays Center exit features a part-time booth that is staffed during events at the arena and two escalators.
Although the station is wheelchair accessible, the Eastern Parkway Line express platform was formerly too narrow in some areas to accommodate wheelchairs. Passengers were notified of this fact by announcements on trains before reaching the station. The stairs have since been trimmed in width to allow full wheelchair access.
North of this station, there is an unused trackway, splitting from the southbound local track for a proposed subway under Fourth Avenue. It merges with the Manhattan-bound express track and ends on a bumper block between the two express tracks at Nevins Street. When this station originally opened in 1908 it was the terminal for the line, and had two side platforms, an island platform, and two tracks. All the platforms were connected together at their southern ends.
This station is one of three express stations to have side platforms for local services and a center island platform for express services, the other two being the 34th Street–Penn Station stops on the IND Eighth Avenue Line and the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line respectively. The reason for this is that the Atlantic Avenue station was originally planned as a two-track station with only the island platform; the side platforms were added to the plans when construction was already underway. However, this layout helps to reduce overcrowding because the station is connected to Atlantic Terminal, and the next station west from Atlantic Avenue, Nevins Street, is also an express station with the more common two-island-platform configuration. This limits overcrowding by preventing cross-platform interchanges between local and express services.

BMT Fourth Avenue Line platforms

Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center is an express station on the BMT Fourth Avenue Line that has four tracks and two island platforms. It opened on June 22, 1915. A wall separates the two platforms.
At the north end of the BMT Fourth Avenue platforms, two staircases and one elevator go up to the main fare control area, where a turnstile bank provides access to/from the station and two staircases going up to either northern corners of Pacific Street and Fourth Avenue. The northeast corner also has an elevator going down to the mezzanine. A pathway connects to the rest of the complex.

BMT Brighton Line platform

Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center on the BMT Brighton Line has two tracks and an island platform.
The platform has seven staircases, three to the main mezzanine, two to the Hanson Place exit at the north end, which is an escalator that leads to a separate mezzanine with no transfers to the other lines and two at the south end, which leads to both an exit immediately adjacent to Barclays Center and another mezzanine that connects to the IRT platforms. The Barclays Center exit features a part-time booth that is staffed during events at the arena and two escalators.
The street staircase on the Hanson Place mezzanine leads to the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower. The exit at Hanson Place once had a booth that has since been removed. The lower level of this mezzanine had a passageway, now sealed, that ran above the platform from Hanson Place. The "To Hanson Place" and other signs are covered up. This area is now space used by MTA employees with the entrance at the other side.
The main mezzanine also has an out-of-system passageway to the LIRR's Atlantic Terminal and the full-time fare control at the IRT side of the station. Two of the street staircases lead to the Atlantic Terminal Mall. Lightboxes with rotating content line these walls. There is a removed staircase in between the two sets of stairs. The northernmost staircase was added during renovation, while the other two staircases were narrowed in order to comply with ADA guidelines regarding minimum 36-inch width clearances.
A platform extension is clearly visible at the south end of the platform, where the name tablets and "A" are authentic replicas on the northbound platform wall, while the southbound wall was tiled around them. The area on the southbound wall where the platform extends out is made of replicas as well. Since there were no mosaics built, only a green wall was present prior to renovation, which indicates where the platform was extended in the 1964–1965 to fit ten car trains.
North of this station, a bellmouth is visible from a Manhattan-bound train. The bellmouth was for the proposed Ashland Place Connection which would have connected to the now-demolished BMT Fulton Street El.

BMT Fifth Avenue Line station

The station complex formerly had an elevated portion on the BMT Fifth Avenue Line, called Atlantic Avenue. It was served by trains of the BMT Culver Line and BMT Fifth Avenue Line and had two tracks and one island platform. It was located at Flatbush Avenue and Atlantic Avenue, right above the headhouse for the current complex. It also served the St. Johns Place Line, Flatbush Avenue Line, Third Avenue Line, and Seventh Avenue Line streetcars.
On June 25, 1923 two cars of a train coming from 65th Street Terminal derailed and fell towards Flatbush Avenue. Eight passengers died and many were injured. With increased use of the subways compared to the elevated lines, and the completion of the unification of the city's three subway systems, the Fifth Avenue Line was closed at midnight on June 1, 1940, and was demolished in 1941.

Gallery

Hook, Line and Sinker

This is a three-part art installation made by George Trakas for the 2004 renovation of the station.