The Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center station (formerly Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street station) is a major New York City Subway station complex shared by the BMT Fourth Avenue Line, the BMT Brighton Line and the IRT Eastern Parkway Line. Named after Atlantic Avenue and the Barclays Center arena, it is located at Fourth and Flatbush Avenues' intersections with Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street in Brooklyn. The complex is served by the 2, 4, D, N, Q and R trains at all times; the 3 train at all times except late nights; the 5 and B trains on weekdays during the day; and a few rush-hour W trains.
The Eastern Parkway Line platforms at Atlantic Avenue were built for the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) as a terminal station on the city's first subway line, which opened on May 1, 1908. The Fourth Avenue Line platforms of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT; later Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation or BMT) opened in 1915 as the Pacific Street station. As part of the Dual Contracts, the Brighton Line platform at Atlantic Avenue opened in 1920, and the Eastern Parkway Line platforms were modified to accommodate local and express service. There was also a station on the elevated Fifth Avenue Line at Atlantic Avenue, which operated from 1888 to 1940 and was not connected to the subway complex. Several modifications have been made to the complex over the years, and all three stations were connected to each other within fare control by 1978. The complex was renovated in the early 2000s. The control house has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1980, while the Brighton Line and Eastern Parkway Line stations have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 2004.
The Eastern Parkway Line station under Flatbush Avenue has two side platforms, one island platform, and four tracks, while the parallel Brighton Line station has one island platform and two tracks. The Fourth Avenue Line station, running to the west under Fourth Avenue, has two island platforms and four tracks. The platforms are connected to each other and to the Long Island Rail Road's (LIRR) Atlantic Terminal by several passageways. Numerous elevators make the complex compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). The station also has connections to nearby buildings such as the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower and the Atlantic Terminal shopping mall. As of 2023, it is the busiest subway station in Brooklyn and the 20th busiest station in the system, with nearly 10 million passengers.
History Original subway
Construction
Planning for a subway line in New York City dates to 1864. However, development of what would become the city's first subway line did not start until 1894, when the New York State Legislature passed the Rapid Transit Act. The subway plans were drawn up by a team of engineers led by William Barclay Parsons, the Rapid Transit Commission's chief engineer. The Rapid Transit Construction Company, organized by John B. McDonald and funded by August Belmont Jr., signed the initial Contract 1 with the Rapid Transit Commission in February 1900, in which it would construct the subway and maintain a 50-year operating lease from the opening of the line. In 1901, the firm of Heins & LaFarge was hired to design the underground stations. Belmont incorporated the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) in April 1902 to operate the subway.
Several days after Contract 1 was signed, the Board of Rapid Transit Railroad Commissioners instructed Parsons to evaluate the feasibility of extending the subway south to South Ferry, and then to Brooklyn. On January 24, 1901, the Board adopted a route that would extend the subway from City Hall to the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR)'s Flatbush Avenue terminal station (now known as Atlantic Terminal) in Brooklyn, via the Joralemon Street Tunnel under the East River. Contract 2, which gave the IRT a 35-year lease, was executed between the commission and the Rapid Transit Construction Company on September 11, 1902. Work under Fulton Street and Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn commenced in April 1904. The IRT line in Brooklyn had been proposed as a two-track line under Fulton Street, expanding to three tracks under Flatbush Avenue. Belmont submitted a revised proposal to the Rapid Transit Commission in April 1905 to widen the line to four tracks.
Opening The Joralemon Street Tunnel opened in January 1908 between Lower Manhattan and a temporary terminus at Borough Hall, the first underground subway station in Brooklyn. The line was to extend three more stops to Atlantic Avenue; this extension was nearly complete by March, except for the Atlantic Avenue station. The extension opened on May 1, 1908; the first train, an express from Manhattan, left Bowling Green at 1:02 a.m. and entered Atlantic Avenue sixteen minutes later. The extension's opening was marked with a parade and a poem praising Belmont. According to The New York Times, the extension was "regarded as of the utmost importance" because it connected the IRT with the LIRR for the first time. The extension relieved congestion at the overcrowded Borough Hall station; trains from Atlantic Avenue were already crowded by the time they reached Borough Hall.
The Atlantic Avenue station originally had two tracks, with one island platform and two side platforms in a Spanish solution arrangement. Initially, the station was served by express trains along both the West Side (now the Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line to Van Cortlandt Park–242nd Street) and East Side (now the Lenox Avenue Line). Lenox local trains to 145th Street served the station during late nights. The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT) extended its streetcar lines to the Atlantic Avenue station when the IRT extension opened. The LIRR and IRT also held discussions on the feasibility of running LIRR trains onto the IRT tracks to the Bronx, but this was not done because the LIRR did not have enough rolling stock.
To address overcrowding, in 1909, the New York Public Service Commission proposed lengthening the platforms at stations along the original IRT subway. As part of a modification to the IRT's construction contracts made on January 18, 1910, the company was to lengthen station platforms to accommodate ten-car express and six-car local trains. In addition to $1.5 million (equivalent to $ million in ) spent on platform lengthening, $500,000 (equivalent to $ million in ) was spent on building additional entrances and exits. It was anticipated that these improvements would increase capacity by 25 percent. The island platform at the Atlantic Avenue station on the modern Eastern Parkway Line was extended to the east. On January 23 and 24, 1911, ten-car express trains began running.
Dual Contracts expansion
After the original IRT opened, the city began planning new lines. As early as 1903, Parsons had proposed constructing a four-track extension of the IRT line under Flatbush Avenue, running southeast from Atlantic Avenue to Grand Army Plaza; from there, two branches would have extended south to Flatbush and east to Brownsville. This plan did not progress for a decade due to various disputes over the original subway. Nonetheless, the Atlantic Avenue station was never intended as the permanent terminus of the line, and various proposals for extensions and spurs were put forth. In 1908, the IRT unsuccessfully proposed a two-track subway line across the Manhattan Bridge to Canal Street in Manhattan; this line would have used the outer tracks at the Atlantic Avenue and Nevins Street stations, then diverged from the original line to cross the Manhattan Bridge.
Fourth Avenue Line
The New York City Board of Estimate approved the construction of the Fourth Avenue Line, a subway line running under Fourth Avenue, in early 1908. Contracts for the Fourth Avenue Line were awarded on May 22, 1908, for the section between 43rd Street and the Manhattan Bridge, but the Board of Estimate did not approve them until October 29, 1909, when a taxpayer's lawsuit regarding the city's debt was settled. Groundbreaking for the first section of the subway, between DeKalb Avenue and 43rd Street (ending at 36th Street), took place on November 13, 1909, at DeKalb Avenue and Flatbush Avenue, after the plans and surveys for the line were completed. The Fourth Avenue Line was assigned to the BRT (after 1923, the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation or BMT) in the Dual Contracts, a series of contracts for the construction, rehabilitation, and operation of rapid transit lines in New York City, which were adopted on March 4, 1913.
William Bradley built the portion of the line from the intersection of Fulton Street and Ashland Place to the intersection of Fourth Avenue and Sackett Street, including the Pacific Street station. This section passed under the existing IRT subway and required the relocation of a sewer. Because of the presence of the sewer, the section under Flatbush Avenue was built in two pieces; the eastern part of the tunnel was built first, followed by the western part. The president of the IRT wrote a letter to the Public Service Commission, complaining that the Fourth Avenue Line's construction was damaging the IRT station at Atlantic Avenue. The South Brooklyn Board of Trade proposed in 1910 to change the Pacific Street station from an express stop to a local stop, as well as changing the Ninth Street and DeKalb Avenue stations from local to express stops, but this was not done. By January 1912, the tunnel containing the Pacific Street station had been completed, and contractors were installing station finishes. D. C. Serber received a contract to install the station finish along the northbound local track, as well as various other station finishes, in early June 1915.
The Pacific Street station opened on June 22, 1915, as part of an extension of the subway to Coney Island, which included the Fourth Avenue Line north of 59th Street as well as the entire Sea Beach Line. The station's opening was marked with a competition between two trains heading from Chambers Street station in Manhattan to the Coney Island station, one heading via the West End Line and the other via the Sea Beach Line; the latter got to Coney Island first. As an express station, the Pacific Street station was originally long to accommodate eight-car trains. Workers also built a passageway from the Fourth Avenue Line's Pacific Street station to the IRT's Atlantic Avenue station, which was completed by late 1915. The tunnel was not opened along with the rest of the Fourth Avenue Line station, since the IRT and BRT could not reach an agreement on splitting maintenance costs. Following pressure from Public Service Commissioner Travis H. Whitney, the two companies opened the passageway on October 4, 1916, while they worked out an agreement.
Brighton Line and Eastern Parkway Line extension Two lines under Flatbush Avenue, one each operated by the BRT and IRT, were also approved as part of the Dual Contracts. The IRT was authorized to extend its Brooklyn line under Flatbush Avenue, with a four-track route paralleling the BRT's subway southeast of the existing Atlantic Avenue station. The BRT route, an extension of the Brighton Line, was to run under Flatbush Avenue and St. Felix Street in Downtown Brooklyn, with a station at Atlantic Avenue. This station would connect not only with the original IRT and the LIRR, but also with the Fourth Avenue Line station at Pacific Street. The BRT route was originally planned as a four-track line. Groundbreaking for the lines under Flatbush Avenue took place in May 1914, by which point the BRT line was reduced to two tracks. The Cranford Company was contracted to build two sections of the Flatbush Avenue tunnel, extending from Fulton Street to Grand Army Plaza, in mid-1914.