The Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall/Chambers Street station is a New York City Subway station complex in Lower Manhattan. The complex is served by trains of the IRT Lexington Avenue Line and the BMT Nassau Street Line. The station is served by the 4, 6, and J trains at all times; the 5 train at all times except late nights; the <6> train during weekdays in the peak direction; and the Z train during rush hours in the peak direction. It is the southern terminal for all 6 trains.
The complex comprises two stations, Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall and Chambers Street. The Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall station was built for the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), and was an express station on the city's first subway line. The station opened on October 27, 1904, as one of the original 28 stations of the New York City Subway. The Chambers Street station was built for the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (later the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation, or BMT) as part of the Dual Contracts. The Nassau Street Line station opened on August 4, 1913. Over the years, several modifications have been made to both stations, which were connected within a single fare control area in 1948.
The Lexington Avenue Line's Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall station, under Centre Street, has two island platforms, two side platforms, and four tracks; the side platforms are not in use. The Nassau Street Line's Chambers Street station, under the Manhattan Municipal Building, has three island platforms, one side platform, and four tracks; only the outer tracks and two of the island platforms are in use. The complex contains elevators that make it compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
History The two adjacent stations on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line and BMT Nassau Street Line are connected by two passageways. The south one opened in 1914 and was placed inside fare control on July 1, 1948. A second passageway, at the north end of the stations, was opened in the evening of September 1, 1962, when the Lexington Avenue Line platforms were extended and the Worth Street station was closed. Originally, the stations were operated by separate companies: the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) and the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT). The city government took over the BMT's operations on June 1, 1940, and the IRT's operations on June 12, 1940. Both sections of the station complex were listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 2005.
IRT Lexington Avenue Line Construction and opening
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. It called for a subway line from New York City Hall in Lower Manhattan to the Upper West Side, where two branches would lead north into the Bronx. A plan was formally adopted in 1897, and all legal conflicts over the route alignment were resolved near the end of 1899. 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.
The Brooklyn Bridge station was constructed as part of the IRT's original line south of Great Jones Street. The Degnon-McLean Contracting Company was awarded the contract for Section 1, from the City Hall loop to Chambers Street, and the contract for Section 2, from Chambers Street to Great Jones Street. Work began on Section 1 on March 24, 1900, and work began on Section 2 on July 10, 1900. Initially, Parsons was unsure whether to connect the new subway to the existing Brooklyn Bridge, the under-construction Manhattan Bridge, or the newly-completed Williamsburg Bridge. As such, no plans had been drawn up for the eastern portion of the Brooklyn Bridge station or its approaches by early 1903, which caused delays in ordering steel.
By late 1903, the subway was nearly complete, but the IRT Powerhouse and the system's electrical substations were still under construction, delaying the system's opening. In addition, the Brooklyn Bridge station itself remained unfinished as late as February 1904. The Brooklyn Bridge station opened on October 27, 1904, as one of the original 28 stations of the New York City Subway from City Hall to 145th Street on the West Side Branch. The station's first-ever passenger was described by Newsday as an "anonymous middle-aged Brooklyn woman who picked up her skirt and raced down the rubber-covered stairs three at a time to beat out the rest of the crowd". Express trains were extended south on January 16, 1905, when a -long extension to Fulton Street opened.
1900s to 1920s The station was originally placed on a sharp curve, requiring the installation of platform gap fillers. Initially, the Brooklyn Bridge station was served by local and 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). West Side local trains had their southern terminus at City Hall during rush hours and South Ferry at other times, and had their northern terminus at 242nd Street. East Side local trains ran from City Hall to Lenox Avenue (145th Street). Express trains had their southern terminus at South Ferry or Atlantic Avenue and had their northern terminus at 242nd Street, Lenox Avenue (145th Street), or West Farms (180th Street). Express trains to 145th Street were later eliminated, and West Farms express trains and rush-hour Broadway express trains operated through to Brooklyn.
One of the station's entrances was closed in 1905 because the Rapid Transit Commission had not authorized the entrance's construction. As part of an experiment to improve the subway line's ventilation, the commission installed ventilation fans at the station in June 1905. Two large cooling fans were installed at the station the next month; this was later increased to four fans. The Rapid Transit Commission added a refrigeration plant to the station in August 1906. The plant consisted of four pumps at the northern end of the station, which could draw up to of groundwater; the water was then chilled and sent through ducts above the platforms.
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. At the Brooklyn Bridge station, the northbound island platform was extended north and south, while the southbound island platform was extended south, necessitating the relocation of some tracks. Six-car local trains began operating in October 1910. On January 23, 1911, ten-car express trains began running on the Lenox Avenue Line, and the next day, ten-car express trains were inaugurated on the West Side Line.
By 1914, city engineers had prepared plans for the construction of five additional entrances to the Brooklyn Bridge station: three to the street and two to nearby buildings. At that point, nearly two-fifths of commuters entered the station through a single entrance below the bridge. In 1918, the Lexington Avenue Line opened north of Grand Central–42nd Street, and the original line was divided into an H-shaped system. All trains were sent via the Lexington Avenue Line. In 1922, the Rapid Transit Commission awarded a contract to the Wagner Engineering Company for the installation of navigational signs at the Brooklyn Bridge station and several other major subway stations. The IRT platforms received blue-and-white signs.
1930s to 1960s The Transit Commission requested in 1938 that the IRT spend $70,000 () to add platform gap fillers to the northbound platform; the absence of gap fillers had resulted in passenger injuries 26 times in the preceding two years. The same year, as part of a remodeling of City Hall Park, city parks commissioner Robert Moses proposed removing two of the station's exit stairways and relocating two entrance stairs. With the closure of the City Hall station at the end of 1945, the Brooklyn Bridge station became the southernmost station for local services that formerly terminated at City Hall. As part of a reconstruction of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1951, the city planned to build a subway entrance just south of the bridge approach. The New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) also announced plans in 1956 to add fluorescent lights above the edges of the station's platforms. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the NYCTA undertook a $138 million (equivalent to $ in ) modernization project for the Lexington Avenue Line. As part of the modernization program, the NYCTA announced in early 1957 that the Brooklyn Bridge station would be extended about to the north and that the platforms would be widened and straightened to remove the need for gap fillers. At the time, the island platforms narrowed at their northern ends to , while the local side platforms could only accommodate four cars, resulting in delays. In addition, the express platforms could not accommodate 10-car trains because of the gap fillers at the southern end of the station. Since the northern end of the expanded station would be only about from the Worth Street station, the latter station was to be closed. The NYCTA allocated $6 million to the station's renovation in January 1959. Harold Sandifer of the NYCTA designed the renovation in conjunction with the planned redevelopment of the Civic Center neighborhood.
Work started on May 18, 1959. The project lengthened the platforms from to and widened them. The platforms were extended northward by to just south of Reade Street. In addition, a new exit was provided at Reade Street and Lafayette Street, and a new passageway under Reade Street was built connecting to the Chambers Street station on the BMT Nassau Street Line. At the center of the enlarged platforms, a new overpass was built, providing more direct access to the Municipal Building. The tile walls on the unused eastern side platform were completed in December 1959, and a signal tower, maintainers' rooms, relay rooms, and tile walls on the unused western side platform were completed in May 1960.
A temporary transfer passageway to the Chambers Street station opened in June 1961, while the old passageway was being demolished. The downtown platform's extension opened in 1961, and the uptown platform's extension opened on August 31, 1962. The overpass and the permanent passageway to the Chambers Street station opened in June 1963, and the platform extension project was substantially completed by the end of 1963. The old platform extensions at the southern end of the station, which were used for express service and had gap fillers, were abandoned. The project cost $6 million; it allowed trains on the 6 route to be lengthened to nine cars, and allowed ten-car express trains to open all doors at the station (previously, only the doors of eight cars had opened). Upon the completion of the renovation, the Brooklyn Bridge station was renamed Brooklyn Bridge–Worth Street.
1970s to present