Dean Street station

Dean Street was a New York City Subway station on the BMT Franklin Avenue Line. Located on Dean Street west of Franklin Avenue in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, it was serviced by the Franklin Avenue Shuttle. The Dean Street station had the unusual distinction of being opened and closed twice in its history (along with the South Ferry loop station), though the line it served continues in operation.

Dean Street
Former New York City Subway station
Looking at the northeast corner of the bridge over Dean Street where the former BMT Franklin Avenue Line station was located. The shorter lamp is the only remnant of Dean Street still standing.
Station statistics
Address	Dean Street & Franklin Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11238
Borough	Brooklyn
Locale	Bedford-Stuyvesant
Coordinates	40.6778°N 73.9565°W
Division	B (BMT)
Line	BMT Franklin Avenue Line
Services	None (demolished)
Structure	Elevated
Platforms	2 side platforms
Tracks	2 while open, 1 at location today
Other information
Opened	Initial: August 15, 1896 Reopening: October 28, 1901[1]
Closed	First closing: c. 1899[2] Final closing: September 10, 1995[3]
Station code	140[4]
Former/other names	Bergen Street
Station succession
Next north	Franklin Avenue
Next south	Park Place
Location
Street map

History

The Kings County Elevated Railway was connected to the Brighton Beach Line in 1896 by means of a ramp and short elevated line from a point south of the latter railroad's terminal at Atlantic and Franklin Avenues in Brooklyn.[5][6] The local property owners were promised a station on the elevated structure near the old Bedford Terminal, and one was established by 1897 at Dean Street, nearly adjacent to the former terminal, which was closed. The station was not well patronized and the elevated company closed it c. 1899.[2] An uproar ensued, including appeals to the State Railroad Commission. By November 1899, one John Costello of Brooklyn had filed a complaint with the New York State Board of Railroad Commissioners.[7] On October 28, 1901, Dean Street was opened for the second time.[1]

The station continued to be poorly patronized, as it was only a few hundred feet from the Franklin Avenue station, which was located at the busy intersection of Fulton Street and Franklin Avenue. Nevertheless, Dean Street was upgraded to handle six-car subway trains with the rest of the Franklin Avenue Line in 1924.

However, through the 1970s and 1980s, the Dean Street station deteriorated with other stations on the line. In 1985, the station had only 133 paying daily riders (i.e., not counting farebeaters) on a typical weekday, making it one of the least used stations in the system.[8] In 1995, the New York City Transit Authority closed the station permanently as part of service cuts.[9] The TA cited low patronage (the lowest on the subway system), its decrepit condition, and its proximity to Franklin Avenue station. At the time of its closing, Dean Street and Franklin Avenue were the two closest stations on the system, located just three blocks from each other at their closest points. It was charged that many who used Dean Street station jumped over the turnstiles, a major problem at the time, lowering the passenger count even further.[3]

Remnants

The line that once served the Dean Street station, the BMT Franklin Avenue Line, still operates as the Franklin Avenue Shuttle. The elevated portion of the line was completely rebuilt in the late 1990s, reopening in 1999. Nothing visible remains of the former station, except for an oddly placed lamppost at street level.[10][11]

References

1. "Dean Street Station Opened". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. October 28, 1901. Retrieved November 5, 2015 – via Brooklyn Public Library; newspapers.com.
2. According to a 1901 report, the Brighton Beach Railroad had applied for abandonment of the Dean Street station:
   • Board of Railroad Commissioners of the State of New York (1901). Annual Report. Weed, Parsons and Company. p. 754. Retrieved April 3, 2018.
3. Perez-Pena, Richard (September 11, 1995). "A Subway Station Is Shuttered, the First in 33 Years". The New York Times. Retrieved March 21, 2010.
4. "Station Developers' Information". Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Retrieved June 13, 2017.
5. "New Route to Coney Island". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Brooklyn, NY. August 14, 1896. p. 12.
6. "First Trains to Brighton". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Brooklyn, NY. August 14, 1896. p. 7.
7. Board of Railroad Commissioners of the State of New York (1901). Annual Report. p. 40. Retrieved April 3, 2018.
8. Levine, Richard (November 5, 1986). "COLUMN ONE: TRANSPORT". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 2, 2016.
9. Perez-Pena, Richard (February 25, 1995). "BOARD VOTES CUTS FOR CITY TRANSIT". The New York Times. Retrieved May 16, 2018.
10. Google (December 5, 2018). "Lamppost on Google Maps Street View" (Map). Google Maps. Google. Retrieved December 5, 2018. (The lamppost on the right is shorter than the one on the left, and was used to illuminate a former stairway to the station.)
11. "The lore of the Franklin Avenue Shuttle". Forgotten New York. October 1, 1998. Today, virtually nothing remains of the old Dean Street station, with the exception of the unusual placement of a streetlamp over the sidewalk on Dean Street west of Franklin. The streetlamp illuminated the bottom of the staircase leading from the old elevated platform.

External links

• nycsubway.org – BMT Franklin: Dean Street