De Kalb Avenue (BMT Fourth Avenue Line) - History

History

The station has been reconfigured a number of times. The current configuration dates from a 1956–61 reconstruction project to straighten the platforms and eliminate a level junction north of the station that had caused a switching bottleneck. A station at Myrtle Avenue was closed as part of the renovation.

As originally configured, the extreme outside tracks in each direction hosted the Fourth Avenue Line local tracks and the next pair hosted the Brighton Line. The middle tracks, which bypassed the station, hosted the Fourth Avenue express tracks. A group of level crossovers at the northern end of the station allowed all tracks access to both sides of the Manhattan Bridge and to the Montague Street Tunnel.

Prior to the DeKalb Avenue track realignments in the late 1950s/early 1960s, the Fourth Avenue local tracks actually straight railed to the Manhattan Bridge. The alignment of the Brighton line tracks led into the present B2 tunnel track in the DeKalb Avenue station and the bypass. During the reconstruction, the Brighton tracks to the bypass were realigned directly into Dekalb and current A3 and A4 bridge tracks were added to the outside of the former subway infrastructure.

The current configuration was started in 1956 and completed in April 1961. (Detailed view of current track layout) All switches immediately north of the station were eliminated. The junction towards the Manhattan Bridge was rebuilt. To make room for a new flying junction, the Myrtle Avenue station was closed. That station's northbound platform remains visible from passing trains, but the southbound platform was demolished.

The Chrystie Street Connection project was also tied to this improvement, as it resulted in more trains using the bridge. Over the years, as more of the business community shifted to midtown, the slower tunnel route became less popular, and it is now the least used of the three northbound routing options.

An earlier plan called the Ashland Place Connection would have allowed trains on the elevated BMT Fulton Street Line to run into the subway through DeKalb Avenue, making the bottleneck even worse. This was not built, in part because the city was more interested in building its own system, the IND. However, a whole new subway was also planned, splitting from this line and heading under the East River to the BMT Broadway Line at City Hall. This plan was considered in various forms between late 1916 and 1926.

The DeKalb Avenue station was built with provisions for a possible track connection to Nevins Street (IRT Eastern Parkway Line); see that page for details.