8 Avenue
8 Avenue is the first stop on the Sea Beach Line after the line leaves the 4th Avenue subway and the R train. The station has two side platforms for the four-track ROW, although only 1 of the 2 Express tracks exists. The station is in a much wider right-of-way, compared to most other Sea Beach Line stations. This is because the right-of-way is shared with the Bay Ridge Branch, a freight branch that crosses under the station and Sea Beach line tracks from South to North, under the western half of the station’s platforms. Trees run along the sides of the gentle embankment sides that slope down towards the subway platforms. This means each platform has a more conventional canopy structure (like a regular elevated station) with narrow green support beams running along each platform, and modern cream and green windscreens. The station before its renovation had corrugated metal windscreens.
The station currently has two exits. The main exit is at the eastern end of the platforms, here a staircase leads up from Coney Island-bound platform along with a staircase and elevator that opened in November 2019) to the Manhattan-bound platform lead up to a short elevated passageway to doors that lead inside a small and restored station house. Inside the station house are turnstiles and the station’s token booth before doors lead out to the east side of 8 Avenue on its bridge across the Railroad ROW. An ADA elevator to provide access to and from the Coney Island-bound platform is still under construction, it was delayed and more funding had to be secured after the plans to were originally made to build ramps instead of elevators for ADA access late in the station reconstruction design process.
The station exit at the western end of the platforms was closed for many years, with the staircases up to it on each platform sitting boarded up and abandoned. In February 2019, this exit was reopened. This station house is located above the end of the Manhattan-bound platform, there is a staircase directly down to this platform plus a pedestrian bridge that leads across the subway tracks to a staircase down to the Coney Island-bound platform. The station house is unstaffed and leads out to a pedestrian plaza leading back to the east side of 7 Avenue, just across from where a section of 62 Street ends at a T-intersection at 7 Avenue, 62 Street resumes as a street starting at 8 Avenue, now south of the Sea Beach Line instead of north of it, across from the southern side of the other station house.
The station was renovated and rebuilt between 2016 through 2019 and unlike all other Sea Beach Line stations except for Bay Parkway, which had to withstand 4 years of passengers needing to double-back to get subway service in one direction, service to 8 Avenue was maintained in both directions throughout construction project by the construction of a temporary platform along the disused ROW of the former Coney Island-bound Express track, with first Manhattan-bound trains stopping at this temporary platform, followed by Coney Island-bound trains. This temporary platform contained a single staircase up to the main station house at the 8 Avenue end of the platform.
Photos 1-24: August 13, 2008; 25-32: June 9, 2009; 33-55: October 8, 2018
