Fulton St
The Fulton Street 4/5 Subway Station was the first stop named Fulton Street to open on the New York City Subway, opening just two and a half months after the first subway line opened on January 16, 1905. There was also a station called Fulton Street at Fulton Street and Pearl Street on the Third Avenue elevated that opened in 1876 and remained in operation until 1950.
The station contains 2 side platforms for the 2 track subway line that have just lost their local tracks at Brooklyn Bridge, where 6 trains terminate via the City Hall Loop. These platforms each have some original and some restored terracotta reliefs displaying the Clermont, the first steamboat that was invented by Robert Fulton for whom Fulton Street is named after. These terracotta reliefs are above small F’s that form a green terra cotta trimline above regular mosaics along both of the platforms, at least in those places where new entrances from the Fulton Transit Center has not resulted in the platform walls being removed (this primarily concerns the Uptown platform). There are also blue Fulton Street mosaic name tablets along the platforms.
For our tour of the station entrances we will start with the Downtown Platform. At the northern, back of trains, end of the platform are two conventional street stairs along the northern side of Fulton Street, near the NW corner of Broadway along the churchyard of St. Paul's Church. These lead to a bank of turnstiles. Next is a staircase down to the blue tiled underpass that leads beneath both 4/5 tracks and brings passengers out to the northern end of the A/C station mezzanine after going up some steps at the opposite end. This passageway (which was fully rebuilt during Fulton Transit Center construction) was this platform's only connection to the rest of the connecting subway lines and Uptown 4/5 trains before the Fulton Center project. Across the street from here is an entrance inside 195 Broadway outlined in Gold, that leads down to its own small fare control area at platform level.
In the middle of the Downtown platform is an elevator followed by a staircase and escalator down to the northern side of the Dey Street passageway, this provides ADA connections to all subway lines at the Fulton Center. The escalator in particular is noteworthy because it was built in front of what was originally a High Exit Turnstile up to an exit to near the NW corner of Dey Street and Broadway on the southern southern side of the 195 Broadway Building, the former staircase is now a window into the lobby. The original ornate decorative gold structure including text that says Exit to Street that was above this High Exit Turnstile has been preserved, now blocked by an escalator. Next, on the platform are multiple banks of turnstiles that lead into the new Dey Street headhouse. The Dey Street headhouse is part of the Fulton Transit Center and is located at the SW corner of Dey Street and Broadway, contains a staircase and elevator up to the street, and a staircase and elevator down to the Dey Street concourse below. This headhouse replaced two now destroyed street stairs, one of which had an ornate looking decorative hump at street-level that was of an older design.
At the southern end of the Downtown platform are some turnstiles that lead out to an exit near the SW corner of Cortlandt Street and Broadway inside the plaza in front of the office building at One Liberty Plaza. These exits are staircases up into a plaza, with the staircases surrounding a black cylinder that is a vent shaft. It is similar to one of the entrances to the Uptown platform at Cortlandt Street on the R train, located a block down Cortlandt Street at another corner of this office building.
The northern end of the Uptown Platform contains multiple sets of doors that lead to the concourse level of the Fulton Transit Center. Originally there was a much narrower entrance leading to turnstiles at the Upper Level of the IND station’s original mezzanine. Here there was an entrance through a now demolished shopping arcade under a building that was demolished to build the Fulton Transit Center to Fulton Street near the SW corner of Fulton Street and Broadway, plus a staircase up to where currently the main entrance along Fulton Street is (near the NW corner) into 222 Broadway, who’s lobby has been extensively modified with doors into this building’s lobby now occupying where the entrance to the subway once was under a small lighted subway sign.
Various entrances into the Fulton Transit Center (with multiple locations containing sets of doors) occupy this platform for half of its length, leading down to John Street/Dey Street (these streets aren’t quite across from each other but are very close and almost continuous streets with a name change crossing Broadway). The uptown platform at John Street before the Fulton Transit Center construction project, originally contained its own small fare control area with a streetstair up to the SE corner of John Street and Broadway and a small storefront entrance along John Street inside the Corbin Building. The construction of the Fulton Transit Center removed the streetstair at the SE corner, and redirected all entering subway passengers from this side of Broadway to enter through the the Corbin Building via the Northside of John Street.
At the southern end of the platform High Exit/Entrance Turnstiles lead up to a single streetstair at the SE corner of Broadway and Maiden Lane (that becomes Cortlandt Street after crossing Broadway). This streetstair is signed Uptown & the Bronx 4/5 with all other transfers singed as via passageway.
Photo 1: January 2, 2014; 2-7: February 14, 2006; 8-22: August 16, 2011; 23 & 24: September 5, 2012; 25-32: October 1, 2012; 33-37: October 25, 2012; 38: June 5, 2013; 39-41: November 14, 2014; 42: December 27, 2014; 43-48: October 7, 2018; 49-52: November 24, 2023;
