Fulton Street
The Fulton Street Station on the J/Z trains is located beneath narrow Nassau Street and due to the narrowness of Nassau Street sees the line’s two tracks and single side platforms stacked on top of each other. The Broad Street-bound platform is located on the upper level with a side platform on the eastern side of the single-track with the Jamaica-bound platform level located just beneath this but is flipped, with the platform on the western side of the single track. Just beneath the J/Z stacked station platforms, the A/C IND platforms cross, just underneath, with the IND mezzanine split into two by the J/Z platforms.
The stacked J/Z station platforms means the mezzanine above the lowest-level A/C IND platforms isn’t continuous and split into two separate sections of mezzanine, by the J/Z platforms in the middle of the station. This means all passengers transferring between 4/5 trains under Broadway and 2/3 trains under William Street, plus passengers trying to get between the J/Z platforms must travel along at least a short section of the IND A/C platform beneath the J/Z station platforms. This contributes to crowding along the A/C platform.
The platforms were renovated in the 1990s, this replaced the tiling on the platforms with a new ‘replica’ BMT pattern. The original pattern was in the IND standard design with a solid brown trimline with a black border and Fulton written in white text on black tiles beneath it. The renovation replaced this anomaly of an BMT station having IND tiling, with mosaic-work that is more standard with the rest of the IND stations on the Centre Street/Nassau Street Subway. The platforms today have maroon colored columns and a unique extra large trimline along the platform walls with Fulton St. written in large letters under a simpler mosaic trimline. F’s are in the fully tiled secondary trimline at regular intervals. The track walls are also tiled in white with a simple geometric mosaic trimline, and Fulton Street or F written beneath the trimline at regular intervals.
Each platform has their own unique characteristics and exits. The upper level Broad Street-bound platform, from south to north, begins with an entrance through an atrium/public plaza with escalators down to the subway level inside the 33 Maiden Lane office building that opened in 1986. This atrium connects to a staircase down from within the building near the SE corner of John and Nassau Streets and a conventional street stair at the NE corner. These entrances are all signed To Broad St J, Z and for the A,C and to enter at Fulton St & Nassau Street for the Jamaica Center J, Z, William Street for 2, 3 and Broadway for the 4, 5. These all lead to a small fare control area with High Entrance Turnstiles that continues down to a short passageway ramp to the southern end of the Broad Street-bound platform.
The main entrance to the Broad Street-bound platform is located a couple of cars south, down the platform. Here a passageway leads to a wide triple staircase down to the eastern half of the A/C mezzanine and transfers to the 2/3 platform without going down to the A,C platform. There is also a ramp that leads down to an elevator (that is at a slightly lower elevation than the mezzanine to fit the required roof equipment without it poking up onto the middle of Fulton Street). This elevator leads only down to the A/C platform. Just beyond the platform’s connections to the rest of the station are turnstiles and a fare control area, these lead two streetstairs near the SE and NE corners of Fulton Street and Nassau Street, and a street elevator inside a building at 129 Fulton Street, just east of Nassau Street.
The northern end of Broad Street-bound platform once had two additional exits, one led out to Ann Street, and a second was a ramp passageway from the northern end of the platform that led to a small fare control area and streetstairs up to the NE and SE corners of Beekman and Nassau Streets.
The Jamaica Center-bound platform only has one currently open entrance and exit. It is located across from the Broad Street-bound platform entrance. Here the western half of the mezzanine above the A/C platforms (that connects to 4 and 5 trains) ends directly at the same-level as the Broad Street-bound platform. This wasn’t always the case and before the construction of the Fulton Transit Center the main portion of the mezzanine was at a lower level than the Jamaica Center-bound platform. From here a staircase in the middle of the two passageways that connect to the mezzanine (where narrow staircases of five steps down once were on each side of this up staircases) leads up under an Exit Only sign to a bank of turnstiles up to a mezzanine arena. From here are turnstiles that lead out to a streetstair up to Fulton Street near the NW corner with Nassau Street and a passageway through a basically abandoned shopping arcade to a storefront entrance on the west side of Nassau Street just south of Fulton Street.
This entrance area to the Jamaica Center-bound platform was much more complicated before the Construction of the Fulton Transit Center, there was previously another turnstile bank, across from the current bank that led down a gentle ramp to the A/C platform’s west mezzanine. There was an out of system, underground passageway just beneath the surface that continued to another entrance area to the Northbound 4 and 5 platform, at a second ramp from the 4/5 platform down to the A/C lower mezzanine. The construction of the Fulton Transit Center abandoned these ramps and this former mezzanine (with the new mezzanine at a higher elevation above the A/C platform for stepfree J/Z platform Access from this mezzanine).
There are two additional abandoned exits along the Jamaica Center-bound platform. At the southern end was a passageway that led to two staircases before splitting at an intermediate landing leading up to the entrances (that were inside storefronts) near the NW and SW corners of John and Nassau Streets. Towards the northern end of the platform was a series of staircases meeting at an intermediate level before leading up to a small mezzanine and exits up to near the NW and SW corners of Ann and Nassau Streets.
1: January 15, 2005; 2-6: February 14, 2006; 7-9: May 19, 2010; 10-13: June 23, 2011; 14-19: August 16, 2011; 20-27: September 2, 2011; 28-31: November 30, 2012; 32 & 33: October 5, 2018; 34-36: October 7, 2018; 37-40: September 25, 2023;
Station Subway Lines (1988 to 2010)
