Today I had to go to Brooklyn Hieghts where I was yesterday for lunch. It began with an uneventful ride on the A Train down. Afterwords I decided to try and finish off the IND in Brooklyn, since it was pouring rain, which only consists of the F train’s Culver Subway. I don’t currently have an Unlimited Ride MetroCard because my subway riding is so spuratic so I decided to not leave fare control. I began by getting on at Jay Street which is currently a total mess courtesy of station renovations, I can’t wait for there to be the free transfer to to Lawrence Street and the M,R. While I was waiting I heard an announcement, not about a subway service, but about the PATH trains to New Jersey and how all had been suspended courtesy of a fire in their electrical control room. (A news article is here) I got on the F train, did a quick photo stop at Bergen Street, took a G train to Carroll Street, another quick photos and than continued on a F train to 7th Avenue, where I did quite an immense photo stop. I got back on the train and continued to 15 Street-Prospect Park where I did as much as a photo essay as I reasonably could without leaving fare control but realized that I really need to revisit that stop and get some photos of the strange mezzanine layout for an island platform station (the unused express tracks fallow a different route), and continued onto Fort Hamilton Parkway and reached the same conclusion with myself. Oh well, I thought, I really need to start doing this with an Unlimited Ride card.
The afternoon was still young so I continued to 4th Ave-9th St where I transfered to the BMT to do photo essays of the immensely boarding local stations. For some reason in the 1960s all the local station’s walls were tiled over, covering up the original mosaic with generic tiling of mostly a light grey color with small sections that almost seem to form stripes at regular vertical intervals along the walls. At all of the exit areas though the old striped trim seems to have survived. I also witnessed for the first time that according to the BMT on this section of subway, downtown is tiled for trains actually going north, towards Downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan. Uptown has been tiled for for trains headed down to Bay Ridge. In all my years I’ve only heard the phrases uptown and downtown being used in Manhattan, not Brooklyn.
Anyway to continue on with my adventures, I took the R one stop to Prospect Ave before taking the next M train to 25 Street and an R down to 45 Street. Again I started wishing I had an unlimited since I wasn’t planning and didn’t exit the subway at any of these stations, mostly because the stations south of 45 Street all seem have have small sized mezzanines and also because the stations are close enough together to do the old walking between pairs of stops. So I basically decided to call it a day, so I continued south on the R train to 59th Street (which wasn’t necessary, 45 Street has a small mezzanine with a free transfer), and took a Manhattan-bound N Express back north and decided I would try to new transfer from Whitehall Street to South Ferry. At Pacific Street a Manhattan-bound M train came first so I took that to Lawrence Street MetroTech to check on progress with the connection to Jay Street. I took the R that came in shortly thereafter two stops to Whitehall Street and used the new transfer to the 1 train and the new South Ferry Station that still looks gorgeously new but seems like a waste of half a million dollars. The South Ferry Loop Station worked, even with the first five cars of the train rule, and had so much character with its always crowded single platform, and moving platforms for its enormous gaps. The new stop felt modern (but still with white tiled walls) and a bit sterile, but with modern amenities like escalators directly down to the platforms. To finish getting home I took the 1 train to Chambers Street, hopped on a sardines packed 2 train, and passed one if not two 1 trains has I headed up to 96th Street where I transferred back to the 1 train to get home.
All in all it made me realize just how important having a valid unlimited ride MetroCard is when I do my station to station photo essays