Today I had the benefits of an unlimited ride MetroCard so what else than a nice long railfanning trip beckoned as I continue to get closer and closer to my goal of photos of every subway station. I awoke to an extremely violent thunder storm, one of the first of the summer. It seemed like it would be a rainy and muggy day with downpours on and off which really was fine by me, I was planning stay underground mostly, except for walking between subway stations and entrances. The goal, to finish the IND’s F train subway (before it goes up onto the Culver Elevated, built by the BMT) in Brooklyn-the line doesn’t really have a definitive name. I’ve read about it as a southern extension of the Crosstown Line, even though the G train doesn’t go south of Smith-9th Sts anymore, or the IND Coney Island Line, or IND Culver Subway. The problem is the line doesn’t fallow a single major street for its route but meanders its way curving along different streets through Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Gowanus, Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, and Kensington. The other subway line I finished was the BMT 4th Avenue subway. The subway really is a straight shot down 4th Avenue, with two lines branching off from it, as it goes from Pacific Street in Downtown Brooklyn to Bay Ridge and 95th Street, a distance of five miles, with 11 stations.
Well enough about where the lines go that I finished photographing today on onto my actual adventures. I began by taking the A-train down to High Street-Brooklyn Bridge a station I know far two well because it was for my high school, but realized I was lacking photos of the entrance I never used at Cadmen Plaza East and Red Cross Place, so I photographed that exit before leaving the subway and taking a short walk into Dumbo to photograph York Street at the Brooklyn side of Rutgers Street tunnel, the station’s single entrance is directly in the ventilation building for the underwater tunnel. I got on the F train and took it to Church Avenue where I did a full photo essay walking along street level between the station’s two exits. I did the same routine at Ft. Hamilton Parkway before getting off at 15 St-Prospect Park and walked the length of the station’s platform on the mezzanine level a lot of which is outside of fare control. On street level, I continued walking up Prospect Park West, and briefly into Prospect Park, stopping to get a drink of water at a playground, the only working water fountain I could find. I later realized that this was technically violating the rules of the playground because a sign for the rules of park said ‘No Adults Except Accompanying Children’. I realized that that rule is written for good reason to prevent child molesters, but the playground was almost empty and a water fountain I found in the regular park was broken, and I was in there for three minutes if that.
After this quick divergent I continued walking up to 9th Street and reached the 7th Avenue-Park Slope Station. I got back on the subway here and took the next Manhattan-bound F train to Smith-9th Streets and got off in the pouring rain. It stopped by the time I photographed the platforms and the two consecutive escalator banks that lead up the station’s platform high over the Gowanus Canal, to get a photo of the station’s unusual entrance at street level next to a fenced off area with signs saying No Dumping. I walked underneath the high concrete viaduct that is the only elevated structure built under the IND, taking some pictures off it, before the downpour started again as I walked and I hurried to the 4th Avenue Subway dashing down to the Bay Ridge-bound platform at 9th Street.
This began the second chapter of my day, finishing the stations of the 4th Avenue subway, with all of its local stations with boring 1960s cinderblock-looking walls, covering the original station trim lines, I considered myself a detective as I found a few places in every station, all in exits or the main fare control areas to photograph the station’s original trim. I took the next R train to 53rd Street, that has a secondary exit only exit from the Bay Ridge-bound platform, apart from the main fare control area on the station’s main mezzanine that I walked one block down to. I continued to Bay Ridge Ave and 77th Street, each of which has the same design doing the same thing, walking from the exit only exit to the main mezzanine fare control area. I then decided to continue onto 95th Street, that has an island platform with two different exits, and did the same at 86th Street that also has an island platform and two exits as I walked between them. I then realized there was one stop I was missing, the express stop at 36th Street, I got extensively photographed the Manhattan-bound platform before proceeding up to the mezzanine. The station’s small and busy mezzanine had about six cops on it milling around whom I decided probably didn’t want to be photographed, so I decided I’ll return to the station in due time.
After this I decided I wasn’t quite ready to head home, so I took an N train back to start on the Sea Beach Line, getting off at 8th Avenue where I did a photo essay and started walking down 62nd Street to Fort Hamilton Parkway which I reached and entered the station without realizing there was a part time station house at the other end of the station. I decided to do something I rarely do and walked the length of the Coney Island-bound platform before leaving through the station’s other exit and continuing on to New Utrecht Avenue where I encountered an unstaffed exit/entrance at the northern end of the West End Elevated Line (opposite end of the platforms from the transfer corridor between the subway lines) and decided to call it a day. So I took, sat and read on a D train that stayed surprisingly empty as we went through Manhattan around 4PM, just as the evening rush was getting started, to 125th Street to transfer to an A train (an R44 unfortunately, some of my sources say today is last time the R40 ‘Slants’ will ever run in revenue service) that took me home.
Well I’m off to make many more station pages. Oh, and total number of swipes on the Unlimited Ride MetroCard I was using: 14 rides total taken today (that might be a new record for me, I’m not sure)