The Brooklyn and North River Line, operated by the Brooklyn and North River Railroad, was a

trolley line A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

and

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Its route ran from the

Desbrosses Street Ferry The Desbrosses Street Ferry was a ferry route across the Hudson River (then called the North River) in the 19th and 20th centuries. It provided passengers with ferry service between the Pennsylvania Railroad's Exchange Place station at Jersey Cit ...

across

Lower Manhattan Lower Manhattan (also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York) is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City, which is the most populated city in the United States with ...

via the Canal Street Crosstown Line, over a pair of tracks on the east side of the

Manhattan Bridge The Manhattan Bridge is a suspension bridge that crosses the East River in New York City, connecting Lower Manhattan at Canal Street with Downtown Brooklyn at the Flatbush Avenue Extension. The main span is long, with the suspension cables be ...

, and to the intersection of

Flatbush Avenue Flatbush Avenue is a major avenue in the New York City Borough of Brooklyn. It runs from the Manhattan Bridge south-southeastward to Jamaica Bay, where it joins the Marine Parkway–Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge, which connects Brooklyn to the Ro ...

and Fulton Street in

Downtown Brooklyn Downtown Brooklyn is the third largest central business district in New York City after Midtown Manhattan and Lower Manhattan), and is located in the northwestern section of the borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is known for its office and ...

. Operation in Manhattan and over the bridge was with

conduit electrification Conduit current collection is an obsolete system of electric current collection used by some electric tramways, where the power supply was carried in a 'conduit' (a small tunnel) under the roadway. Modern systems fall under the term ground-level ...

, while in Brooklyn it used

overhead trolley wire An overhead line or overhead wire is an electrical cable that is used to transmit electrical energy to electric locomotives, trolleybuses or trams. It is known variously as: * Overhead catenary * Overhead contact system (OCS) * Overhead equipmen ...

, switching at a plow pit.Stephen L. Meyers, Manhattan's Lost Streetcars, pages 109 and 110 The company was formed by a coalition of the three major Manhattan and Brooklyn streetcar operators -

New York Railways The New York Railways Company operated street railways in Manhattan, New York City, United States between 1911 and 1925. The company went into receivership in 1919 and control was passed to the New York Railways Corporation in 1925 after which al ...

, the

Third Avenue Railway The Third Avenue Railway System (TARS), founded 1852, was a streetcar system serving the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx along with lower Westchester County. For a brief period of time, TARS also operated the Steinway Lines i ...

, and

Brooklyn Rapid Transit The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT) was a public transit holding company formed in 1896 to acquire and consolidate railway lines in Brooklyn and Queens, New York City, United States. It was a prominent corporation and industry leader using ...

- in competition with the

Manhattan Bridge Three Cent Line The Manhattan Bridge Three Cent Line was a streetcar company that operated cars over the Manhattan Bridge between the boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan in New York City. As the name implied, the fare was only 3 cents per ride. History When the ...

. The B&NR was operated with Third Avenue cars. The two companies shared trackage on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. The B&NR originally operated on the west side of the lower deck, now used by subway trains between the

BMT Broadway Line The BMT Broadway Line is a rapid transit line of the B Division of the New York City Subway in Manhattan. , it is served by four services, all colored : the on the express tracks and the on the local tracks during weekdays (the N and Q trains ...

and

DeKalb Avenue At Fort Greene Park DeKalb Avenue is a thoroughfare in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, with the majority of its length in Brooklyn. It runs from Woodward Avenue (Linden Hill Cemetery) in Ridgewood, Queens to Downtown Brookly ...

station. When the four tracks on the upper level were completed, the B&NR switched to the two western ones; the Three Cent Line used the eastern pair.The Municipal Engineers of the City of New York
Proceedings
1914, page 420 Due to BRT

rapid transit Rapid transit or mass rapid transit (MRT), also known as heavy rail or metro, is a type of high-capacity public transport generally found in urban areas. A rapid transit system that primarily or traditionally runs below the surface may be c ...

operations across the bridge, the B&NR stopped operating by 1919.

References

{{BMT companies Streetcar lines in Manhattan Streetcar lines in Brooklyn Defunct public transport operators in the United States Defunct New York (state) railroads Third Avenue Railway Predecessors of the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation Railway lines opened in 1909 Railway lines closed in 1919