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The Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) was an urban transit holding company, based in Brooklyn, New York City, United States, and incorporated in 1923. The system was sold to the city in 1940. Today, together with the IND subway system, it forms the B Division of the modern New York City Subway. The original BMT routes currently form the , , , , , and trains, as well as the
Franklin Avenue Shuttle The Franklin Avenue Shuttle is a New York City Subway shuttle service operating in Brooklyn. The shuttle service uses the BMT Franklin Avenue Line exclusively. The north terminus is Franklin Avenue, with a transfer available to the IND Fulton ...
, with the
IND Ind or IND may refer to: General * Independent (politician), a politician not affiliated to any political party * Independent station, used within television program listings and the television industry for a station that is not affiliated with ...
, , and using BMT trackage in Brooklyn. The train enters the IND via the
Chrystie Street Connection The Chrystie Street Connection is a set of New York City Subway tunnels running the length of Chrystie Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It is one of the few track connections between lines of the former Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Co ...
after crossing the Williamsburg Bridge, the , along with some rush-hour trains enter the IND from the BMT 63rd Street Line and the train enters the IND via the
60th Street Tunnel Connection The 60th Street Tunnel Connection or 11th Street Cut is a short rapid transit line of the New York City Subway connecting the 60th Street Tunnel under the East River (which connects to the BMT Broadway Line) with the IND Queens Boulevard Line we ...
. The train supplements the in the peak direction during rush hours only. Prior to city ownership, the BMT services were designed with numbers, and the current letter scheme was developed as a continuation of the IND nomenclature as the IND and BMT systems were integrated.


History


Company years

The Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation took over the assets of the
Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company 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 1923 following the previous company's bankruptcy. Like its predecessor it controlled subsidiaries which operated the great majority of the rapid transit and streetcar lines in Brooklyn with extensions into Queens and Manhattan. One of these, New York Rapid Transit Corporation operated the elevated and subway lines. In 1923, their president, Gerhard Melvin Dahl, published a document called "Transit Truths" to explain the issues the company faced. In it he complained that the company had "met with the bitter, personal and unfair opposition of Mayor Hylan." In a separate letter to Hylan he said: "For seven years, you have been misleading and fooling the people in this community… For seven years, you have blocked every effort at transit relief. You, and only you, are to blame for the present…deplorable condition of the whole transit situation. You have used the transit situation as a political escalator". In the late 1930s, the BMT was pressed by the City administration of Mayor
Fiorello H. La Guardia Fiorello Henry LaGuardia (; born Fiorello Enrico LaGuardia, ; December 11, 1882September 20, 1947) was an American attorney and politician who represented New York in the House of Representatives and served as the 99th Mayor of New York City fr ...
to sell its operations to the City, which wanted to have all subway and elevated lines municipally owned and operated. The City had two powerful incentives to coerce the sale: * the BMT was forced by provisions of the Dual Contracts to charge no more than a five-cent fare, an amount set in 1913, before the inflation of World War I. * the City had the right of “recapture” of those lines that had been built or improved with City participation under those ''Dual Contracts''. This meant that, if the City forced the issue, the BMT could have been left with a fragmented system and City competition in many of its market areas. The BMT sold all of its transit operations to the City on June 1, 1940.


Afterward

After World War II the city-built IND subway took over parts of the former BMT, starting in 1954 with the extension of the D train from its terminal at Church Avenue via a new connection with the former BMT Culver line at Ditmas Avenue. From 1954 the three remaining Culver stations between Ninth Avenue and Ditmas Avenue were used by the
Culver Shuttle The Culver Shuttle was a New York City Subway shuttle, running along a remnant of the BMT Culver Line, most of which is now the IND Culver Line. The shuttle was originally part of the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT)'s 5 service, p ...
. The service was discontinued in 1975 because of budget cuts and was later demolished. The
60th Street Tunnel Connection The 60th Street Tunnel Connection or 11th Street Cut is a short rapid transit line of the New York City Subway connecting the 60th Street Tunnel under the East River (which connects to the BMT Broadway Line) with the IND Queens Boulevard Line we ...
between the IND Queens Boulevard Line and
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 ...
opened in December 1955. This new route was used by the BMT Brighton local, which formerly ran to Astoria, for service to Forest Hills along with the IND GG local. The next year saw the new extension of the
IND Fulton Street Line The IND Fulton Street Line is a rapid transit line of the IND Division of the New York City Subway, running from the Cranberry Street Tunnel under the East River through all of central Brooklyn to a terminus in Ozone Park, Queens. The IND Roc ...
( train) in Brooklyn connected to the rebuilt section of the former BMT Fulton Street elevated at 80th Street in Queens in April 1956. The portion of the BMT Fulton Street El running west of 80th Street to Rockaway Avenue was demolished afterward. The late 1950s and early 1960s saw the biggest project of that era with the building of the
Chrystie Street Connection The Chrystie Street Connection is a set of New York City Subway tunnels running the length of Chrystie Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It is one of the few track connections between lines of the former Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Co ...
, and the IND Sixth Avenue express tracks. This project connected the IND Sixth Avenue services to the BMT services that ran over the Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges. Express services were directly connected to the Manhattan Bridge, and local services could use either the Williamsburg Bridge or the existing Rutgers Street Tunnel. Both connections opened in November 1967 and created the largest re-routing of train services in the history of the NYCTA. The BMT West End and Brighton Lines became served primarily by IND services as a result. From 1967, some IND Sixth Avenue trains called and later K, used the Chrystie Street Connection to the
BMT Jamaica Line The BMT Jamaica Line, also known as the Broadway - Brooklyn Line is an elevated rapid transit line of the B Division of the New York City Subway, in Brooklyn and Queens, New York City, United States. It runs from the Williamsburg Bridge southea ...
over the Williamsburg Bridge. That connection was discontinued due to budget cuts in 1976. In 1988, the BMT Archer Avenue Line was opened, connecting to what was then the east end of the BMT Jamaica Line. Two stations— Sutphin Boulevard–Archer Avenue–JFK Airport and Jamaica Center–Parsons/Archer—were added. In 1989, the BMT 63rd Street Line opened as an extension of the express tracks of the BMT Broadway Line, connecting to the IND 63rd Street Line at Lexington Avenue–63rd Street station. A connection from the Broadway/63rd Street Lines to the IND Second Avenue Line opened in 2017. In June 2010, as a result of more budget cuts, the
Chrystie Street Connection The Chrystie Street Connection is a set of New York City Subway tunnels running the length of Chrystie Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It is one of the few track connections between lines of the former Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Co ...
was put back into revenue service use for service.


Operation

The BMT operated rapid transit (subway and elevated lines) through the New York Rapid Transit Corporation and
surface transit A surface, as the term is most generally used, is the outermost or uppermost layer of a physical object or space. It is the portion or region of the object that can first be perceived by an observer using the senses of sight and touch, and is t ...
( streetcars and
bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...
es) through the
Brooklyn and Queens Transit Corporation The Brooklyn and Queens Transit Corporation (B&QT) was a subsidiary of the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation that operated streetcars in Brooklyn and Queens, New York City, United States (as well as into Manhattan via the Brooklyn Bridge a ...
. The BMT was a national leader in the transit industry, and was a proponent of advanced urban railways, participating in development of advanced streetcar designs, including the
PCC car The PCC (Presidents' Conference Committee) is a streetcar (tram) design that was first built in the United States in the 1930s. The design proved successful in its native country, and after World War II it was licensed for use elsewhere in the ...
, whose design and advanced components influenced railcar design worldwide for decades. The company also sought to extend the art of rapid transit car design with such innovations as ''articulated (multi-jointed-body) cars'', lightweight equipment, advanced control systems, and shared components with streetcar fleets. Unlike the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), the other private operator of subways in New York City, the BMT remained solvent throughout the Great Depression and showed a profit, albeit small in its last year, until the very end of its transit operations.


Surviving BMT Equipment

Several pre-unification BMT equipment have been preserved in various museums. While some of the equipment are operational, others are in need of restoration or are used simply as static displays. * BU cars 197, 659, 1227, 1273, 1349, 1362, 1365, 1404 and 1407 have been preserved. Cars 197, 659, 1227, 1349 and 1362 are located at the Shore Line Trolley Museum. Car 1365 is on static display at the St. Louis Museum of Transportation. Cars 1273, 1404 and 1407 are operational at the
New York Transit Museum The New York Transit Museum (also called the NYC Transit Museum) is a museum that displays historical artifacts of the New York City Subway, bus, and commuter rail systems in the greater New York City metropolitan region. The main museum is lo ...
. * BMT Elevated Instruction car 999 is preserved at the Shore Line Trolley Museum. * Q-type cars 1602A and 1612C have been preserved. Car 1602A survives at the
Trolley Museum of New York The Trolley Museum of New York, a non-profit organization, is located at 89 East Strand Street, Kingston, New York. The museum is open to the public on a seasonal schedule, but volunteer activities relating to the preservation of historic tran ...
, while car 1612C survives at the
New York Transit Museum The New York Transit Museum (also called the NYC Transit Museum) is a museum that displays historical artifacts of the New York City Subway, bus, and commuter rail systems in the greater New York City metropolitan region. The main museum is lo ...
. * AB Standards 2204, 2390, 2391, 2392 and 2775 have been preserved. Cars 2204 is located at the
New York Transit Museum The New York Transit Museum (also called the NYC Transit Museum) is a museum that displays historical artifacts of the New York City Subway, bus, and commuter rail systems in the greater New York City metropolitan region. The main museum is lo ...
, 2390, 2391 and 2392 are preserved by the Railway Preservation Corp, and car 2775 is preserved at the Shore Line Trolley Museum. * D-type Triplex sets 6019, 6095, and 6112 have been preserved by the
New York Transit Museum The New York Transit Museum (also called the NYC Transit Museum) is a museum that displays historical artifacts of the New York City Subway, bus, and commuter rail systems in the greater New York City metropolitan region. The main museum is lo ...
.


References


External links


Article about BMT rapid transit car designs
in ''The Third Rail'' by ''Paul Matus''
History site including articles about the BMT

Site dedicated to the history of the BMT

Early Rapid Transit in Brooklyn, 1878-1913
nycsubway.org * Maps: ** Interactive map of New York streetcar network *
BMT map
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brooklyn Manhattan Transit Corporation Defunct public transport operators in the United States Defunct New York (state) railroads History of the New York City Subway 1923 establishments in New York City 1940 disestablishments in New York (state)