The Kings County Elevated Railway Company (KCERy) was a builder and operator of

elevated railway An elevated railway or elevated train (also known as an el train for short) is a rapid transit railway with the tracks above street level on a viaduct or other elevated structure (usually constructed from steel, cast iron, concrete, or bricks ...

lines in

Kings County, New York Kings or King's may refer to: *Monarchs: The sovereign heads of states and/or nations, with the male being kings *One of several works known as the "Book of Kings": **The Books of Kings part of the Bible, divided into two parts **The ''Shahnameh'' ...

. Kings County is now coextensive with the

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle Ag ...

of Brooklyn in

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 ...

, but at the time the railway started, it consisted of several towns and the smaller independent city of Brooklyn. Its original services were operated with

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the loco ...

Corporate history

The KCERy was founded January 6, 1879 but did not open its first line for revenue service until 1888. The company was organized by

Judge Hiram Bond Hiram Bond was born May 10, 1838 in Farmersville, Cattaraugus County, New York and died in Seattle March 29, 1906. He was a corporate lawyer, investment banker and an investor in various businesses including gold mining. His family are descended ...

and financed by a group of investors from

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

that included

Moses Kimball Moses Kimball (October 24, 1809 – February 21, 1895) was a US politician and showman. Kimball was a close associate of P. T. Barnum, and public-spirited citizen of Boston, Massachusetts. Biography Kimball was descended from Richard and Urs ...

and

Willard T. Sears Willard Thomas Sears (November 5, 1837 – May 21, 1920) was a prominent New England architect of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who worked primarily in the Gothic Revival and Renaissance Revival styles. In 1861, Sears opened ...

of the architectural firm

Cummings and Sears Cummings and Sears (est. 1864) was an architecture firm in 19th-century Boston, Massachusetts, established by Charles Amos Cummings and Willard T. Sears. History and legacy In the 1860s they kept an office in the Studio Building on Tremont St ...

, which had experience in designing stone railroad bridges and ramps. The company did surveys and design work and promoted the project. Due to the principals behind the project being from out of town, the project had difficulty getting fully licensed. The package of rights and designs were sold to New York City investors led by Gen
James Jourdan
due to the lack of support for the Bostonians by local political leaders. Due to the persistence of Jourdan the project eventually got off the ground. The company directors besides Jourdan were

Edward A. Abbott Edward is an English given name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”. History The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-Sa ...

Henry J. Davison

Harvey Farrington Harvey, Harveys or Harvey's may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Harvey'' (play), a 1944 play by Mary Chase about a man befriended by an invisible anthropomorphic rabbit * Harvey Awards ("Harveys"), one of the most important awards ...

Wendell Goodwin Wendell may refer to: Places in the United States * Wendell, Idaho * Wendell, Massachusetts * Wendell, Minnesota * Wendell, North Carolina People * Wendell (name), a list of people with the name * Wendell (footballer, born 1947) (1947–2022), fu ...

Henry J. Robinson Henry may refer to: People *Henry (given name) *Henry (surname) * Henry Lau, Canadian singer and musician who performs under the mononym Henry Royalty * Portuguese royalty ** King-Cardinal Henry, King of Portugal ** Henry, Count of Portugal, ...

James O. Sheldon James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguat ...

and

William A. Read William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of ...

. William A. Read was the financier whose company Read & Company later became

Dillon, Read Dillon, Read & Co. was an investment bank based in New York City. In 1991, it was acquired by Barings Bank and, in 1997, it was acquired by Swiss Bank Corporation, which was in turn acquired by UBS in 1998. History Carpenter & Vermilye Dillon R ...

. On October 1, 1899, the Kings County Elevated Railroad (KCERR) became successor to the KCERy, and on May 24, 1900 the KCERR was merged into its competitor, the

Brooklyn Union Elevated Railroad Starting in 1899, the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT; 1896–1923) and Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT; 1923–1940) operated rapid transit lines in New York City — at first only elevated railways and later also subways. Unt ...

company, thus ending its separate corporate existence.

Fulton Street Line

The KCERy ran only one

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 ...

mainline, the

Fulton Street Elevated The Fulton Street Line, also called the Fulton Street Elevated or Kings County Line, was an elevated rail line mostly in Brooklyn, New York City, United States. It ran above Fulton Street from Fulton Ferry, Brooklyn in Downtown Brooklyn east ...

, beginning in 1888, but it was one of the most lucrative in Brooklyn, operating from Fulton Ferry, through the heart of the downtown area, then through the center of the borough, and the

communities A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, to ...

of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brownsville and

East New York East New York is a residential neighborhood in the eastern section of the borough of Brooklyn in New York City, United States. Its boundaries, starting from the north and moving clockwise, are roughly the Cemetery Belt and the Queens borough li ...

to City Line. In addition, the KCERy later acquired access to the tracks of the Brooklyn Bridge railroad to bring its trains to the Park Row terminal in

(

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 ...

) opposite the

New York City Hall New York City Hall is the seat of New York City government, located at the center of City Hall Park in the Civic Center area of Lower Manhattan, between Broadway, Park Row, and Chambers Street. Constructed from 1803 to 1812, the building i ...

Service on the Brighton Beach Line

In 1896, the KCERy built a short elevated line from Franklin Avenue and Fulton Street to connect to the tracks of the Brooklyn & Brighton Beach RR south of Atlantic Avenue, permitting KCERy elevated trains access to the communities of Crown Heights, Flatbush, Midwood, Homecrest,

Sheepshead Bay Sheepshead, Sheephead, or Sheep's Head, may refer to: Fish * ''Archosargus probatocephalus'', a medium-sized saltwater fish of the Atlantic Ocean * Freshwater drum, ''Aplodinotus grunniens'', a medium-sized freshwater fish of North and Central Am ...

and

Coney Island Coney Island is a peninsular neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, Manhattan Beach to its east, L ...

Brighton Beach Brighton Beach is a neighborhood in the southern portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, within the greater Coney Island area along the Atlantic Ocean coastline. Brighton Beach is bounded by Coney Island proper at Ocean Parkway to the ...

References

Sources

Documents of the Senate of the State of New York New York Times: Plans of the Kings County Elevated Railroad
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kings County Elevated Railway Railroads on Long Island Defunct New York (state) railroads Predecessors of the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation Defunct public transport operators in the United States Railway companies established in 1879 Railway companies disestablished in 1900 American companies disestablished in 1900