Memory Lane: The Railroads of Boro Park

Perhaps the greatest factor in the growth of the neighborhood of Boro Park in the early part of the Twentieth Century was the introduction of the rail lines that passed through the neighborhood on the way from Manhattan to Coney Island. 

Having the tracks detour into Boro Park meant that residents could freely make their way to the big city and back without relying on car travel which was rare in those days. Boro Park real estate developers realized this, and they capitalized on it, publicizing the fact of the railway stops regularly along with the advertisements for their homes in the new neighborhood. 

‘All A Mistake Says B.R.T.’ 

As the Brooklyn Rapid Transit (B.R.T.) expanded in Boro Park, so did the complaints of the residents, when things didn’t go well.  To which the B.R.T. responded: “People are only imagining that they are suffering,” said an article in the Eagle in November of 1901. 

“One of these [complaints] said this morning: “the indignant citizens who called on Mr. Brackenridge yesterday only called attention to one form of trouble, but there is another that is quite as serious.

“I am one of those a large number of people who come in from Bay Ridge Park, and that locality, by means of surface cars to the 36th Street depot, where we take the elevated trains to the city. Formerly, we waited in the depot and caught s train from 65th Street, in which there were always seats. Now we are all driven out on an exposed platform and compelled to take the trains from Borough Park, which are always overcrowded to a degree that is even indecent, considering that women are among the passengers… a man can’t open his paper because his arms are pinned at his sides…”  

The Culver El

the Culver Line which ran from east to west actually preceded the elevated railway that some may remember from the 1950’s. The strip that today is 37th Street, and still features much undeveloped land (a byproduct of being city owned) in the form of steam rail beginning in the year 1875.  

It was named for Andrew C. Culver, a railroad magnate, who acquired a key part of the rail system. This section ran from 9th Avenue in Sunset Park, down 37th Street, into McDonald Avenue where it joined that system all the way to Coney Island. When the F train began running to Coney Island, it resulted in many less riders taking the Culver line there, and this line became a shuttle for that mile-long stretch—only connecting the two lines. 

In 1919, Culver began building elevated tracks on this stretch, which came down in the 1980’s. 

On April 12, 1938, the New York Sun reported on the plans to “recapture the L.” This was a press conference at Transit Offices at 270 Madison Avenue in New York City, which the transit commissioner Ruben Haskell announced that in addition to the BMT and IND competing railway systems, New York City would be launching their own independent rails system. This had far-reaching effects which eventually resulted in the merger of all three systems—which would be named NYC Transit, later consumed by the mammoth, state-owned MTA. 

Today, the area where the Culver El ran is quite visible as it is largely undeveloped save for a few areas where the city designated the property certain projects—hearkening back more than one century to the old site of the railways in Boro Park of yore.