Atlantic Avenue – Barclays Center (New York City Subway)

Atlantic Avenue – Barclays Center is a New York City Subway station complex shared by the BMT Fourth Avenue Line, the BMT Brighton Line and the IRT Eastern Parkway Line, located at Atlantic, Fourth, and Flatbush Avenues and Pacific Street in Downtown Brooklyn. The complex is served by the:

• 2, 4, D, N, and Q trains at all times
• 3 and R trains at all times except late nights
• 5 and B trains weekdays only

With nine subway services, this station is second to the Times Square – 42nd Street / Port Authority Bus Terminal complex in offering the most transfers to other services.

As of 2015, it is the busiest subway station in Brooklyn, with 13,617,153 passengers, and is ranked 21st overall. The control house has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1980, while the station complex as a whole has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 2004, and is ADA-compliant.

History

The station was overhauled in the late 1970s. MTA fixed the station's structure and overhauled its appearance. It refurbished the wall tilings and replaced the old signs and incandescent lighting with modern fixtures. It also fixed the staircases and platform edges. The Pacific Street section underwent another major overhaul from 1999 to 2000. This time the station received state of the art repairs and was updated for ADA-accessibility. The MTA repaired the staircases, re-tiled the walls and floors, upgraded the station's lights and the public address system, installed ADA yellow safety threads along the platform edge, and installed new trackbeds for local and express trains entering the station. In late 2004, the MTA installed elevators on both sides of the platform and street level to accommodate wheelchairs and those with disabilities.

In June 2009, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority sold the naming rights of the station complex to Forest City Ratner Companies for 20 years at $200,000 per year. Barclays Center, whose naming rights were bought by Barclays Bank, opened September 2012 and is part of Forest City Ratner Companies' Atlantic Yards project. As a result, the station was renamed from Atlantic Avenue / Pacific Street to Atlantic Avenue – Barclays Center in May 2012. A new mezzanine and fare control area was built near the sports complex.

BMT Fourth Avenue Line platforms

Atlantic Avenue – Barclays Center (originally Pacific Street then Atlantic Avenue – Pacific Street) is an express station on the BMT Fourth Avenue Line that has four tracks and two island platforms. It opened on June 22, 1915.

At the north end of the platforms, two staircases and one elevator go up to the main fare control area, where a turnstile bank provides access to/from the station and two staircases going up to either northern corners of Pacific Street and Fourth Avenue. The northeast corner also has an elevator going down to the mezzanine. A pathway connects to the rest of the complex. A wall separates the two platforms.

BMT Brighton Line platform

Atlantic Avenue – Barclays Center (originally Atlantic Avenue) on the BMT Brighton Line has two tracks and an island platform. The platform has seven staircases, three to the main mezzanine, two to the Hanson Place exit at the north end, which is an escalator that leads to a separate mezzanine with no transfers to the other lines and two at the south end, which leads to both an exit immediately adjacent to Barclays Center and another mezzanine that connects to the IRT. The Barclays Center exit features a part-time booth that is staffed during events at the arena and two escalators.

The street staircase on the Hanson Place mezzanine leads to the Williamsburgh Savings Bank. The exit at Hanson Place once had a booth that has since been removed. The lower level of this mezzanine had a passageway, now sealed, that ran above the platform from Hanson Place. The "To Hanson Place" and other signs are covered up. This area is now space used by MTA employees with the entrance at the other side.

The main mezzanine also has an out-of-system passageway to the LIRR's Atlantic Terminal and the full-time fare control at the IRT side of the station. Two of the street staircases lead to the Atlantic Terminal Mall. There is a removed staircase in between the two sets of stairs. The northernmost staircase was added during renovation, while the other two staircases were narrowed in order to comply with ADA guidelines regarding minimum 36-inch width clearances.

The platform extension is clearly visible at the south end of the platform, while the name tablets and "A" are authentic replicas on the northbound platform wall, while the southbound wall was tiled around them. The area on the southbound wall where the platform extends out is made of replicas as well. Since there were no mosaics built, only a green wall was present prior to renovation, which indicates where the platform was extended in the 1960s to fit ten car trains.

North of this station, a bellmouth is visible from a Manhattan-bound train. The bellmouth was for the proposed Ashland Place Connection which would have connected to the now-demolished BMT Fulton Street El.

IRT Eastern Parkway Line platforms

Atlantic Avenue – Barclays Center (originally Atlantic Avenue) is an express station on the IRT Eastern Parkway Line which has four tracks, one island platform, and two side platforms. On the center platform, there are two old indicator signs which mark the next train, formerly used for non-rush hour short turn trains. An old style sign to the Brooklyn Academy of Music also exists. The trackway to the Long Island Rail Road Atlantic Branch is still visible at the north end of the northbound local track, although much of it is behind corrugated wall; more information about this and other unused trackways is at Bergen Street. The LIRR Atlantic Terminal platforms, slightly lower, are clearly visible through floor-to-ceiling railings.

This station has been completely renovated. The northbound local trackway and track have been completely redone with concrete base and welded rail.

A passageway to the BMT Fourth Avenue and Brighton Lines lies under the platforms, with the Fourth Avenue Line to the southwest and the Brighton Line to the northeast. Another passageway to the Brighton Line is present at the south end of the station, which also leads to an exit immediately adjacent to Barclays Center. The Barclays Center exit features a part-time booth that is staffed during events at the arena and two escalators.

Although the station is wheelchair accessible, the Eastern Parkway Line express platform was formerly too narrow in some areas to accommodate wheelchairs. Passengers were notified of this fact by announcements on trains before reaching the station. The stairs have since been trimmed in width to allow full wheelchair access.

North of this station, there is an unused trackway, splitting from the southbound local track for a proposed subway under Fourth Avenue (later built as the BMT Fourth Avenue Line). It merges with the Manhattan-bound express track and ends on a bumper block between the two express tracks at Nevins Street. When this station originally opened in 1908 it was the terminal for the line, and had two side platforms, an island platform, and two tracks. All the platforms were connected together at their southern ends.

This station is one of three express stations to have side platforms for local services and a center island platform for express services, the other two being the 34th Street - Penn Station stops on the IND Eighth Avenue Line and the IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line. The reason for this is that the station is connected to Atlantic Terminal, and the next station west from Atlantic Avenue, Nevins Street, is also an express station with the more common two island platform configuration. This limits overcrowding by preventing cross-platform interchanges between local and express services.

BMT Fifth Avenue Line station

The station complex formerly had an elevated portion on the BMT Fifth Avenue Line, called Atlantic Avenue. It was served by trains of the BMT Culver Line and BMT Fifth Avenue Line and had two tracks and one island platform. It was located at Flatbush Avenue and Atlantic Avenue, right above the headhouse for the current complex. It also served the St. Johns Place Line, Flatbush Avenue Line, Third Avenue Line, and Seventh Avenue Line streetcars.

The next stop to the north was Fulton Street. The next stop to the south was Saint Marks Avenue. On June 25, 1923 two cars of a train coming from 65th Street Terminal derailed and fell towards Flatbush Avenue. Eight passengers died and many were injured. With increased use of the subways over the elevated lines, the station was considered obsolete and was closed on May 31, 1940.

Station layout

G	Street Level	Entrances/Exits (Elevators at: SE corner of Pacific Street and Fourth Avenue. customers should use Pacific Street elevator At Hanson Place and Flatbush Avenue. and LIRR customers should use Hanson Place elevator)
		Barclays Center
		Connection to Atlantic Terminal
B1 Platform level	Side platform, doors will open on the right
	Northbound local	← toward Wakefield – 241st Street (Nevins Street) ← toward Harlem – 148th Street (all except nights) (Nevins Street) ← toward Woodlawn late nights (Nevins Street)
	Northbound express	← toward Woodlawn (all except nights) (Nevins Street) ← toward Nereid Avenue PM rush hours, Dyre Avenue weekdays till 8:45pm (Nevins Street)
	Island platform, doors will open on the left
	Southbound express	→ toward Utica Avenue (all except nights) (Franklin Avenue) → → toward Flatbush Avenue (weekdays) (Franklin Avenue) →
	Southbound local	→ toward Flatbush Avenue (Bergen Street) → → ( late nights) toward New Lots Avenue (Bergen Street) →
	Side platform, doors will open on the right
B2	Mezzanine	Passageway between platforms
B3 Platform level (Atlantic Avenue)	Northbound	← toward Bedford Park Boulevard (rush hours) or 145th Street (other times) (DeKalb Avenue) ← toward Astoria – Ditmars Boulevard (weekdays) or 57th Street – Seventh Avenue (other times) (DeKalb Avenue)
	Island platform, doors will open on the left
	Southbound	→ toward Brighton Beach (Seventh Avenue) → → toward Coney Island – Stillwell Avenue via Brighton (Seventh Avenue) →
B3 Platform level (Pacific Street)	Northbound local	← toward Forest Hills – 71st Avenue (DeKalb Avenue) ← toward Norwood – 205th Street late nights (DeKalb Avenue) ← toward Astoria – Ditmars Boulevard late nights (DeKalb Avenue)
	Island platform, doors will open on the left, right
	Northbound express	← toward Norwood – 205th Street (all except nights) (Grand Street) ← toward Astoria – Ditmars Boulevard (all except nights) (Canal Street)
	Southbound express	→ toward Coney Island – Stillwell Avenue via West End (all except nights) (36th Street) → → toward Coney Island – Stillwell Avenue via Sea Beach (all except nights) (36th Street) →
	Island platform, doors will open on the left, right
	Southbound local	→ toward Bay Ridge – 95th Street (all except nights) (Union Street) → → toward Coney Island – Stillwell Avenue late nights (D via West End, N via Sea Beach) (Union Street) →

Gallery

• 

  Looking southwest at the head-house. Fifth Avenue Line has been demolished

• 

  Stair from IRT mezzanine to Fourth Avenue mezzanine and exit, directly below the former headhouse

• 

  Tilework

• 

  Close-up

• 

  Headhouse converted to skylight, also housing artwork

• 

  New entrance

• 

  Street stair at the NW corner of Fourth Avenue and Pacific Street.

• 

  BMT Fourth Avenue southbound platform in 2007 bearing the old Pacific Street name.

Further reading

• Lee Stokey. Subway Ceramics : A History and Iconography. 1994. ISBN 978-0-9635486-1-0

External links

• nycsubway.org—Brooklyn IRT: Atlantic Avenue
• nycsubway.org—BMT Brighton Line: Atlantic Avenue
• nycsubway.org—BMT 4th Avenue: Pacific Street
• nycsubway.org—Brooklyn IRT Contract 2 map: (includes current and former track configurations, and provisions for future connections)
• nycsubway.org — Hook, Line, and Sinker Artwork by George Trakas (2004)
• nycsubway.org — Steps to the Subway Artwork by Tim Connor (unknown date)
• Station Reporter — Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street Complex
• The Subway Nut — Pacific Street (D,M,N,R) Pictures
• The Subway Nut — Atlantic Avenue (B,Q) Pictures
• The Subway Nut — Atlantic Avenue (2,3,4,5) Pictures
• MTA's Arts For Transit — Atlantic Avenue – Pacific Street
• Hanson Place entrance (new station building) from Google Maps Street View
• Williamsburg Savings Bank entrance to Brighton Line on Hanson Place from Google Maps Street View
• now decorative headhouse from Google Maps Street View
• Pacific Street entrance from Google Maps Street View
• entrance in front of the Barclays Center from Google Maps Street View