page_title: BMT Nassau Street Line
section_title: Completion
hierarchical_section_title: BMT Nassau Street Line / History / Completion
caption_attribution_description: English: Group photo taken during construction of the Nassau St Subway, Circa 1928. Front row seated: 3rd from left - Bernard Marcus; 4th from left - Louis Marcus, President Marcus Contracting; 5th from left - Hyman Marcus; 6th from left - Mandel Marcus (later President of Marcus Substructure); 6th from left - Sam Bellows (Son In Law)
context_page_description: The BMT Nassau Street Line is a rapid transit line of the B Division of the New York City Subway system in Manhattan. It is a continuation of the BMT Jamaica Line in Brooklyn after crossing the Williamsburg Bridge into Manhattan; it continues to a junction with the BMT Broadway Line just before the Montague Street Tunnel. Afterwards, the line reenters Brooklyn. Although the tracks continue past Broad Street, there has been no regular service past that station since June 25, 2010. While the line is officially recognized as the Nassau Street Line, it only serves one station on Nassau Street: Fulton Street.
  The line is served at all times by the J train. The Z provides supplemental rush hour service, operating in the peak direction. The M service has historically served the Nassau Street Line, but since 2010, the M has been rerouted via the Chrystie Street Connection to run on the IND Sixth Avenue Line, as a replacement for the V, which was discontinued due to financial shortfalls. The M continues to serve one Nassau Street Line station: the Essex Street station.
context_section_description: Work was projected to be completed in 39 months, and in March 1929, sixty percent of the work had been finished. Nassau Street is only 34 feet (10 m) wide, and the subway floor was only 20 feet (6.1 m) below building foundations. As a result, 89 buildings had to be underpinned to ensure that they would stay on their foundations. Construction had to be done 20 feet (6.1 m) below the active IRT Lexington Avenue Line. An area filled with quicksand and water, that used to belong to a spring, was found between John Street and Broad Street. Construction was done at night so as to not disturb workers in the Financial District. The whole cost of the construction of the line was $10.072 million for the 0.9 miles (1.4 km)-long extension, or $2,068 a foot, which was three times the normal cost of construction at the time.
  The Nassau Street Loop opened at 3 p.m. on May 29, 1931, when Mayor Jimmy Walker took the controls of a train of D-type Triplex cars from Chambers Street to Broad Street. The line was extended two stops from its previous terminus at Chambers Street through the Fulton Street and Broad Street stations and to a connection to the Montague Street Tunnel, which allowed trains to run to Brooklyn. The line's completion allowed subway trains to operate via the Culver Line, whose operation used to consist of elevated trains that ran to Ninth Avenue, where transfers were made to West End subway trains. The new line provided an additional ten percent capacity more than the existing service through DeKalb Avenue. Service on the Jamaica Line was extended to operate to this station.
  The completion of the line ended a $30 million suit brought against the city by the BMT for not building the line before January 1, 1917. This station was named Broad Street, despite the line running under it, to distinguish it from the already-open Wall Street stations on the Lexington Avenue Line and Seventh Avenue Line.
  Because of the curve of Nassau Street at Fulton Street, that station had to be constructed on two levels; the upper level carried southbound trains with entrances on the east side of Nassau Street, and the lower level carried northbound trains with entrances on the west side of Nassau Street.
  Plans for the Chambers Street area changed several times during construction, always including a never-completed connection to the Brooklyn Bridge tracks. By 1910, only the west two tracks were to rise onto the bridge, and the east two were to continue south to the Montague Street Tunnel. As actually built for the 1931 opening south of Chambers Street, the two outer tracks ran south to the tunnel, while the two inner tracks continued several blocks in a lower level stub tunnel to allow trains to reverse direction.
caption: Group photo of the Marcus Contracting Co. taken during construction of the Nassau Street subway, circa 1928
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