page_title: IND Culver Line
section_title: IND Brooklyn Line (1933–1954)
hierarchical_section_title: IND Culver Line / History / Early years as two separate lines / IND Brooklyn Line (1933–1954)
caption_attribution_description: The northbound platform at the Kensington-Church Avenue subway station, during elevator installation. Taken in August 2006.
context_page_description: The IND Culver Line is a rapid transit line of the B Division of the New York City Subway, extending from Downtown Brooklyn south to Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City, United States. The local tracks of the Culver Line are served by the F service, as well as the G between Bergen Street and Church Avenue. The express tracks north of Church Avenue are used by the <F> train during rush hours in the peak direction. The peak-direction express track between Ditmas Avenue and Avenue X has not seen regular service since 1987.
  The line is named after Andrew Culver, who built the original Culver Line that preceded the current subway line. The present-day line was built by the Independent Subway System and Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation. The northern section of the line, between Jay Street–MetroTech and Church Avenue, is a four-track line that was built by the IND in 1933, running primarily underground except for a short elevated section over the Gowanus Canal.
context_section_description: One of the goals of Mayor John Hylan's Independent Subway System (IND), proposed in the 1920s was a line to Coney Island, reached by a recapture of the BMT Culver Line. To connect this line to the Eighth Avenue Line–the main trunk of the IND–a subway line was to run from Brooklyn Borough Hall south under Jay Street, Smith Street, Ninth Street, and several other streets to Cortelyou Road (later Church Avenue) and McDonald Avenue, just north of the Ditmas Avenue elevated station. A ramp would then lead onto the elevated BMT Culver Line. This line was variously known as the Culver Line Extension, Culver−Smith Street Line, Smith Street Line, Smith Street–Prospect Park Line, Smith–Ninth Street Line, Jay–Smith–Ninth Street Line, Church Avenue Line, Prospect Park–Church Avenue Line, Prospect Park–Coney Island Line, Brooklyn Line, or South Brooklyn Line, though it was often simply referred to as the Brooklyn portion of the IND. As originally designed, service to and from Manhattan would have been exclusively provided by Culver express trains, while all local service would have fed into the IND Crosstown Line.
  By 1927, it was decided to build a truss bridge over the Gowanus Canal and a viaduct over Ninth Street due to cost considerations, replacing earlier plans for a deep river tunnel. This resulted in the only above-ground section of the original IND. The first short section of the line opened on March 20, 1933, taking Eighth Avenue Express A trains (and for about a month from July to August C trains) south from Jay Street to Bergen Street. The rest of the line opened on October 7, 1933 to the "temporary" terminal at Church Avenue, three blocks away from the Culver elevated at Ditmas Avenue. In 1936, the A was rerouted to the IND Fulton Street Line and E trains from the Queens Boulevard line replaced them. On July 1, 1937, the connection to the IND Crosstown Line opened and GG trains were extended to Smith-Ninth Streets. E trains were replaced by the F on December 15, 1940 after the IND Sixth Avenue Line opened.
  As part of the various proposed extensions of the IND Second System, the IND Culver subway was planned to facilitate a spur line to Bay Ridge, with a connection to the incomplete Staten Island Tunnel intended for the BMT Fourth Avenue Line. A 1931 proposal had the line travel south from Smith–Ninth Streets station through Red Hook and Gowanus to Saint George Terminal. A 1933 plan would have branched off between Smith–Ninth Streets and Fourth Avenue, then run down Second Avenue in Bay Ridge to the tunnel. Like other IND lines, this route would have been in direct competition with the then-privately operated Fourth Avenue Subway. The final proposal from the 1939 Second System plan proposed an extension down Fort Hamilton Parkway and/or Tenth Avenue towards the tunnel, with continued service to 86th Street in Bay Ridge near the BMT Fourth Avenue Line station. This route would have diverged near the Fort Hamilton Parkway and Church Avenue stations. In 1940, proposals emerged to connect the IND with the BMT West End Line near its Fort Hamilton Parkway station; the 1946 Board of Transportation plans featured both the West End connection and the extension to 86th Street. None of these proposals were ever constructed.
caption: Church Avenue
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