History of the BRT and BMT

The Brooklyn Heights Railroad was a street railway company in the U.S. state of New York. It leased and operated the streetcar lines of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, but started out with the Montague Street Line, a short cable car line connecting the Wall Street Ferry with downtown Brooklyn along Montague Street. Eliphalet Williams Bliss owned the railroad.

Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the collateral for the loan.

The South Brooklyn Railway is a railroad in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is owned by the City of New York and operated by the New York City Transit Authority. Its original main line ran parallel to 38th Street from the Upper New York Bay to McDonald Avenue, and south on McDonald Avenue to the Coney Island Yards, mostly underneath the former Culver Shuttle and the IND Culver Line of the New York City Subway.

Lower Manhattan, also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York City, is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City, which is the most populated city in the United States with over 8.8 million residents as of the 2020 census.

The Long Island Rail Road, often abbreviated as the LIRR, is a commuter rail system in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of New York, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County on Long Island. With an average weekday ridership of 354,800 passengers in 2016, it is the busiest commuter railroad in North America. It is also one of the world's few commuter systems that runs 24/7 year-round. It is publicly owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which refers to it as MTA Long Island Rail Road. In 2021, the system had a ridership of 49,167,600, or about 226,100 per weekday as of the third quarter of 2022.

Manhattan Beach is a residential neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the south and east, by Sheepshead Bay on the north, and Brighton Beach to the west. Traditionally known as an Italian and Ashkenazi Jewish neighborhood, it is also home to a sizable community of Sephardi Jews and a large Russian Jewish immigrant presence.

Broadway Ferry was a ferry landing in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City, United States at the foot of Broadway. Boats connected it to the Grand Street Ferry, East 23rd Street Ferry, and James Slip landings in Manhattan. In Brooklyn, the Broadway El ended at the ferry.

The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT) was a public transit holding company formed in 1896 to acquire and consolidate railway lines in Brooklyn and Queens, New York City, United States. It was a prominent corporation and industry leader using the single-letter symbol B on the New York Stock Exchange.

The Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) was an urban transit holding company, based in Brooklyn, New York City, United States, and incorporated in 1923. The system was sold to the city in 1940. Today, together with the IND subway system, it forms the B Division of the modern New York City Subway.

The New York City Board of Transportation or the Board of Transportation of the City of New York was a city transit commission and operator in New York City, consisting of three members appointed by the mayor. It was created in 1924 to control city-owned and operated public transportation service within the New York City Transit System. The agency oversaw the construction and operation of the municipal Independent Subway System (IND), which was constructed shortly after the Board was chartered. The BOT later presided over the major transfers of public transit from private control to municipal control that took place in the 1940s, including the unification of the New York City Subway in 1940. In 1953, the Board was dissolved and replaced by the state-operated New York City Transit Authority, now part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).

The Independent Subway System, formerly known as the Independent City-Owned Subway System (ICOSS) or the Independent City-Owned Rapid Transit Railroad (ICORTR), was a rapid transit rail system in New York City that is now part of the New York City Subway. It was first constructed as the Eighth Avenue Line in Manhattan in 1932.

New York City Subway nomenclature is the terminology used in the New York City Subway system as derived from railroading practice, historical origins of the system, and engineering, publicity, and legal usage. Important terms include lines, or individual sections of subway, like the BMT Brighton Line; services, like the B, which is a single train route along several lines; and stations, such as Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue, which connects multiple lines and services.

The Culver Shuttle was a New York City Subway shuttle, running along a remnant of the BMT Culver Line, most of which is now the IND Culver Line. The shuttle was originally part of the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT)'s 5 service, providing through service on the Culver Line between Coney Island and Manhattan. The F train is the current successor to Culver Line service. The line had 1,000 riders during its final month of service in 1975.

The BMT Franklin Avenue Line is a rapid transit line of the New York City Subway in Brooklyn, New York, running between Franklin Avenue and Prospect Park. Service is full-time, and provided by the Franklin Avenue Shuttle. The line serves the neighborhoods of Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights, and allows for easy connections between the Fulton Street Line and the Brighton Line.

BU cars is the generic term for BRT elevated gate cars used on predecessor lines of the New York City Subway system. Various orders of these cars were built by the Osgood-Bradley, Brill, Cincinnati, Laconia, Pullman, Gilbert & Bush, Harlan & Hollingsworth, Wason, Pressed Steel, Brooklyn Heights Railroad, John Stephenson, and Jewett car companies.

The AB Standard was a New York City Subway car class built by the American Car and Foundry Company and Pressed Steel Car Company between 1914 and 1924. It ran under the operation of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT) and its successors, which included the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT), the New York City Board of Transportation, and the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA). The cars were designed following the signing of the Dual Contracts, which called for a major expansion of the BRT. A total of 950 cars were built.

The C-type was a series of elevated New York City Subway cars originally built by the Osgood-Bradley, Laconia, and Jewett car companies, and rebuilt by the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company between 1923 and 1925 from former BU cars.

The D-Type, commonly known as the Triplex, was a New York City Subway car class built by Pressed Steel Car Company. They were operated by the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) and its successors, which included the New York City Board of Transportation and the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA). The fleet consisted of 121 cars, each arranged as three-section articulated units. Four units were built as a prototype in 1925, and the production units were built during 1927 and 1928.

The MS Multi-section was a series of New York City Subway cars. They were built in prototype form in 1934 with production models built in 1936. Built by the Budd, Pullman, and St. Louis car companies, they were called "Multis" for short. They were so named because each car was an articulated car made of five sections; though the MS Multi-section fleet's lengths differed, their average length was 170 ft (52 m).

The Q-type and QX were a New York City Subway car class originally built by the Osgood-Bradley, Brill, Laconia, and Jewett car companies, and rebuilt in 1938 by the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) from former BU cars.

The Chrystie Street Connection is a set of New York City Subway tunnels running the length of Chrystie Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It is one of the few track connections between lines of the former Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) and Independent Subway System (IND) divisions, which together constitute the system's B Division. A major branch of the IND Sixth Avenue Line, it connects the Sixth Avenue Line to the BMT Brighton Line and BMT Fourth Avenue Line via the north side of the Manhattan Bridge and to the BMT Jamaica Line over the Williamsburg Bridge. The project, opened in 1967 and 1968, also includes the Sixth Avenue Line's Grand Street and 57th Street stations, the latter of which is not part of the connection itself.

A flying junction or flyover is a railway junction at which one or more diverging or converging tracks in a multiple-track route cross other tracks on the route by bridge to avoid conflict with other train movements. A more technical term is "grade-separated junction". A burrowing junction or dive-under occurs where the diverging line passes below the main line.