BROOKLYN TROLLEYS

McDonald PCC at West 5th St. The information on this page is from the list of Brooklyn trolley lines shown on the original ERA map published in 1950 with notes and conversion or abandonment dates. The map and chart was updated and published in Greller’s book about the Brooklyn System. I have further updated it with some commentary from Don Harold, the noted Brooklyn Trolley historian. Visit the Don Harold Photo Pages and the Frank Goldsmith Photo pages here at the JoeKorNer.

The Brooklyn Streecar system was one of the largest ever. It had tracks that operated into Manhattan over the Brooklyn and Williamsburg Bridges, and service to the 1939 Worlds Fair in Queens. There were many different cars operated there too, including convertables, the 8100 Peter Witt speed cars and the first production PCC cars. Here are some of my personal memories

This JoeKorNer page is adapted from the text file I distributed with my BAHN layouts of the Brooklyn Trolley System. There are two layouts in one zip file format at: Brooklyn Trolley Lines. The Bahn software is downloadable at: BAHN Home Page

This page is sorted by closing dates. On the left is an index that allows searching by street name, trolley route number, current bus route number, or years. The route numbers are the ones that the trolleys used, not all of them carried over to today's bus system. For example, the Coney Island Ave trolley was #63, the Smith St bus was #72. When the two routes were through routed from 1936 to 1946, it was the #68 Smith-Coney Island. Today's buses are the #68 Coney Isalnd Ave and the #75 Smith St until 2010. Some of the routes were eliminated or replaced by buses before the BMT assigned them numbers, these have no numbers in the table.

A number of routes were converted to electric buses in 1948. These routes have links to the JoeKorNer Trackless Trolley page.

In 2010, because of budget concerns, the bus routes in Brooklyn had major combinations, through routes, and cancellations of service. This is why the Smith/Court buses, which were #75 are now covered by the #57 Flushing Ave route extened along Court southbound and Smith northbound. There are other similar changes to other routes. As a result, 100% of the current bus routes are not covered in the table. A number of the current bus routes were never trolley, for example, Kings Highway B7 and B82. These routes are not included in the table. Routes shown with a % were not originally replaced by buses. In some cases, because streets were converted to one way pairs, buses now take two parallel streets on some or all of the route.

Route	Name	Discontinued	Year	Notes	Photos From the Don Harold or Frank Goldsmith pages or the BMT Archives. Some of the images are larger than displayed, click on them to see full size.
	Montague St Cable Car		1891 to 1924	Boro Hall and the Wall St Ferry
	Montague St Cable Car		1891 to 1924	Boro Hall and the Wall St Ferry	The Cable Car Guy Web Site
	Manhattan Bridge 3 Cent Line			*The Manhattan Bridge 3 Cent Line* operated as a shuttle. The car house is still standing in 1998.
	Manhattan's Thrid Ave Railway			*Third Ave Railway System in Brooklyn* There was a plow pit at Flatbush Ave near Tillary for the Third Ave Railway cars. Because of a city ordinance, no streetcars could us overhead wires in most of Manhattan. The various trolley lines in that borough used an underground third rail. The cars had a plow extending through a slot in the street to the rail. At places where the underground rail ended and wire was to be used a plow pit was built. Employees would be stationed in the pit to disconnect and reconnect the plows. There is no indication as to what the 3rd Ave cars did in Brooklyn.
	Service over Brooklyn Bridge	3/5/50	1950	In addition to a bridge local, the following lines operated over the bridge: 16 Graham Avenue 21 DeKalb Avenue 28 Erie Basin 57 Flushing Avenue 67 Seventh Ave 69 MacDonald-Vanderbilt Aves Some lines may have stopped operating before 1950.
%	Metropolitan Av Shuttle		1920	Grand & Metropolitan and Kent and Grand.
	Hicks Street		1921	Atlantic and Hamilton
	Flatbush Ave Shuttle		1926	Ave N and Ave U - now covered by the B41 alternating destinations. 41 Flatbush Avenue
	Calvary Cem Line	1/26/30	1930	Greenpoint Ave between the Ferry and cemetery
	Sixteenth Ave	1/26/30	1930	McDonald Ave to 58th St
%	Marcy Avenue		1930	Lorimer & Metropolitan to Fulton & Marcy
%	Grand Street Shuttle		1930	Kent and Marcy
%	Brooklyn Bridge Local		1930	Brooklyn Bridge Service
%	Park Avenue	6/19/30	1930	High & Adams to 20th St& PP West
	Avenue C - Cortelyou Rd	7/23/30	1930	Trackless Trolley Flatbush and Coney Island Av
	Bergen Beach Shuttle	8/6/30	1930	Utica & Ave N via Ave N to Ave X & Bergen Ave
	Hoyt-Sackett Sts.		1934	covered by Rt.2 from 11/1/43
83	Nortons Pt Shuttle	9/26/35	1935	Ran again during June 1943
	Vanderbilt Ave		1936	Combined with McDonald
29	Meeker -Marcy Avenues	4/17/39	1939
52	Greene & Gates Aves.	10/5/41	1941
25	Fulton St.	8/10/41	1941
26	Putnam Ave.-1st motorization	9/21/41	1941
	Canarsie El Shuttle	11/21/42	1942	Replaced by Route 9
%	65th St Ft. Hamilton (2nd Av)	3/1/42	1942
37	Third Avenue	3/1/42	1942
33	Hamilton Avenue	3/29/42	1942
26	Putnam Ave. restored to rail	11/29/42	1942
	Ralph Ave	11/1/43	1943	To Rts.3 Sumner Ave & 10 Ralph Rockaway
%28	Erie Basin	3/5/44	1944	Brooklyn Bridge Service
47	Franklin (combined with 48)	10/28/45	1945
43	Nostrand Ave. Shuttle	10/28/45	1945	combined with Rte 44 10/28/45
19	Nassau Ave (to Rt 48)	10/28/45	1945
%17	Greenpoint Ave (Kent Av.)	11/19/45	1945	The #17 line used Kent and Classon to Myrtle until 1933. From 1933 to 1945 it used Washington Ave.
%56	Union Avenue (Knickerbocker)	12/1/45	1945
71	Union Street	12/1/45	1945
77	Fifteenth Street	12/1/45	1945
68	Smith St - Coney Island Av	Split 6/17/46	1946	Split into 63 Coney Island Ave and 72 Smith St
36	Sea Gate (Surf Avenue)	12/1/46	1946
27	Jamaica	11/30/47	1947
48	Lorimer Street	12/14/47	1947	Trackless Trolley #48
38	West End (New Utrecht Ave.)	6/28/47	1947
2	Bergen Street	7/20/47	1947	Trackless Trolley #65
3	Sumner Avenue	7/20/47	1947	The Sumner Ave service operated in both directions on Bergen St at Sumner at various times. The Hamliton Ferry service probably ended when the construction of the BQE cut off Sackett and Unions St tracks.
5	St. Johns Place	8/24/47	1947	Trackless Trolley #45
7	Tompkins Avenue	8/24/47	1947	Williamsburg Bridge Local Trackless Trolley #47
50	Bushwick Avenue	9/1/47	1947
	New lots Avenue	9/1/47	1947
%	Cypress Hills Cemetery	9/1/47	1947
57	Flushing Avenue	11/21/48	1948	Trackless Trolley #57 Brooklyn Bridge Service
73	Norton's Point	11/7/48	1948
16	Graham Avenue	12/21/48	1948	Trackless Trolley #62 Brooklyn Bridge Service
	Willliamsburg Bridge Local	12/4/48	1948	In addition to the bridge local, the following lines operated over the bridge: 7 Tompkins Avenue 10 Ralph-Rockaway Avenues 44 Nostrand Avenue
31	86th Street	8/12/48	1948
69	MacDonald-Vanderbilt Aves	(Split 5/2/49)	1949	Split into #50 McDonald and Vanderbilt Brooklyn Bridge Service
21	DeKalb Avenue	1/30/49	1949	Brooklyn Bridge Service
59	Grand Street	12/11/49	1949
32	5th Avenue	2/20/49	1949
30	Eighth Avenue	5/15/49	1949
34	Bay Ridge Avenue	5/15/49	1949
13	Gravesend-Church Avenues	6/1/49	1949
53	Metropolitan Aveue	6/12/49	1949
54	Myrtle Av.-Court St	7/17/49	1949
58	Flushing – Ridgewood	7/17/49	1949
	Junction Blvd.	8/24/49	1949	(was part of Rt.59)
24	Broadway	1/15/50	1950
26	Putnam Ave - 2nd motorization	2/5/50	1950
55	Richmond Hill	4/26/50	1950
69	Vanderbilt	8/20/50	1950
15	Crosstown	1/27/51	1951
67	Seventh Ave	2/11/51	1951	Brooklyn Bridge Service
72 (75)	Smith Street	2/11/51	1951
46	Utica-Reid Avenues	3/18/51	1951	For two weeks after official motorization the Flatbush and Utica bus routes required some trolley service as shuttles to supplement the service requirements due to a shortage of buses.
41	Flatbush Avenue	3/5/51	1951
42	Holy Cross Cemetery	4/1/51	1951	Tilden Ave & Nostrand to cemetery gate
44	Nostrand Avenue	4/1/51	1951	Williamsburg Bridge Local
9	Rockaway Parkway	4/29/51	1951
49	Ocean Avenue	4/29/51	1951
10	Ralph-Rockaway Avenues	5/27/51	1951	Williamsburg Bridge Local
14	Wilson Avenue	5/27/51	1951
14S	Wilson Avenue Shuttle	5/27/51	1951	Rockaway Parkway Station and New Lots Ave & Rockaway Ave.
63	Coney Island Avenue	11/30/55	1955
8 #35 6/1/49	Church Avenue	10/31/56	1956
50	MacDonald Ave	10/31/56	1956

%=line not replaced by a bus route.

My Memories of Brooklyn Trolleys

The tunnel under Ocean Parkway that the Church Ave line used to avoid the traffic.
The Canarsie Depot where the Church Ave Cars terminated. I also learned the difference between PCC's and 'the old cars' there (I was about 3 when most of the lines quit).
October 31, 1956 (or shortly thereafter). When traveling from my grandparent's house back home, we would use the New Lots bus, which had replaced the #10 Ralph Rockaway between Canarise Depot and St. John's Place. On our trips home we could always tell if the vehicle turning off of Hegaman Ave into E.98th St was a Church Av Car (one headlight) or our bus (two headlights). After black Wednesday, we had to wait to see if the bus turned off into Church Ave or not.

- The JoeKorNer