Fifth Avenue Line (Brooklyn elevated)

The Union Elevated Railroad Company,[2] leased by the Brooklyn Elevated Railroad, built the Hudson Avenue Elevated, a branch of the Brooklyn Elevated Railroad's Lexington Avenue Elevated. This line split from the Brooklyn elevated at a junction at Hudson and Park Avenues (where exit 29 of the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway is now located), and traveled south above Hudson Avenue to the Long Island Rail Road's Flatbush Avenue terminal. Trains began operating between Fulton Ferry (the terminal of the Brooklyn elevated) and Flatbush Avenue on November 5, 1888.[3]

The line crossed the BMT Myrtle Avenue Line at grade two blocks south of its merge with the Brooklyn elevated. On its second day of operation, November 6, a Hudson Avenue train crashed into a Myrtle Avenue train.[4] Service was suspended immediately,[5] and did not resume until June 22, 1889, when an extension south to Third Street was completed, and a new connection into Myrtle Avenue opened, taking trains between Third Street and Sands Street at the end of the Myrtle Avenue Line, and replacing the four track crossings with one.[6] The unused two blocks north of Myrtle Avenue were placed back in service on December 9, 1889, when Myrtle Avenue trains began to use it to reach Fulton Ferry via the old Brooklyn elevated.[7]

An extension south to 25th Street at Greenwood Cemetery was opened at 4 p.m. on August 15, 1889. At this new terminal, elevated passengers could transfer to the north end of the Brooklyn, Bath and West End Railroad for Coney Island.[8][9] A further extension to 36th Street, at a new Union Depot serving the West End Line and Prospect Park and Coney Island Railroad (Culver Line) to Coney Island, opened on May 29, 1890.[10] The Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) had service on the elevated line from Brooklyn Bridge, through Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues to the 36th Street Union Depot, connecting with the Manhattan Beach Line starting in 1895.

The Seaside and Brooklyn Bridge Elevated Railroad was organized on March 18, 1890[11] to extend the Fifth Avenue Elevated south to Fort Hamilton, to extend the Lexington Avenue Elevated from Van Siclen Avenue east to the city line,[12] and to build in High Street at the Brooklyn Bridge (this became part of the Sands Street station loop).[13] The extension of the Fifth Avenue Elevated, along Fifth Avenue, 38th Street, and Third Avenue, opened to 65th Street on October 1, 1893.[14][15]

On June 25, 1923, two cars of a northbound train derailed and fell towards Flatbush Avenue. Eight passengers died and many were injured.[16][17] At midnight on June 1, 1940, service on the Fifth Avenue Elevated ended as required by the unification of the city's three subway companies.[18][19]

On September 15, 1941, the demolition of the Fifth Avenue Elevated started at 35th Street and Fifth Avenue, and it was completed by November of that year.[20] The section of the elevated on Third Avenue from 38th Street to 65th Street was used as part of the elevated highway approach, the Gowanus Expressway, to the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel. In total, three miles of the elevated were scrapped, with the work being done by the Harris Structural Steel Company.[2]

Fifth Avenue trains served Park Row, Sands Street, Adams Street, and Bridge–Jay Streets before leaving the Myrtle Avenue Line.