One hundred years ago, the Fourth Avenue subway line welcomed passengers and opened up new neighborhoods of Brooklyn to New Yorkers.
It’s difficult to describe how life-altering the introduction of the Fourth Avenue line was to Brooklyn, which at that time was served by trolleys and elevated trains but not by an entire subway route from Manhattan. The Fourth Avenue line opened on June 22, 1915. The inaugural trip was said to have taken less than an hour from Chambers Street to Coney Island.
The MTA marked the line’s centennial on Monday and will put vintage subway trains in service on June 27 and 28 to continue the celebration. The trains will terminate at the Brighton Beach Q station.
Here’s a quick look back at the construction of the line and some of the early train cars that ran on it.
