Is the Q Train the New L?
Can a subway line take credit for a neighborhood’s renaissance? A writer at the Observer has publicly professed her love for the Q, and links it to Ditmas Park’s becoming “a suburban-urban blend of creative-class types, beautiful buildings and low prices.” She chose her own apartment, presumably in Prospect Heights, based on its proximity to…
Can a subway line take credit for a neighborhood’s renaissance? A writer at the Observer has publicly professed her love for the Q, and links it to Ditmas Park’s becoming “a suburban-urban blend of creative-class types, beautiful buildings and low prices.” She chose her own apartment, presumably in Prospect Heights, based on its proximity to the Q’s 7th Avenue stop (on the corner of Flatbush), only three stops in. She says the Q is the L of the 21st century, “with new crops of people popping out of its stations along a path rumbling through central and southern Brooklyn, from Downtown, Park Slope, Midwood and Ditmas Park, through Sheepshead Bay and, via an expert right turn, Brighton Beach and Coney Island.” She quotes other Q lovers, noting that celebs have been seen eating in restaurants along the train’s route, and that the express line has allowed Ditmas Park and others to blossom. “Perhaps the nabes along the Q are stealing just a little bit of thunder from other creative hubs like Williamsburg.” If that’s true, what other subway lines might help a neighborhood become the next Williamsburg?
Can the Q Be the Next L? [NY Observer]
Q Train. Photo by FlySi.
“The A train is the best, because it’s the only one about which there’s a Duke Ellington song.”
Yeah, but the Beastie Boys rapped about the D train, back when it ran on the Brighton line:
Groggy eyed and fried I’m headed for the station
D-Train ride Coney Island vacation
Disagree is your head is up your arse? I said having your housing purchase “heavily influenced” by “1” subway line is asinine. The convienence, safety and other ish you mentioned is the factors that SHOULD “heavily influence” your purchase. Whaddya think I work out in Lodi? You failed reading comp?
The A train is the best, because it’s the only one about which there’s a Duke Ellington song.
The Q has a long history of opening up new swaths of Brooklyn to hipsters and the affluent. When it was first laid down as the Brighton line, it opened up farmland to posh developers like Dean Alvord of Prospect Park South…and it briefly spurred a flowering of the infant movie industry in the same area of Flatbush, before a place called Hollywood beckoned with its year-round climate for exterior shooting. Steps from the Beverly Road station are gorgeous Tudor apt. bldgs on Ocean Ave. where Doug Fairbanks Sr and Fatty Arbuckle supposedly lived the high life for awhile.
more tea – perhaps you need someone to help you understand that which is, apparently, beyond you. living in brooklyn and working in manhattan generally means a commute of some kind. are we asinine to have jobs in manhattan? if that wasn’t your point, then what’s asinine about evaluating the comparative transit options among the neighborhoods or homes one is considering? why is it asinine to consider which of the places you might live has better and faster access to the city? if all subway lines will “go down,” whatever that means, then they’re equal from that perspective, right? or is it that we’re asinine because we don’t choose to ignore convenience and economics and safety statistics and, instead, choose to rely on cars and parking and freeway driving (all of which, as we all know, are always functioning and in abundant availability, right)?
When (not if) that subway line goes down, I hope your iPhone is fully charged.
Fair point, and one of the advantages of being at a station served by both express and local tracks. But because the Brighton line is the only one in the city that runs for an extended distance in an open trench, it can be stopped by heavy snowfall accumulation or downed tree branches. Other lines are either underground or on stilts, so they don’t have this problem, just the usual switch malfunctions, track fires, and ‘sick’ passengers.
I live in PLG, too, and love the B and Q, but if their presence is going to make my neighborhood the next Williamsburg, I’m all for discontinuing them — I’ll deal with the 2 and 5 trains if I have to.
The Q stops in PLG also, at the Prospect Park stop. Which is a few stops closer to Manhattan than Ditmas. And the wait, while long-ish sometimes, is nothing like the wait for the 2/3 or the R, our old trains at our former home. We’re happy with the Q too.
I stand by my original statement.
Having a housing purchase heavily influenced by 1 subway line is asinine. The person that does that must be stupid, new to NY transit or a combination of the two.
When (not if) that subway line goes down, I hope your iPhone is fully charged.