Mourning the Old Flatbush Terminal
Doesn’t this photo of the old Flatbush Avenue Terminal just make you want to cry? Kevin Walsh of Forgotten NY brought this photo (and the others on this website) to our attention. (That’s One Hanson aka the Williamsburgh Savings Bank in the background.) The passenger station opened in 1907 and was completely refurbished in the…
Doesn’t this photo of the old Flatbush Avenue Terminal just make you want to cry? Kevin Walsh of Forgotten NY brought this photo (and the others on this website) to our attention. (That’s One Hanson aka the Williamsburgh Savings Bank in the background.) The passenger station opened in 1907 and was completely refurbished in the 1940s; like many historic structures in Brooklyn, the terminal was allowed to deteriorate in the 1960s and 1970s and the Transit Authority tore it down in the mid-1980s. What a waste.
I took photos around here and on Atlantic before the terminal was taken down. I don’t have the old terminal, but I do have the empty spooky lots where the mall buildings now sit. And they have awesome cars in the pics.
Can I send them in to Brownstoner?
It’s a Dodge…maybe a 73 Dart Sport or more likely a Charger.
“Just looks like an ordinary railway station building to me. Not ugly, but hardly beautiful.”
I was around when it looked like this. It was functional and appropriate for its purpose, but I don’t recall anyone weeping over its magnificent beauty. In its final days it was downright dirty. It was definitely time for a change. I think it’s nice the small sub-station across the street was kept and cleaned up.
Plymouth Duster, I believe.
I was only in this building a couple of times [since the LIRR doesn’t really go anywhere I care to visit] but some remnants of it’s former grandeur were visible through the general decrepitude. I really wanted to like the new Atlantic Terminal building as a worthy successor and so it appeared to be in the video posted here a year, or so, ago. However, in person, the new a big disappointment, with really cheesy details; it’s only “advantage” over the old terminal is that it serves as a portal to the Rat’s shopping mall.
Another question: does anyone know the significance of the use of the keystone for the LIRR?
Not the most brilliant work from 1907, but I’m sure it would have cleaned up nicely.
Let’s face it, prior to 1990, no one cared a fig about Brooklyn outside of Brooklyn Heights and central-most Park Slope. Things have changed for the better in that regard.
And the new Atlantic Ave headhouse, which seemed to take forever to build, turned out alright. I sort of like it.
>Just looks like an ordinary railway station building to me. Not ugly, but hardly beautiful.
Way better, both functionally and aesthetically, however, than the monstrosity that’s there now. Train stations used to be in and of themselves a destination, with a hint of the romance of travel attached. See Grand Central Terminal today for a surviving example.
What do we get instead, courtesy of the Rat and the MTA? An ugly, tiny (because most of the space has been given over to his mall), decidedly un-welcoming space. And, as I discovered recently, one that is CLOSED to the public between 12 am – 5 am, because there is no longer any LIRR service to/from Brooklyn at all during those hours.
The only way I and several equally confused others could get to the subway was through the Q/B entrance in the Williamsburgh Bank building. You could then walk across the LIRR area to the entrance to the IRT trains, but there was no access from the street.
Pathetic!
Historic building gone, blah, blah, blah. But the car! Who can tell us about the car!
I actually had no idea about the history of that site. How interesting, and what a crappy trade-off with the current building that’s there.