Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall/Chambers Street station

Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall/  Chambers Street  ​​​​
New York City Subway station complex
Municipal Building entrance
Station statistics
Borough	Manhattan
Locale	Civic Center
Coordinates	40°42′46″N 74°0′17″W
Division	A (IRT), B (BMT)
Line	IRT Lexington Avenue Line    BMT Nassau Street Line
Services	4  (all times) ​   5  (all times except late nights) ​   6  (all times) <6>  (weekdays until 8:45 p.m., peak direction)​    J  (all times) ​   Z  (rush hours, peak direction)
Transit	NYCT Bus: M9, M22, M103 MTA Bus: BM1, BM2, BM3, BM4, QM7, QM8
Structure	Underground
Other information
Opened	1914
Accessible	Partially ADA-accessible (IRT Lexington Avenue Line platforms only)
Traffic
2023	5,881,022  16.4%
Rank	36 out of 423
Location
Street map
Station service legend Symbol Description Stops all times Stops late nights only Stops rush hours in the peak direction only

Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall/Chambers Street is a New York City Subway station complex in Lower Manhattan. The complex is served by trains of the IRT Lexington Avenue Line and the BMT Nassau Street Line. The following services stop at this station:

• 4, 6, and J trains at all times
• 5 train at all times except late nights
• <6> train on weekdays in the peak direction
• Z skip-stop train during rush hours in the peak direction

Station layout

Lower Manhattan transit
Franklin Street Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall ​ ( ) ​​ Chambers Street Chambers Street ​ ​ ( ) Chambers Street–WTC City Hall ​ ​ Park Place WTC Cortlandt Cortlandt Street ​ (  HOB   NWK ) World Trade Center Fulton Street ​​​​​​​ Rector Street Rector Street ​ ​ Wall Street Wall Street ​ ​ Bowling Green Broad Street ( ​) ( ) South Ferry/Whitehall Street Whitehall Terminal South Ferry loops

BMT Nassau Street Line platforms

Chambers Street  ​
New York City Subway station (rapid transit)
Northbound platform. On the right is the unused middle platform and downtown platform.
Station statistics
Division	B (BMT)
Line	BMT Nassau Street Line
Services	J  (all times) ​   Z  (rush hours, peak direction)
Structure	Underground
Platforms	3 island platforms (2 active), 2 side platforms (1 demolished; 1 disused)
Tracks	4 (2 in regular service)
Other information
Opened	August 4, 1913 (1913-08-04)
Accessible	ADA-accessible to mezzanine only; accessibility to platforms planned
Opposite- direction transfer	Yes
Traffic
2023	5,881,022  16.4%
Rank	36 out of 423
Station succession
Next north	Template:NYCS next
Next south	Template:NYCS next
Station service legend Symbol Description Stops all times Stops rush hours in the peak direction only Stops weekday evenings only
Chambers Street Subway Station (Dual System BMT)
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
MPS	New York City Subway System MPS
NRHP reference No.	05000669
Added to NRHP	July 6, 2005

style="color:;background:#Template:NYCS color;text-align:center;padding:5px"| Track layout
to Canal St Manhattan Br Sidings to Fulton St

Ceramic tile with Brooklyn Bridge

Chambers Street on the BMT Nassau Street Line is located at the intersection of Centre and Chambers Streets beneath the Manhattan Municipal Building. The station has four tracks, three island platforms, and one side platform (originally two).

The southbound platform is slightly higher at the southern end of the station because the next stop south, Fulton Street, is bi-level with the southbound platform being above the northern one. The two "express" tracks, currently unused in regular revenue service, merge into a single tail track south of the station. The tail track is 620 feet (190 m) long from the switch points to the bumper block, where an emergency exit is available. The tail track south of the station was the site of an M train crash on November 6, 2007.

North of this station, there are two stub tracks, which end behind the now-closed Queens-bound side platform. These tracks were formerly connected to the Manhattan Bridge, until they were disconnected in 1967 as part of the Chrystie Street Connection, with the BMT Broadway Line being connected to the bridge instead. Also north of this station, the former southbound express track (now the northbound track) splits into two tracks just south of Canal Street: the former northbound local track, and the former southbound express track (the current northbound track).

The tile work on this station includes a depiction of the nearby Brooklyn Bridge that has a subtle mistake: it features the parallel up-down cables between the main cable and the roadway (as seen alone on most suspension bridges) but misses the second set of diagonal cables that radiate from the bridge to the roadway (as seen on cable-stayed bridges).

Exits

The BMT station has two main exits/entrances, both of which are shared with the IRT station via a passageway:

• Stair on south edge of Foley Square
• Stair under Manhattan Municipal Building just southeast of the intersection of Centre and Chambers Streets

History

When it was being built before World War I, Chambers Street was designed to be the BMT's Manhattan hub, with trains arriving from Brooklyn in both directions, and terminating here. It was envisioned as a City Hall terminal, a kind of downtown Grand Central Terminal at a time when the business and population center of the city was still closer to the southern end of the island. Three years after the Chambers Street station opened, its four wide platforms were so overcrowded that one newspaper article described them as "more dangerous during the rush hours than at the Grand Central or the Fourteenth Street Stations."

Originally, trains arrived from the north via either the Williamsburg Bridge or the Manhattan Bridge; the connection to the Montague Street Tunnel had not yet been completed. The loop configuration permitted trains arriving in either direction from the BMT Fourth Avenue Line in Brooklyn to pass through Chambers Street and return to Fourth Avenue without having to reverse direction. The BMT Brooklyn Loops, a track connection to the Brooklyn Bridge that would have connected to the Williamsburg Bridge tracks, was planned in the station's design, but was only partially built. The finished portions of the tunnel to the Brooklyn Bridge led directly to wine vaults under the bridge.

By the mid-1920s, the subway itself was pushing the city's population north and leaving Chambers Street behind. The Nassau Street Loop was completed in 1931, making Chambers Street a through station south to the Montague Street Tunnel to Brooklyn. At this point, the center island platform and the two side platforms were closed. By the 1950s, many of the city's business interests had shifted to Midtown. The west side platform was walled up and most of it was destroyed when Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line was rebuilt on the other side of the wall in 1960–62. The Chrystie Street Connection, completed in 1967, severed the Nassau line's connection to the Manhattan Bridge, so that the bridge tracks could connect instead to the uptown IND Sixth Avenue Line. The tracks heading towards the Manhattan Bridge (now used for train storage) are visible from northbound trains leaving Chambers Street.

Although altered over the years to account for changing ridership patterns, the station has not been renovated. In a 2003 poll, it was voted the ugliest station in the system. In May 2018, it was announced that the MTA would start renovating the Chambers Street station that August. The station will receive two platform elevators and three new ramps in the mezzanine. One ramp will allow passengers using the Chambers Street mezzanine to use the street elevator in the Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall station. The two other ramps will lead to the two platform elevators. The station platforms will be modified to reduce the gap between trains and the platform edges, and a pedestrian bridge will be installed above the tracks, connecting both of the open platforms. To accommodate the ramps, elevators, and pedestrian bridge, portions of the station and mezzanine will need to be removed or reconfigured. These improvements will make the station compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and are being funded as part of the 2015–2019 MTA Capital Program. The project will take at least 24 months to be completed.

In popular culture

• Subway scenes from the 1956 film Somebody Up There Likes Me were filmed at the Chambers Street station.
• The station was used to film a scene in the 1980 film Fame.
• In the 1986 film Crocodile Dundee, muggers inside the Municipal Building entrance to the station pull a knife on the title character (Paul Hogan) and his girlfriend Sue (Linda Kozlowski); Dundee responds by saying of the muggers' knife, "That's not a knife." Pulling a larger knife of his own, he then says, "That's a knife."
• The station was used in the 1998 adaptation of Great Expectations, in a climactic scene featuring Ethan Hawke and Robert De Niro.
• The station was also briefly featured in the short film/music video "Hurricane" by Thirty Seconds to Mars.
• The corridor connecting the two stations was used for a scene in the TV show Person of Interest.
• The Foley Square entrance staircase has been a popular filming location for numerous New York based TV shows, specifically Law & Order and Flight of the Conchords.

Image gallery

• 
  Name of station in mosaics
• 
  Early postcard depiction of station
• 
  Renovated Municipal Building entrance
• 
  Disused northbound side platform
• 
  Northbound platform used by J train
• 
  Former ticket booths at Chambers Street
• 
  Disused center platform
• 
  Abandoned women's restroom

IRT Lexington Avenue Line platforms

Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall  ​​
New York City Subway station (rapid transit)
Uptown island platform
Station statistics
Address	Park Row & Centre Street New York, NY 10007
Division	A (IRT)
Line	IRT Lexington Avenue Line
Services	4  (all times) ​   5  (all times except late nights) ​   6  (all times) <6>  (weekdays until 8:45 p.m., peak direction)
Structure	Underground
Platforms	2 island platforms (in service) cross-platform interchange 2 side platforms (abandoned)
Tracks	4
Other information
Opened	October 27, 1904 (1904-10-27)
Accessible	ADA-accessible (Transfer to Chambers Street is not accessible.)
Opposite- direction transfer	Yes
Former/other names	Brooklyn Bridge Brooklyn Bridge–Worth Street Chambers Street
Traffic
2023	5,881,022  16.4%
Rank	36 out of 423
Station succession
Next north	Template:NYCS next Template:NYCS next Template:NYCS next
Next south	Template:NYCS next Template:NYCS next Template:NYCS next
Station service legend Symbol Description Stops all times Stops late nights only Stops rush hours in the peak direction only
Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall Subway Station (IRT)
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
MPS	New York City Subway System MPS
NRHP reference No.	05000674
Added to NRHP	July 6, 2005

Track layout
to 14th Street to Canal Street Worth Street Brooklyn Bridge City Hall storage tracks Fulton Street to Wall Street

Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall is an express station on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line which is located on Park Row at the Manhattan end of the Brooklyn Bridge. This is the southern terminal for the 6 train, which turns via the City Hall Loop to head back uptown.

Just north of the station are crossovers that allow trains to switch between the local and express tracks, which allow Lexington Avenue local trains to continue south via the express tracks if necessary (rather than using the City Hall loop). Due to the closure of City Hall station in 1945, Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall (which had simply been Brooklyn Bridge) became the southernmost station on normal Lexington Avenue local service.

South of the station, the downtown local track splits into three tracks. The westernmost track loops around to the northbound local track through City Hall station. The other two are layup tracks parallel to the downtown express track. Until 1963, they merged into the downtown express track north of Fulton Street, but now they end at bumper blocks a little north of Fulton Street, and are occasionally used for train storage.

The station has been renovated, with new tile and ADA-accessible elevator access. It is the zero point for the IRT East Side chain; mile 0 is at the south end of the station.

The Brooklyn Bridge station has a number of closed off areas as construction and service patterns have required changes to be made to the station. In addition to the two island platforms, there are two short side platforms on the outer edges of the station. Like those on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line at 14th Street–Union Square and on the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line at 96th Street, these side platforms were built to accommodate extra passenger volume and were built to the five-car length of the original IRT local trains. These platforms did not see much use as they were located at express stations, which allow cross-platform interchanges via the island platforms. When trains were lengthened to their current ten-car length, it was impractical to lengthen both these side platforms and the island platforms. They were closed in 1910 after only six years in operation and walled off along the platform edges.

The side platform on the southbound side is now home to some electrical equipment and a backup control tower for the Brooklyn Bridge interlocking, just north of the station. The tower is functional but not normally used, because the Grand Central–42nd Street tower is the primary control point for the whole line. The interlocking board can be seen through a window along the wall along the southbound local trackway. The south end of the downtown side platform is still visible near the dispatcher's booth on the downtown island platform.

There are also some closed portions at the south ends of the existing express platforms that feature gap fillers and original mosaic tiles. During the station lengthening projects, it was deemed easier to lengthen the express platform northward, as the curves at the south end proved impossible to rework. The lengthening resulted in the closure of Worth Street, the closure of the curved southern ends of the express platforms, and the demolition of the western side platform at Chambers Street on the BMT Nassau Line.

Artwork includes a 1996 work by Mark Gibian titled Cable Crossing.

After Worth Street station closed, the Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall station was known as Brooklyn Bridge–Worth Street. The name was reverted to Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall in 1995.

Exits

All of the IRT station's exits are shared with the BMT station via a passageway. This includes the elevator, even though the BMT platforms do not have elevators.

• Two stairs to northwest corner of Reade and Centre Streets
• Two stairs and an elevator to City Hall Park just southwest of the intersection of Centre and Chambers Streets

A long passageway at the south end of the station leads to:

• One stair to a plaza just south of the Manhattan Municipal Building. This exit is smaller and faces the large BMT entrance under the building.
• One stair to the Brooklyn Bridge walkway itself
• Two stairs to the south side of Frankfort Street at Pace Plaza, in front of Pace University

Image gallery

• 
  Downtown Local 6 train arriving
• 
  Tiles
• 
  Replica of an original IRT subway entrance kiosk (really an elevator)
• 
  Plan of the station (lower-right corner)

Further reading

• Stokey, Lee (1994). Subway Ceramics: A History and Iconography. ISBN 978-0-9635486-1-0.

External links

• nycsubway.org – BMT Nassau Street/Jamaica Line: Chambers Street
• nycsubway.org – IRT East Side Line: Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall
• Station Reporter—Brooklyn Bridge/Chambers Street Complex
• MTA's Arts For Transit—Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall/Chambers Street
• Forgotten NY—The Original 28 Subway Stations

Google Maps: Street View:

• Entrance near City Hall Park from Google Maps Street View
• Entrance north of Brooklyn Bridge from Google Maps Street View
• Entrance south of Brooklyn Bridge from Google Maps Street View
• Reade Street and Centre Street entrance from Google Maps Street View
• Foley Square entrance from Google Maps Street View
• Centre Street entrance from Google Maps Street View
• IRT platforms from Google Maps Street View
• BMT platforms from Google Maps Street View
• BMT mezzanine from Google Maps Street View

Abandoned Stations:

• Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall platforms
• Chambers Street platforms