The Montague Street

“Penny Bridge” Intermodal

Streetcar/Ferry Facility
Circa 1891 - 1924
Reactivation Had Been Proposed Circa 2003, by
Brooklyn Bridge Park, and Montague Street Merchants

Streetcar (cable car) terminal at the Wall Street Ferry, foot of Montague Street at the East River, circa 1891.

Compiled on February 28, 2018

 Forward
Brooklyn Paper Articles
October 21, 2006

Note: In 2003, BHRA staff were "seconded" into other duties. Accordingly, a
"place holder group" called "BCSC" was installed. They weren't too effective. By
the time BHRA's staff returned from other service, we learned the streetcar
project had been completely disbanded, and that all equipment and
materials had been sold off. In 2010, a major effort was made by BHRA,
Brooklyn Community Board 6, and the Cobble Hill Assn., to revive the streetcar
project. This effort wasn't well received by the City DOT, which previously in
2002, had quietly committed itself to CNG fueled buses, and no electrically
powered transit vehicles whatsoever. At that time, largely due to the
prodigious lobbying efforts of then CNG bus fuel mogul T. Boone Pickens, City
DOT felt that electric transit vehicles would be "disruptive" to certain CNG bus
fuel vehicle funding mechanisms...

As an historical aside, it is believed that much of the original stone structural

work of the "Penny Bridge Complex" still exists, concealed by the present day
surface of western Montague Street, and the BQE. Potentially, a very interesting
archaeological project...
Trolley idea is derailed • Brooklyn Paper

October 21, 2006

/ Brooklyn news / Development / Brooklyn Bridge ‘Park’

Trolley idea is derailed

BY GERSH KUNTZMAN

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See our editorial.

Permalink

A Brooklyn man’s dream of restoring the borough’s fabled trolleys Email to a friend

looks like it’s being derailed by planners of a waterfront development

along the Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO shore.

Arthur Melnick, who has spent a decade as a Quixotic promoter of trolleys as clean and efficient transportation,
presented planners with his proposal for a three-line streetcar system linking the so-called Brooklyn Bridge Park
to Borough Hall, the BAM cultural district and Red Hook.

Several years ago, park planners said they were open to the idea of historic light rail, but this time, they dodged
Melnick’s trolleys.

“There are other things like jitneys” that are being explored, said Jee Mee Kim, one of several consultants hired
by the Downtown Brooklyn Waterfront Local Development Corporation to study transit links to the waterfront
development.

Others indicated that the closest Melnick might get to his dream would be a mere facsimile.

“We could have a jitney [bus] that looks like a trolley, like they have Downtown,” said Hank Gutman, a DBWLDC

https://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/29/41/29_41nets3.html[2/27/2018 10:07:38 PM]

Trolley idea is derailed • Brooklyn Paper

board member.

But Melnick isn’t giving up (not that he ever does).

“I know they are not looking to do this now, but they should be,” he said. “Isn’t it about time we addressed the
problems of congestion, pollution and excessive fuel consumption?

“Municipali­
ties throughout the nation are expanding their trolley and light-rail systems or building anew. It
makes so much sense; why must we take a back seat?”

Even if his Borough Hall-to-Brooklyn Bridge Park loop doesn’t get on track, Melnick vowed to continue pushing
his “Green Line” to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and his “Red Line” from Downtown to the Red Hook
waterfront.

Melnick said he has one historic trolley — it’s in Pennsylvania awaiting its return to glory — and has access to a
dozen more. All the cars are in the style of those that made Brooklyn famous from the 1930s until the 1950s.

Melnick made his latest pitch at a meeting earlier this month where DBWLDC consultants were discussing a $1-
million grant to study how to get people into the proposed park, which will span from the Manhattan Bridge to
Atlantic Avenue, but is somewhat cut off from the rest of the borough.

As The Brooklyn Papers reported, planners are studying everything from a tunnel from the Clark Street subway
station to Furman Street to an elevator from the fabled Brooklyn Heights Promenade.

— with Ariella Cohen

©2006 COMMUNITY NEWS GROUP

CROWN HEIGHTS: Sounds of RED HOOK: Surge ART: Wild at art: Book fair
serenity: Hippies and hip protector: City builds wall displays Sendak’s artwork
hop-lovers attend unity near Red Hook coastline
concert ahead of J’Ouvert to combat mild flooding

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Bring back a trolley! • Brooklyn Paper

October 21, 2006

/ Brooklyn news / Development / Perspective / Brooklyn Bridge ‘Park’ / Editorial

Bring back a trolley!

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Calls to restore trolley service to Brooklyn probably started the day

Permalink
after trolley service — like the Dodgers — left Brooklyn.
Email to a friend

Many of those pleas, however, were based more on the dreamers’

romantic attachment to the borough’s fabled light-rail system than any actual vision for how such vehicles would
improve the flow of cars, pedestrians, bikes and buses through a clogged city.

And, of course, there was always the question of how to make trolleys financially viable.

But for the first time in many years, the romantics who crave trolley service and city planners who seek efficient
ways of moving people have a great opportunity to work together: Brooklyn needs a trolley to bring tourists and
residents from the transit hub at Borough Hall to the Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO waterfront, where a
housing and hotel development — which proponents say will contain a park component as well — is being built.

Some residents of Brooklyn Heights, fearing an influx of “outsiders,” hope to prevent any link to the
development, commonly referred to as “Brooklyn Bridge Park,” through the heart of their neighborhood.
Already, they appear to have quashed the most-viable connection — from the Promenade at Montague Street
down to the waterfront.

As much as we might pine for Arthur Melnick’s plan for a three-route, multi-car, Red Hook–Downtown–Botanic
Garden system, for now, planners would be wise to start simply. They should lay one set of track along

https://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/29/41/29_41nets7.html[2/27/2018 10:04:58 PM]

Bring back a trolley! • Brooklyn Paper

Washington Street — a vital link from Borough Hall to DUMBO that is now just a parking lot for federal court
workers — to get people down to the waterfront.

Trolley turnarounds at Borough Hall and at the already existing, though hard-to-reach, parkland between the
Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges, would draw New Yorkers and tourists alike. The trolley would also serve the
entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge footpath — the worst-labeled, least tourist-friendly attraction in the city.

Brooklyn Bridge Park planners say they’ve ruled out a trolley, favoring buses that look like trolleys. Brooklyn
deserves better than a fake reminder of its history — that’s for second-rate cities that want to be like us.

Give us a real trolley.

©2006 COMMUNITY NEWS GROUP

CROWN HEIGHTS: An af-fair CROWN HEIGHTS: Sounds of CHANGING BROOKLYN: Lot

to remember: Nursing serenity: Hippies and hip of luxury: Swanky housing
home celebrates annual hop-lovers attend unity to go up on Dumbo parcel
Caribbean festival with concert ahead of J’Ouvert purchased by Jared
party for residents Kusher, plans show

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 Montague Street
Penny Bridge” Inter-modal
Streetcar/Ferry Facility

Major Structural Component 1 of 4

Approach ramp in the center line of Montague Street,

commenced roughly 190 feet
west of the west side of Hicks Street
 Montague Street
“Penny Bridge” Intermodal
Streetcar/Ferry Facility

Major Structural Component 2 of 4

Stone Arch Bridge That Carried

Pierrepont Place Over the Montague
Street Approach Ramp Cut
 Montague Street
“Penny Bridge” Intermodal
Streetcar/Ferry Facility

Major Structural Component 3 of 4

Stone Arch Bridge That Carried
Montague Street over Furman Street
Note: the former Furman Street stone retaining
wall is along the left side (present BQE
location)
This was the heart of the so- called "Penny Bridge" complex
 Montague Street
Penny Bridge” Intermodal
Streetcar/Ferry Facility

Major Structural Component 4 of 4

The original Wall Street ferry house at

the foot of Montague Street, circa 1860
History
Source:
Brooklyn Streetcars, by Branford Electric Railway
Association, 2008

THE TOWN OF BROOKLYN

Cable car No. 5 waits in front of the Wall Street ferry building at
the foot of Montague Street on November 24, 1899. The half-mile
line up a 9.5-percent grade from the ferry to Court Street opened
on July 20, 1891. It was built by the Brooklyn Heights Railroad,
which, through its subsidiaries, ultimately controlled nearly all the
electric railways in Brooklyn. Three extra cars not in service are
stored on the track on the north side of the line to the right of the
covered walkway. (EBWIAJL.)
 Montague Street cable car No. 5 is at the Wall Street ferry on
November 24, 1899. Cars No. 1-5 were built, like most of
Brooklyn's early electric cars, by the Lewis and Fowler
Manufacturing Company owned by Daniel Lewis, president of the
Brooklyn Heights Railroad. Inside were plush seats, a coal stove
for heat, and oil lamps for illumination. (EBWIAJL.)
 This side view of Montague Street open cable car No. 17C was
taken in 1905. The horizontal wheels on the front platform
controlled the grip that engaged the wire cable moving through the
vault beneath the street. All six open cable cars were scrapped in
1917. (EBWIAJL.)

A cable car on Montague Street passes under the [Pierrepont Place]

Street arch in 1907. When the lnterborough Rapid Transit Company
(IRT) subway was extended to Brooklyn in 1908, traffic on the Montague
Street line declined by more than 65 percent. Nevertheless, the line was
electrified on September 25, 1909. After the Wall Street ferry ceased
operation on July 28, 1912, the line was cut back to Hicks Street.
Operation continued until May 18, 1924. (EBWIAJL.)
 Cable car No. BC is at the Court Street end of the Montague
Street line in 1904. The track in the foreground without a conduit
slot was the sole connection between the cable line and the rest of
the Brooklyn trolley system. A streetcar towed cable cars with the
grip removed to the Fifty-eighth Street depot for repairs and
servicing. (EBWIAJL.)

No. 189, built by St. Louis in 1893, emerges from under the
 elevated at Fulton Ferry on May 20, 1914. Horsecars first used
Furman Street in 1860, going to South Ferry at Atlantic Avenue,
then down Columbia Street to Hamilton Ferry. Along the way, they
passed the Pierpont stores (warehouses) full of sugar and
molasses, the Woodruff and Robinson stores holding guano and
fish, and the Deforest stores with hides and wool. Electrified in
1894, the little-used line was eliminated in 1899 and revived from
May 31, 1912, to April 23, 1915, with similar unprofitable results.
(EBWIAJL.)

Cable-hauled trains, trolleys, and wagons appeared on the

Brooklyn Bridge shortly after streetcars began crossing the span
in 1898. Within a few years, the competing Union Ferry
Company's passenger traffic declined by over 60 percent.
(EBWIAJL.)
 Additional
Illustrations
FERRY HOUSE, AT FOOT OF MONTAGUE STREET,
(P.HOOl,LYN.)
 ___ __,_ ____
!

•• IJ
 ,.- '\ .
..
., .
" .. "·

'.
,. . ... ,

Montague St, showing Site of Old j\cad.emy of Music, Brooklyn, N Y.