Chambers Street (BMT Nassau Street Line)
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Chambers Street is a station on the BMT Nassau Street Line of the New York City Subway. Located at the intersection of Centre and Chambers Streets beneath the Manhattan Municipal Building, it is served by the J train (all times), the M train (all times except weekends and late nights), and the Z train (rush hours).
There are four tracks, three island platforms, and one side platform (originally two). In 1931, the center island platform and both side platforms were closed as unnecessary. The west side platform was walled up and partly demolished when the Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall station on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line was rebuilt on the other side of the wall in 1960–62.
The J, M, and Z trains all use the outermost tracks during rush hours. The M train uses the two middle tracks to terminate and lay up trains during the middays. The J also uses these tracks during weekends, when service is not extended to Broad Street.
[edit] History
This was one of the earliest BMT subway stations opened in New York City, built at a time when Lower Manhattan was the city's principal business district. It was designed to be the BMT's Manhattan hub, with trains arriving from Brooklyn in both directions, and terminating here. Originally, trains arrived from the north via either the Williamsburg Bridge or the Manhattan Bridge.
The Nassau Street subway loop was completed in 1931, making Chambers Street a through station south to the Montague Street Tunnel to Brooklyn. 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 turning around. A track connection to the Brooklyn Bridge, which would have made a similar loop through the Williamsburg Bridge, was planned in the station's design, but never built. (See BMT Brooklyn Loops.)
By the 1950s, Chambers Street was no longer as important a station, as many of the city's business interests had shifted to midtown. 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 clearly 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 one poll, it was voted the ugliest station in the system:
[edit] Bus Connections
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