Brooklyn Rapid Transit
| Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company | |
|---|---|
Brooklyn Rapid Transit logo on a
1907 Brooklyn Union Elevated car. |
|
| Overview | |
| Type | Rapid transit and Streetcar |
| Operation | |
| Opened | 1896 |
| Closed | 1923 (acquisition by the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation) |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) |
| Minimum radius | ? |
The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT) was a public transit holding company formed in 1896 to acquire and consolidate railway lines in Brooklyn and Queens, New York City, United States. It was a prominent corporation and industry leader using the single-letter symbol B on the . It operated both passenger and freight services on its rail rapid transit, elevated and subway network, making it unique among the 3 companies which built and operated subway lines in New York City. It became insolvent in 1919 and was restructured and released from bankruptcy as the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation in 1923.
The BRT was incorporated January 18, 1896, and took over the bankrupt Long Island Traction Company in early February acquiring the Brooklyn Heights Railroad and the lessee of the Brooklyn City Rail Road. It then acquired the Brooklyn, Queens County and Suburban Railroad leased on July 1, 1898.
The BRT took over the property of a number of surface railroads, the earliest of which, the Brooklyn, Bath and Coney Island Railroad or West End Line, opened for passenger service on October 9, 1863 between Fifth Avenue at 36th Street at the then border of Brooklyn City and Bath Beach in the Town of Gravesend, New York. A short piece of surface route of this railroad, near Coney Island Creek, is the oldest existing piece of rapid transit right-of-way in New York City, and in the U.S., having opened on June 8, 1864.
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