St. Johns Place Line

History

In 1877, the Atlantic Avenue Railroad leased its main line east of Fifth Avenue (just east of Flatbush Avenue) to the Long Island Rail Road as a branch of their system to downtown Brooklyn. However, the Atlantic Avenue Railroad still wanted to serve the area east of downtown, and it opened a new track on the south side of Atlantic Avenue from Fifth Avenue to Washington Avenue, and then a line along Washington Avenue and Sterling Place (then Butler Street) to Nostrand Avenue, on June 11, 1883.

The rest of the line was built by the Nassau Electric Railroad, which had the right to build from Hamilton Ferry to City Line along Union Street, St. Johns Place (then Douglass Street), East New York Avenue, and Liberty Avenue. The Nassau Electric leased the Atlantic Avenue on April 5, 1896, and never built the portion between the end of the Union Street Line at Grand Army Plaza and the crossing of their Ocean Avenue Line at Rogers Avenue, one block west of Nostrand Avenue. Instead, the Atlantic Avenue Railroad's Butler Street Line was truncated to Rogers Avenue and extended via St. Johns Place and East New York Avenue, and, once the lease was consummated, cars were operated from Fulton Ferry to Sheepshead Bay (leaving the line at Rogers Avenue) and to City Line, where they soon connected with the Long Island Electric Railway and New York and Long Island Traction Company.

Later the St. Johns Place cars turned south at Rockaway Avenue along the Wilson Avenue Line to Canarsie Depot, and Liberty Avenue vas served only by Bergen Street Line cars. Buses were substituted for streetcars on August 24, 1947, and replaced by trolley buses on September 16, 1948, only for buses to be gradually restored between 1954 and 1959. The bus route was truncated to the intersection with the Bergen Street Line and Ralph Avenue Line by 1969.