Stephan Grütering
Google
Broad Street is a station on the BMT Nassau Street Line of the New York City Subway located at the intersection of Broad and Wall Streets in the Financial District of Manhattan. It serves as the southern terminal of the J train at all times, and the Z train during rush hours in the peak direction.
On March 19, 1913, the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (later reorganized as the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation, or BMT) and the city signed Contract 4 of the Dual Contracts, which provided for the construction of certain lines. Most of the construction was completed by 1924, but the BMT Nassau Street Line was not yet completed. The BMT chairman Gerhard Dahl was persistent at requesting that the city build the line, but Mayor John Hylan refused to act during his final two years as mayor. Once James Walker succeeded him as mayor, contracts for the project were awarded, with the portion south of Liberty Street being awarded to Moranti and Raymond.
Work was projected to be completed in 39 months, and in March 1929, sixty percent of the work had been finished. Nassau Street is only 34 feet (10 m) wide, and the subway floor was only 20 feet (6.1 m) below building foundations. As a result, 89 buildings had to be underpinned to ensure that they would stay on their foundations. Construction had to be done 20 feet below the active IRT Lexington Avenue Line. An area filled with quicksand with water, that used to belong to a spring, was found between John Street and Broad Street. Construction was done at night so as to not disturb workers in the Financial District. The whole cost of the construction of the line was $10,072,000 for the 0.9 miles (1.4 km) extension, or $2,068 a foot, which was three times the normal cost of construction at the time.
The Broad Street station opened on May 29, 1930, to complete the BMT Nassau Street Line, or "Nassau Street Loop," from its previous terminus at Chambers Street through this station and to a connection to the Montague Street Tunnel, which allowed trains to run to Brooklyn. The line's completion allowed subway trains to operate via the Culver Line, whose operation used to consist of elevated trains that ran to Ninth Avenue, where transfers were made to West End subway trains. The new line provided an additional ten percent capacity more than the existing service through DeKalb Avenue. Service on the Jamaica Line was extended to operate to this station.
Grecian revival tablet and frieze circa 1996 from original Vickers design
Despite being actually located on Wall Street, this station was named after Broad Street. This was to distinguish it from the two other stations of that name on the Lexington Avenue Line and Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line, located at Wall Street/Broadway and Wall Street/William Street, respectively.
From September 30, 1990 to June 14, 2015, when weekend J service was extended back to Broad Street, this station was closed during weekends, making Broad Street and the station directly to its north, Fulton Street, two of the four New York City Subway stations that lacked full-time service (the remaining two being the platforms for the IRT 42nd Street Shuttle).
