BusTalk

[Mr. Linsky]

Occasionally I come across some really great vintage photos of New York City that don't just happen to have buses in them but do have other forms of rapid transit that I think you'll find very interesting.

In the 1910 image shown below and looking downward toward Manhattan from the pedestrian walkway of the famous Brooklyn Bridge we see the trains of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT) both entering and leaving the station at the bottom of the ramp.

BRT was the predecessor of the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Company (BMT) and was a conglomeration of a number of independent elevated railroads in Brooklyn with some dating back as far as the mid 1800's.

The skyline of Manhattan has certainly changed since this picture was taken.

Photo courtesy of Shorpy Galleries.

Mr. Linsky - Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, New York

[Hart Bus]

I wonder if that terminal in the distance was the one that the ill-fated "Malbone Street Train Wreck" consist departed from on November 1, 1918 killing over 100 people ?

[Mr. Linsky]

ECA,

The following account will give you pretty much the whole story on the Malbone wreck but does not mention the Brooklyn Bridge as being part of the accident.

The story in brief;

"A Brighton Beach Train of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, made up of five wooden cars of the oldest type in use, which was speeding with a rush hour crowd to make up lost time on its way from Park Row to Coney Island, jumped the track shortly before 7 o'clock last evening on a sharp curve approaching the tunnel at Malbone Street, in Brooklyn, and plunged into a concrete partition between the north and south bound tracks.

Nearly every man, women, and child in the first car was killed, and most of those in the second were killed or badly injured. Rescue work in the wreckage, jammed into the narrow tunnel, was extremely difficult, and the counting of the dead proceeded slowly. At 11 o'clock eighty-five bodies had been taken from the wreckage, and the police announced that no more bodies were in the tunnel. The names of many of the injured were not obtained, but the police estimate that at least 100 had been injured".

Attached is an inset of the location, what's left of one of the cars and the abutment that the train hit.

Credit to NYSubways and Wikipedia.

Regards,

WCA

[Hart Bus]

While the wreck happened underneath Prospect Park, the train was piloted by Eduardo Luciano, who took the train from a terminal in Manhattan, over the Brooklyn Bridge to Atlantic Avenue and turned south on Franklin Avenue to the fatal spot.