This is Davenport Avenue, my favorite City Subway station. The outbound platform opens into Branch Brook Park, the inbound onto Davenport near Fifth Street -- a nice neighborhood when this photo was taken, with a fine bakery (the Paramount). This is the only subway stop with no connecting buses or trains. The next stop, below, is Heller Parkway, the original terminus of the line; in 2002 it was closed and "merged" with the Franklin Avenue station. |
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 When the line was extended from Heller Parkway in 1940, this stub terminal was built. Double-ended cars then in use simply proceeded onto a "Y" track, the power poles were switched, and the cars then continued in the other direction without having to turn around. But when PS switched to single-ended PCC cars in 1953, a new station with a turnaround loop was built a bit closer in, and became the new Franklin Avenue terminus (below), and the extreme northern piece of track was then abandoned. Interestingly, original plans called for the line to be extended through the canal bed all the way to Paterson, but griping led by the town of Belleville scuttled the idea . . Heller Par |
 It's January 1954, and a PCC car is trying out the turnaround loop at the new Franklin Avenue terminus, and suddenly the old PS streetcars seem from another age. Photo by Frank Pfuhler. |
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