Botanic Garden (BMT Franklin Avenue Shuttle station)

Botanic Garden is a station of the BMT Division of the New York Subway, located on the Franklin Avenue Shuttle Line, with its entrance on Eastern Parkway west of Franklin Avenue in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City.

History

There was no station at this location until 1928, when a new station was constructed to replace the Consumers Park station several blocks to the south, which was considered too close to the Prospect Park station to be useful. The Consumers Park station had been renamed Botanic Garden by 1924. The new station assumed the Botanic Garden name upon opening and the old Botanic Garden/Consumers Park station closed at the same time.

The current station was built in the open cut right-of-way to the south of Eastern Parkway, and the half of the station closest to that street was roofed over in the appearance of a subway structure.

The station deteriorated over the years as the current operator, the New York City Transit Authority decided whether to abandon or rehabiliate the station and the line. Community activism in the Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights communities convinced the city to rebuild the line and the station and line were reopened in 1999.

The station today

The current station is located entirely inside the subway structure that was built in 1928. At the street level it features floral wrought iron fencing in recognition of its location near the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. At track level it includes 1920s-era mosaic tiling. To the immediate north of the station, the 1878 railroad tunnel that carries the line under Eastern Parkway has been dramatically lighted.