This could be one of the saddest sights we’ve seen on the Park Slope side of Fourth Avenue that isn’t related to hideous architecture of a violation of the streetscape that we’ve seen in a long, long time. This is the current state of the old SEPTA trolley car that has sat on a property alongside the Lyceum for a long, long time. There were once dreams of turning it into a cafe or of repurposing it, but as Brownstoner has reported, the property is being developed and will be home to a new 12-story building with 40 units. And so, this odd Fourth Avenue landmark, which is a daily part of the scene for people getting on or off trains at the Union Street stop is being taken apart. Another small piece of the oddness that has made Brooklyn what it is, literally, carted off to the scrap yard.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Anna // Jul 11, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Any theories on how that train car ended up here? SEPTAoperates in the Philadelphia area — the closest to Brooklyn I’ve heard of it going is Trenton, NJ — so that car is a good ways from home.
2 SelkirkTMO // Jul 13, 2008 at 4:04 am
A terrible shame to see that go away like that, unloved. Many cities are restoring PCC’s for municipal railway use, there are even companies which will take old shells like that, refurbish them and resell them.
I’ve seen many in even worse condition come back after some metal work, new seats and trucks, followed by a buffing and paint job.
3 Jan // Jul 13, 2008 at 1:26 pm
This car was supposed to join its sisters in Lancaster PA for continued service.
As seen in other Brownstoner posts earlier this month, the heated legal disputes between the parties involved appear to have cost 2739 its life. Similar situation to the eleven BNY trolleys that were scrapped by the city in 2005.
4 robfarr // Jul 13, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Any number of trolley car museums would have taken this car for restoration and use as an operating attraction. The PCC cars, first developed in Brooklyn in the 1930’s by the Brooklyn Rapid Transit (a division of the BMT Lines) trolley company, as a project to restore U. S. transit companies during the Depression, were the best streetcars ever designed in the history of electric rail transportation. They still serve in many U. S. and foreign cities (in modernized form), and are the prototype for the Light Rail Vehicles now being used on urban transit systems worldwide. It is a total disgrace that this former Philadelphia car, a city where similar rebuilt PCCs are operating today in revenue service, has been sent to the junkyard. Can the other cars over in Red Hook be saved? They were part of the Brooklyn Historic Railway project that folded a few years ago, and are sitting outside a warehouse on Van Brunt St.
5 RIP: PCC trolley car 2739 « SEPTA Watch // Oct 26, 2009 at 6:12 pm
[…] RIP: PCC trolley car 2739 2008 July 16 by Michael Despite bids by the Lancaster Streetcar Company and a last-minute plea from a(n alleged?) owner, SEPTA’s PCC trolley in Brooklyn was cut up and sold as scrap last week. […]