Bergen Street

Bergen Street (IND Crosstown)

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Two levels, two tracks and two side platforms on each level. The lower level is abandoned, and the express tracks from here to Church Ave. are unused. The lower platform can be accessed via sets of double stainless steel doors which, when open, reveal the stairs to the lower level. The lower level has no tile on the wall, just unpainted concrete and old lights. A look at the trackways on the upper reveals evidence the ceiling of the lower level platform.

The upper, active level was recently renovated. The tile here is unusual - the border has the lighter color. This border is a very light green, and the center is an equally dark shade of green. There is also dark green lower tile and splashes of light-green design interspersed at intervals.

There is no crossover or crossunder, unusual for an IND express station. But the express tracks' situation here is even more "unusual" compared to other IND construction. North of this station the local, upper-level, tracks communicate with the express, lower-level, tracks by a crooked ramp. Since the beginnings of the IND the trains headed for Jay Street crept down this ramp to the express tracks. From Jay Street they crept up the ramp to the local tracks. The short distance between the two stations was slow going and not at all the way the IND should work. This, plus the combined peculiarities of the terminating of the G Crosstown train at Smith/9th, points to a primitive intent to leave the express tracks fallow. All trains were destined to work only the local tracks.

Scenes from the 1990 film Jacob's Ladder were filmed in the lower level here at Bergen Street. There is a long scene with Tim Robbins' character riding a train of R10 cars, and then being trapped in the (now-abandoned) lower level of Bergen Street station. The director's notes on the DVD indicates that they used lower Bergen St. for filming and added extensive IND stripe and station name tile and advertising posters at time of filming.

Trains heading north from here can continue on the IND Brooklyn-Queens Crosstown line to Hoyt-Schermerhorn Streets, or onto the IND 6th & 8th Avenue lines at Jay Street-Borough Hall. The "F" line service will stop at Jay Street and then continue via 6th Avenue; no service has been regularly operated from the Crosstown line to the IND 8th Avenue line.