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  Previous: Newkirk Avenue Two tracks, two side platforms connected in a "U" shape at the south end where the fare control is located. Elevators allow access to the street. This was not meant to be a terminal station. The line was mapped to continue in Nostrand Avenue to Sheepshead Bay. The contract was in two or more sections of which only the one, ending at this station, was built. To accommodate a crossover, the south end entry at Avenue H was added on slightly after the station's opening to make the U-shape platform. Indicia of the more recent construction of this exit are seen in the tilework. Other indications were in the floor and walls but these were covered over in the mid 1990s reconstruction. It was agitated for by the local community leaders during the mid 1990s renovation to open an exit on the west side of Flatbush Avenue next to Brooklyn College. This was not done. The room for this exit was given to utility and crew space. There was on the south side of Avenue H between Nostrand and Flatbush Avenues a substation for the BMT trolley and subway. It was demolished around 1960. There remain today manholes in Avenue H for the BRT and BQT from this substation. The site is now a city carpark for park-and-ride customers of the IRT. It is virtually empty despite the huge increase in riders from growth around and south of the station. The community is urging to build a bus and van depot here with direct entry into the station. So far nothing has come of the idea. For many years this station and Newkirk Avenue station were plagued with flooding in heavy storms. The water literally overflowed the trackway and platforms. The cause was a refilling of the local water table with no withdrawal from it. There was from before the subway the the Flatbush Water Company on what is now the grounds of Brooklyn College. It drew off of the ground water for its supply and thus kept the level lower than the stations. Recall that waterproofing was done mainly when the route descended below the water table. The water business folded in the 1930s, freeing the land for the College. But there was no more drainage of the water and the ground gradualy recharged to overflowing. By the mid 1950s flooding at Flatbush and Newkirk stations was routine and disruptive to the service. Many times trains were turned at President Street or Church Avenue or the line was closed completely. Riders were sent upstairs to buses sent out to continue the run to Flatbush Abenue. Fixups in the 1960s and early 1970s were unsuccessful. In the 1980s a final solution was worked out by waterproofing the structure and laying in larger storm mains. Now the trains flow into and out of Flatbush Avenue regardless of the weather upstairs. Artwork: Flatbush Floogies, Muriel Castanis (1996)
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