The D Train in Brooklyn

Today’s posting is dedicated to one of the more useful trains in Brooklyn, the D train. The D train is a member of the Orange Letter family and is useful in almost every borough it goes into. In Brooklyn it comes into Atlantic Terminal with it’s local sibling the B parallel to the N/Q  trains before splitting from its Manhattan and Bronx sibling at Atlantic Terminal. The D traverses much of the same territory as the N train with some minor differences making it worth a separate posting. It eventually terminates at Coney Island/Stillwell Avenue with its distant relative the F train which runs parallel to but never with the D train in Brooklyn. Regardless of it’s sibling separations and rivalries, the D creates a good name for the Brooklyn bound Orange Letter Line trains providing an efficient and reliable ride with an excellent view of the borough in it’s elevated sections.

The D, like its Yellow Letter Line counterpart the N train starts in Coney Island and works its way out above ground. Unlike it’s Yellow companion, it remains on elevated tracks above the street level offering a prospective viewer a full view of the neighborhoods it traverses when leaving Coney Island. It leaves on Stillwell Avenue, the dividing line between Bensonhurst and Gravesend going alongside public housing and modestly sized single family attached residences (I don’t feel I can call them Brownstones as they aren’t as grand as the Brownstones in North and Central Brooklyn) before turning down 86^th Street, Bensonhurst’s main commercial center. 86^th Street has been in a few movies from the 1970s which I like very much, the French Connection and Saturday Night Fever (I often play the Bee Gee’s Night Fever on my Itunes list at this day and age occasionally singing the chorus aloud). There are open air food markets, pizzerias, various chain department stores like AT&T, Verizon, Sleepy’s Mattresses, PC Richard, etc, etc. ironically just like 86^th Street in Bay Ridge, my neighborhood. Unlike my neighborhood however, one can have a bird’s eye view of the rest of the community thanks to the D train. The D train goes to New Utrecht Avenue which runs at a diagonal intersecting around 18^th Avenue and then turns at an angle to ride above New Utrecht.

The ride above New Utrecht first takes place in Bensonhurst up to around 60^th Street and then into the neighborhood of Borough Park. New Utrecht Avenue like 86^th Street is very commercial under the D train. Towards the end of New Utrecht Avenue, the D train approaches Greenwood cemetery, Brooklyn’s largest cemetery where it turns below ground between 9^th and 10^th Avenue to rejoin the 4^th Avenue line which I’ve previously discussed. While the D is above ground in Bensonhurst and Borough Park, it makes thirteen stops, after 36^th street it makes one more stop in Brooklyn at Atlantic Terminal and then goes across the Manhattan Bridge on the North tracks of the bridge with it’s longlost sibling the B train which plays it’s local assistant in Manhattan and the Bronx. The neighborhoods of Bensonhurst and Borough Park both offer larger somewhat attached housing than that which is closer to Coney Island and can be viewed on foot at the Streets and Avenues further from the D train.

Leaving on Stillwell Avenue, the D train passes through a formerly Italian American and now increasingly Asian immigrant section of Bensonhurst before turning on 86^th Street where the area becomes increasingly Italian American riding through the rest of Bensonhurst. Several Pizzerias, Church Festivals, Italian food markets, and other Italian celebrations are still present in the neighborhood giving it a place as one of the most famous Italian American neighborhoods in America. At the same time, there is infamy associated with Bensonhurst as several alleged mobsters have called Bensonhurst home and some point and years ago there were some racial incidences against African Americans that even today give many African Americans a bad view of Bensonhurst (Take a survey in Bedford Stuyvesant to see if I am lying). To me the second part is history though, from what I have viewed Bensonhurst is a good community, people are neighborly, people believe in the community, and they work hard, that is what matters to me as a resident of New York. Borough Park pictured on the bottom of the above pictures is the next neighborhood up on the D train and is a largely Jewish community. I am not sure if it is an Orthodox or Hasidic neighborhood as I am still learning the difference between the two. The reason this is significant for a prospective traveler is that if one is looking to go shopping on a Friday Night or Saturday on New Utrecht under the D train, forget it, the area strictly adheres to the Sabbath closing all business between sundown on Friday and sundown on Saturday. This describes the neighborhoods viewed on the D train with respect to what is not viewed on the N or R trains in this section of Brooklyn fully.

Riding the D train above ground from Coney Island to Greenwood cemetery gives a rider an incredible view of Southwestern Brooklyn, one can see the entire neighborhoods, the Verrazano Narrows bridge and glimpses of Manhattan in the distance. The service is usually more reliable and the stops are fewer than that of the N train which constitutes the other half of the 8 that is formed between 36^th street, New Utrecht/62^nd Street and Coney Island/Stillwell Avenue. When given the choice at 36^th Street going into the city, I will select the D train if all things are operating normally. For prospective riders looking to get a neighborhood feel of Brooklyn, the D train is the train to take in Southwest Brooklyn at least because of what it views, what it goes along, and its dependability. If one is looking for common cuisine associated with Brooklyn, it is also a very good train because of the Kosher food one can get in Borough Park, the Italian and Chinese food one can get in Bensonhurst, and the classic Coney Island hot dogs from Nathans, theres no other train in Brooklyn that makes it as easy to get all of the above. I guess its fair to say the D train is my favorite train to take in this area of Brooklyn, it is the closest train to my job, it goes to Yankee stadium even though I usually take the 4 train there, and it is faster and more reliable than other trains near me. It works well for me the veteran subway rider, odds are that it will do wonders for you the prospective rider.