Euclid Avenue station (IND Fulton Street Line)

Euclid Avenue was part of a four-station extension of the Fulton Street subway along Pitkin Avenue, past its original planned terminus at Broadway Junction. Work on the section of the line between Crystal Street and Grant Avenue, which included the Euclid Avenue station and the Pitkin Yard, began in late 1940. On August 26, 1941, lightning from a severe thunderstorm damaged the temporary timber roofing over the construction site at Pitkin Avenue and Autumn Avenue just east of the station. The lighting also ruptured a gas main at the site, creating a fire and causing damage to an adjacent building, while two automobiles fell into the exposed tunnel cavern. Construction of the extension was halted in December 1942 due to material shortages caused by World War II. At the time, the section of tunnel between Crystal Street and Grant Avenue was 96% complete. Other parts of the extension were more than 99% complete, but vital equipment had yet to be installed, precluding these stations' openings. The delay meant the station received different design features than the rest of the stations along the line, including different tilings, fluorescent lighting instead of then-standard incandescent lights, and improved restroom and phone booth facilities. The station also featured a then-modern interlocking technology, known as the "NX" system, wherein train operators would press buttons that automatically adjusted the corresponding switches. In older interlockings throughout the subway system, workers in a separate control tower had to manually adjust the switches using a series of levers within the tower. After several test runs, the station opened to the public in the early morning of November 28, 1948. It became the new terminal of the Fulton Street Line, replacing the former terminal at Broadway–East New York (now Broadway Junction). A $6.9 million contract for three elevators was awarded to Gibraltar Contracting. There would be an elevator to the street and elevators between the mezzanine and each platform had been installed, making the station ADA-accessible. As of October 2005, the project's initial completion date of April 2005 was pushed back twice, and it was over six months behind schedule. The entire cost of the project had increased from $14.1 million to $14.3 million. The project was completed by March 2006. ==Station layout==

This station has four tracks and two island platforms. It is the easternmost express station on the IND Fulton Street Line in terms of geographic directions. In terms of railroad directions, Euclid Avenue is the line's southernmost express station. The C is always local, while the A runs express during the day and local during the night. The station is the southern terminus for C trains; the next stop to the east (railroad south) is Grant Avenue for A trains, while the next stop to the west (railroad north) is Shepherd Avenue for local trains and Broadway Junction for express trains. During the night, Euclid Avenue is also the northern terminus for shuttle trains from Ozone Park–Lefferts Boulevard, one of the three southern termini of the daytime A train. A crew quarters room is over the railroad south end of both platforms. The station has a crossover in the mezzanine along with an active newsstand and elevators to both platforms. Exits Stairways are present from each platform to the mezzanine above the tracks. Fare control is located in the mezzanine. Outside fare control is a street elevator leading to the northeast corner of Pitkin and Euclid Avenues. Street stairs also lead to all four corners of the intersection. The bus routes stop outside the station. ==East of the station==

The next station east (railroad south) for IND Fulton Street service is Grant Avenue, located in City Line, Brooklyn. However, an unfinished station is rumored to exist at 76th Street in nearby Ozone Park, Queens, just four blocks east of Grant Avenue. The track work near Euclid Avenue is intricate, allowing trains to enter the Pitkin Yard from both the express and local tracks (where C trains relay to get from the southbound to the northbound local track), and with connections to the two-track Grant Avenue station from both the express and local tracks; the Grant Avenue spur then veers northeast towards Liberty Avenue. All four mainline tracks continue below the Grant Avenue connection, used only to store trains, east under Pitkin Avenue until approximately Eldert Lane (just south of the Grant Avenue station). It was planned that these tracks would continue under Pitkin Avenue to Cross Bay Boulevard, as part of a never-built system expansion which would have extended the Fulton Street Subway to the Rockaways and to Cambria Heights near the Queens–Nassau County border. On the electric light signal board in the control room at Euclid Avenue, there is a taped-over section of the board that hides the 76th Street station. The extension of the subway, however, was never built; instead the line was connected to the former Fulton Street elevated on Liberty Avenue and the former LIRR Rockaway branch (now the IND Rockaway Line), both via the Grant Avenue station, which opened in 1956. Rumors that the proposed station was actually constructed, at least partially, are prevalent. Evidence supporting the existence of the station includes the signal board, and several signals for trains running from the station into Euclid Avenue facing the wall, including one directly in front of the wall. Steve Krokowski, a retired transit worker and police officer, was quoted by the Times in reference to the station, mentioning: • The taped-over portion of the signal board, which covers a label for the 76th Street station. (This control board actually exists, and has indeed been taped over.) • The remnants of the Pitkin Yard leads that head northeast and then stop near the aforementioned cinder-block wall. Krokowski tried to dig under the wall, and found a track tie, but stopped when the hole caved in. • A retired police officer claimed that the cinder-block wall previously had a door, and that in the 1960s, he walked through it, and saw a station complete with everything except for turnstiles and token booths. Other "colleagues", all supposedly dead, also claimed to have seen the station, though whether anyone else actually made such claims is unknown. However, there is also significant evidence against the existence of the station, including a lack of newspaper coverage, the lack of subway infrastructure such as ventilation grates or skylights on Pitkin Avenue in the area, and the absence of documentation of the work from the Board of Transportation or the Board of Estimate. == References ==