BQX - NYC Streetcars: 1956 - Brooklyn's Last Trolleys 

Ain't those trolleys look just beautiful, not even one word of advertising on them. 👍

I was born in Brooklyn in 1952. By the time I was old enough to travel with mom & dad on public transportation (around 1956) most of the trolleys were gone in Brooklyn, and the streets were paved over EXCEPT much of McDonald Avenue. My mom and I would travel on that street in the family car (with the original Culver train line above us), and I'd always ask her what those "train tracks" were for on the street itself. Long, long gone...

As a kid (60s) they had already stopped running. They covered the tracks with a thin layer of asphalt. But, I used to see portions of the trolley tracks poking up through the asphalt all the time.

We had these streetcars in Toronto until about 20 years ago. They were painted dark red instead of green. They were replaced by a new model that worked for about 20 years. Now we have the third generation of streetcars. Toronto's streetcars operate on some of the major streets, and carry millions of people every year. We call them the "red rockets".

I’m watching this footage now in 2019, in awe like wow, look at the neighborhood...ocean n church...McDonald ave...🤦🏻‍♂️ I literally just drove these blocks today...I love vintage footage of yesteryears

Swell video, takes me back in time. I grew up (till age seven) on 39th Street in Brooklyn. We had a trolley that ran up 39th Street to 13th Ave where it turned and squiggled under the elevated Culver Line trains (past the Bocce ball courts) and onto Church Ave. I loved going through the Trolley tunnels (under the intersections) and recall at least three tunnels. We moved in mid 1950's and I ain't rid a Brooklyn trolley since. On July 4th adults would lay bottle rockets in the trolley tracks and light'em. The rockets would scoot along in the track grooves, it was boss.

East Flatbush Brooklyn..i couldn't imagine how they would run on congested Church Ave now

It is 2023, and I'm watching this. The Narrator voice is wonderful. Look at the Beverly movie theater. Wow!

Brooklyn has always ruled!

I remember them well. My grandmother used to take me from Bensonhurst to Coney Island. I think the fare for her was a nickle and mine was free.

What a beautiful elegant mode of transport! So much better than the garbage, ugly, noisy & smelly buses we have clogging up modern NYC streets!

Unfortunately trolleys were before my time in Brooklyn. I did get to ride on the old subway cars with the cane seats for two years as a teenager before they also got rid of them.

I rode them every Dat going to my Baseball playing Games at Prospect Parks Parade Grounds only a 15 cents Ride relaxing all the way to and from the games Days long gone, But not Forgotten, Etc.

7:57 I was in the Beverly theater.

I love my borough...it’s a love/hate relationship but overall,there’s no place like Brooklyn and I’m proud to be a Brooklynite

PCC cars still running in Boston on the Mattapan Trolly line in 2020.

As a kid in 56; we use to put Pennies down on the Trolly tracks and watch them get flatened out ade even joined together fum back then years later I watched the same roads and trolly tracks being covered up with smelly hot Tar, For the buses and cars etc.

Fiorello LaGuardia really hated private transit companies didn't he? He built the IND to replace the IRT elevated railways did he not? And Robert Moses who never saw a plan to generate more auto traffic he didn't like. They made such a beautiful pair!! And I can tell in the 1956 film there were areas of Brooklyn that were already decrepitating and being torn down thanks to the automobile.

Who remembers the Free Passess you asked the drivers for so you can transfer from one Trolly to another for free later on the buses had that also etc.

When I was very little, I remember that my mom took me for a ride on one of these lines because she knew their days were numbered.

nice camara work, have travel these streets many times, two blocks from east 98 street i have seen track come out of ground on some streets.

Time to rebuild NYC's extensive trolley network with modern trams!

I have never been on a streetcar in Brooklyn nor have I ever seen one in operation-we called them “trolley cars” (I either have not been born yet or I was too young). The closest thing to a streetcar for me were the “electric buses” that ran ran up and down Flushing Avenue,Nostrand Avenue,Lee Avenue, and Tompkins Avenue.

My favorite line - The B35!

This was the year & place my dad was born!

This shows a conglomeration of different times. While I did see one movie of a 1955 Chrysler, most of the cars shown appear to be prewar and immediate postwar cars, dating the action to the late 1940s.

This is a great video

My older sister got to ride the Church Avenue streetcar before it was decommissioned. So sad that this fully functional infrastructure was dismantled by misinformation from the automobile industry in cities across America. I still remember the streetcar tracks would be exposed periodically at Church and Flatbush avenues since the tracks were covered over and not torn up.

Great film

Just wondered what Brooklyn looked like before I was born.

Amazing!

Everything about the PCCs was wonderful, except the very small bus-like seats.

The funny thing is that new yorkers back then owned tonnes of cars unlike now where they have to walk. In the plus side the bmi of new yorkers have dropped!

It's hard to believe there would have been second hand buses available for NYC (or anyone else) to purchase after World War II unless they were buses purchased by the U.S. government during the war. The only major exchange involving modern buses after WW II that I know of was Omaha swapped forty GM TDH 4507s and TDH 4008s to Oakland (Key System) and Cincinnati for postwar Twin Coaches.

I know the Street names and locations but don't remember much. My Grandparents lived on Ditmas Avenue or Dorchester Road on the next street. I remember Ebingers and Macy's and the plushness of the movies which played Cinderfeller with Jerry Lewis.

Sad to see Bob Diamond's dream fade. He had such exuberance for the project. Alas all his trolleys were stolen from the Navy Yards and even the Red Hook line was ripped out almost before it began. However DeBlasio's BQX line may still happen which would be a good thing for Brooklyn and Queens

Our neighbor Dan ORourke worked at the terminal near Utica Ave and Flatbush.

I understand the 'Little Flower' was a major General Motors stockholder.

Back when the letters P + C were cool.

Bring back the bqx

Wow 1956 my late father was 18 years old, we came a long ways since trolleys I guess with these gas prices of today they wisg they kelpt using electric.

The Coney Ave line?

How did these trolleys operate in rain and in snow? I was born 15 years after the trolleys.

What happened to that underpass at Ocean Parkway?

When I say Brooklyn is the most important and best borough and nyc rhis is wjat I mean as well it’s where all the transportation started

What a shame .They were great for the environment No emissions

Biggest mistake City of New York ever did !

1955, not 1956

Movie Theatres

Moral of the story: Screw lobbying, screw the car companies, and screw Moses!

Everything looked so nice back then...clean streets, nice looking cars and normal looking people decently dressed walking without their face in a phone. Compare that with the decay we have today.

Never forget what they took from us

Solar powered trolleys...the perfect solution.

Amazing how dirty and filthy Brooklyn was. Still is a cess pool today.

And then big oil decided to ruin it all.