Some members of the courthouse, legal, banking and civil service communities around Court and Montague Streets, especially those who are disabled or use a cane, may soon be inconvenienced when traveling to and from work.
Starting on Monday, July 13, MTA New York City Transit will be starting a project to replace the existing elevators at the Borough Hall station on the 2, 3, 4 and 5 lines, which an agency press release said “have reached the end of their useful lifespan.”
At Court Street, one elevator travels between the Mezzanine, Brooklyn-Bound and Manhattan-bound levels of the 2 and 3 lines, which are also connected by a passageway to the 4 and 5 lines. The most unusual elevator, however, is the one that goes from the mezzanine level to the street.
That elevator opens in front of Cadman Plaza and the Supreme Courthouse, inside a structure that is designed to look like an old-fashioned subway kiosk, similar to the ones that were commonplace on New York City sidewalks 100 years ago.
Besides being a transfer point (with the R train’s Court Street station), Borough Hall is important because it serves one of the institutional centers of Brooklyn.
It’s within one or two blocks of the aforementioned Courthouse, several office buildings on Court Street known for their law offices, the Board of Elections building on Adams Street, Brooklyn’s biggest post office, many bank branches on Montague Street and the Social Security office on Montague Street. It’s also near some good restaurants and the Cadman Plaza farmer’s market.
During the project’s progression, which is slated to continue through Spring 2021, customers will be directed to use existing bus service to Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center station in order to gain ADA access on the same subway lines, according to an MTA spokesperson.
Several blocks from the Borough Hall station is the Jay Street-MetroTech (originally Jay Street-Borough Hall) station, which serves the A, C, F and R trains. In October 2019, the MTA unveiled a temporary “accessible station lab” at Jay Street-MetroTech, which included Braille signs, tactile guideways, diagrams of accessible routes, wayfinding strips on station floors, interactive subway maps and more.
