Avenue J
The Avenue J Station has two quite narrow side platforms for a four-tracked Brighton Line express station. These both have standard cream-painted windscreens along their entire lengths. There is a canopy only towards the center of the station's platforms. Along the pillars holding up the platform's canopy, old black font Js on white are painted onto the pillars. The station's single exit is beneath the tracks at street level between the platforms, two staircases lead down from each platform to a small paint-peeling underpass area. From the Coney Island-bound platform a High Exit Turnstile allows passengers to exit directly and not enter the station house. This and the doors out from the small station house built directly underneath the embankment lead out to the southern sidewalk of the shopping street that is Avenue J and crosses beneath the subway line. The station house has a small bank of turnstiles and a token booth, it's so cramped that the station's MVM is located outside of the station house, along the sidewalk of Avenue J.
From September 2009 to December 2011, the station underwent a full reconstruction, although the station didn't experience any long-term trains skipping the station with a temporary platform built on the opposite express track from the express track in service. No free crossover or under was provided, so passengers needed to double-back to get Avenue H or Avenue M had to ride all the way to Kings Highway or Newkirk Avenue. When I visited the station in May 2010 I observed the following: "currently the Coney Island-bound track is completely non-existent, just a construction site where the platform should be. Trains are stopping on the Coney Island-bound express track on a temporary platform located on the Manhattan-bound express track. This platform has its own temporary exit, with a bridge across the Coney Island-bound tracks to a set of two High Entrance Turnstiles, and a High Exit Turnstile located at the level of the tracks, this continues to a single staircase down to street level that's on the north side of Avenue J, across from the existing station house that Manhattan-bound trains still use. This platform has no coverings on it, just lights and a single exposed bench."
The current station has been modernized with green- and cream-colored windscreens along both platforms. The configuration of the station house has stayed the same, although it now has bright white tiles. From the Manhattan-bound platform a staircase lead down to an intermediate landing before a short further flight of stairs down into the cramped control house beneath the tracks. This staircases is narrower than the one on the Coney Island-bound platform. The Coney Island-bound platform has a single wider staircase down to two High Exit Turnstiles directly out to the street, before doors into the station house. The small area outside of fare control has seen the token booth reconfigured to be along the east side, at an angle to the turnstiles and two MVMs are now inside the station house on the opposite, west side.
New entrances have been opened along each platform. The Manhattan-bound platform has a single streetstair that rises up from the middle of the sidewalk at the NW corner of East 16th Street and Avenue J, that feels like it could lead to a conventional elevated subway station, it leads up to a couple MVMs and bank of turnstiles on the platform at the same landing above Avenue J where the staircase down to the station house is. The Coney Island-bounds platform has a staircase (at the same location that was the platform's only exit while it was reconstructed) up from the north side of Avenue J between the subway station and an adjacent building up to a small bank of turnstiles on this platform.
Photos 1-25: August 13, 2008; 26-43: May 19, 2010; 44-50: November 30, 2011; 51-56: January 10, 2012; 57: January 20, 2012
