168th Street

The 168th Street station was the terminal station on the demolished section of the BMT Jamaica Line in Queens, New York City. It was located between 165th and 168th Streets on Jamaica Avenue.

168th Street was part of two Dual Contracts extensions of the BMT Broadway-Jamaica Line east of Cypress Hills and the "S-Curve" from Fulton Street to Jamaica Avenue. It opened on July 3, 1918, replacing 111th Street as the line's terminus. 168th Street station also replaced the Canal Street Station along the Atlantic Avenue Rapid Transit line (today part of the LIRR Main Line), which closed nineteen years earlier, and supplanted the trolley service on Jamaica Avenue.

In 1937, the Queens Boulevard Line of the city-owned Independent Subway System was extended to a new terminal at 169th Street and Hillside Avenue, four blocks away. The opening of the IND terminal drew passengers away from the BMT lines. Many groups had called for the removal of the extension in the Jamaica Business district since shortly after it opened, and by the 1960s the city planned to close the station and significant portions of the line in Jamaica. Many merchants blamed the line for causing blight and hurting business in the neighborhood. The line was also torn down in preparation for the completion of the Archer Avenue Subway one block south, which would serve the Jamaica Line and a spur of the IND Queens Boulevard Line, and due to political pressure in the area. Construction of that line began in 1972. 168th Street closed at midnight on September 10, 1977, and the elevated structure from 168th Street to Sutphin Boulevard was torn down by 1979. The line was truncated to Queens Boulevard, with the Q49 bus replacing the demolished portion of the line until December 11, 1988.

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