If you’ve ever found yourself descending from the Court Street entrance into Brooklyn’s Borough Hall subway station, you may have rushed past it—a blue, subway-tiled corner surrounded by a network of overhead pipes.
The three shuttered metal windows look vaguely institutional, and like the rest of this part of the station, the corner storefront is unattractive and neglected amid excess platform grime.
So you can be forgiven for not stopping and taking a closer look. But only then, when you see the faded words “commuter banking” in black above the metal window frame, will you realize what this strange relic once was.
Beginning in the 1960s, this corner structure served as a branch of the Brooklyn Savings Bank, where tellers sat at the windows and catered to the financial needs of on-the-go postwar Brooklynites.
“Service call buttons are centered on the ledges at the base of the windows where a second inscription states, ‘Banking Hours – Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m,’” notes Atlas Obscura in a 2020 article.
“Stainless steel drawers for the exchange of currency and documents are located beneath the teller windows.”
The Brooklyn Savings Bank was founded in 1827, when Brooklyn was just a small town in Kings County. It maintained a prominent presence in Brooklyn Heights until 1990, when the bank became defunct.
The commuter banking idea was actually pretty canny. What better way to reach new customers and provide convenience to existing bankers than by putting a couple of friendly, efficient tellers below ground?
When the branch handled its last transaction isn’t clear, but my guess is the 1980s, as subway crime surged and 24-hour ATMs made their appearance on sidewalk-level branches.
Most in-person banking is now handled by ATMs and banking apps. But isn’t it cool to pass this relic from an era when you had to speak to a human to deposit your paper paycheck, and then have that transaction stamped by the same human in your cardboard bank book?
[Third image: Staten Island Advance; fourth image: Wikipedia]