Z Train · New York

The rush-hour skip-stop partner of the J, running the same line from Jamaica Center in Queens over the elevated Jamaica Line and the Williamsburg Bridge to Broad Street in Lower Manhattan. On the Jamaica Line it skips a different set of stations than the J and stops at only 21 of them. It runs in the peak direction during rush hours only.

At a glance

Stations: 21
From: Jamaica Center-Parsons/Archer
To: Broad Street
Interchanges: 21
Difficulty: Lv 4 of 7
Keystrokes: ~354

Z Train runs from Jamaica Center-Parsons/Archer to Broad Street, 21 stops in the order you type them. Measured in straight lines between the station coordinates, the run is about 20.9 km, an average of 1.0 km between stops. The longest gap is Marcy Avenue to Delancey Street-Essex Street, about 2.7 km, and the shortest is Alabama Avenue to Broadway Junction, about 370 m. The real track is a little longer than these straight lines.

Typing every station name once takes about 354 keystrokes, which is difficulty level 4 of 7 among New York's lines. The level only compares lines within one city, so use the keystroke count to compare across cities. At the Jamaica Center-Parsons/Archer end the game shows Prospect Cemetery, and at the Broad Street end, Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House.

You can change to 11 other lines: E Train, J Train, A Train, L Train, C Train, M Train, F Train, 2 Train, 3 Train, 4 Train, 5 Train. The busiest interchange is Fulton Street, where 7 other lines meet this one. The interchange stations are Jamaica Center-Parsons/Archer, Sutphin Boulevard-Archer Avenue-JFK Airport, 121st Street, 104th Street, Woodhaven Boulevard, 75th Street-Elderts Lane, Crescent Street, Norwood Avenue, and 13 more.

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Along the way

The game shows a nearby place at each station. Some of the ones on Z Train:

Prospect Cemetery at Jamaica Center-Parsons/Archer. Established in 1668, Prospect Cemetery is one of the few colonial-era burial grounds still surviving in Queens. Generally known historically as the Presbyterian burial ground, it holds gravestones spanning more than three centuries behind its stone receiving vault. The cemetery is an official New York City landmark tucked just off Sutphin Boulevard in the middle of downtown Jamaica.Photo: Peter Greenberg · CC BY-SA 3.0
Jamaica Savings Bank Building (Sutphin Boulevard) at Sutphin Boulevard-Archer Avenue-JFK Airport. Built between 1938 and 1939 in the Art Deco style, this limestone bank building anchors the corner of Jamaica Avenue and Sutphin Boulevard. It replaced an earlier Queensboro Savings Bank building on the same block and is a New York City designated landmark. The building still functions as a bank branch today, its stepped facade and eagle relief looking out over one of downtown Jamaica's busiest intersections.Photo: Peter Greenberg · CC BY-SA 3.0
PS 66 (Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School) at 104th Street. Designed by school architect C.B.J. Snyder and built in 1898 as the Brooklyn Hills School, this Romanesque Revival building with its off-center bell tower still operates as a working public school. It was renamed for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and designated a New York City landmark in 2010 after her daughter Caroline Kennedy petitioned on the school's behalf.Photo: Peter Greenberg · CC BY-SA 3.0
Franklin K. Lane High School at 75th Street-Elderts Lane. This sprawling Georgian-style building straddles the Brooklyn-Queens border a block from the station, making it one of only two high schools in New York City to sit on two boroughs at once. Built by the WPA and completed in 1937, its perimeter measured a quarter mile, making it one of the largest school buildings in the world at the time. The original high school closed in 2012, and the building now houses four smaller public schools.Photo: Wehwalt · CC BY-SA 3.0
Salem Fields Cemetery at Crescent Street. Founded in 1852 by Congregation Emanu-El of New York, Salem Fields is a Jewish cemetery within Brooklyn's historic Cemetery Belt, entered through a grand stone archway on Jamaica Avenue. It is the resting place of many prominent German-Jewish New York families, including members of the Guggenheim family and the founders of Fox Film.Photo: Anthony22 · CC BY-SA 3.0
Jackie Robinson Parkway at Alabama Avenue. This scenic parkway begins just steps from the station at Jamaica Avenue and winds through Highland Park and several historic cemeteries on its way to Queens. Built as the Interboro Parkway in 1935 and renamed in 1997 to honor the baseball pioneer, its tight curves were deliberately designed to avoid disturbing the graves in the cemeteries it passes through.Photo: Tdorante10 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Hull Street Community Garden at Chauncey Street. Just a few blocks from the station, this small community garden fits a shaded seating area, a hand-built shed, and planting beds into a narrow lot between two apartment buildings. Volunteers maintain it as a quiet gathering spot in a section of Bedford-Stuyvesant with few open green spaces of its own.Photo: Clyde Charles Brown · CC BY-SA 4.0
RKO Bushwick Theatre at Gates Avenue. Opened in 1911 as a 2,500-seat vaudeville house and later a movie palace for the RKO chain, this Beaux-Arts landmark on Broadway was one of Brooklyn's grandest entertainment venues before closing in 1969. After decades of disuse, its elaborately carved curved facade was preserved when the building reopened in 2004 as the Brooklyn High School for Law and Technology.Photo: Jim.henderson · CC BY 4.0
Marcy Avenue Armory at Marcy Avenue. Built in 1883-84 for the 47th Regiment, this castellated brick armory on Marcy Avenue has crenellated towers reminiscent of a medieval fortress. It later became a well-known filming location, appearing as the interior of Robert Neville's fortified home in the 2007 film I Am Legend.Photo: Jim.henderson · CC0
Lombardi's Pizza at Bowery. Opened by Gennaro Lombardi in 1905, this Spring Street pizzeria holds the first business license ever issued for pizza in the United States, and its brick coal-fired oven still bakes pies for the crowds that line up outside. The restaurant closed briefly and reopened at this address in 1994 after the original storefront around the corner was taken over by the family's descendants. It sits just a few blocks north of the Bowery station's Nassau Street platform, in the heart of Nolita.Photo: Beyond My Ken · CC BY-SA 4.0
Firehouse, Engine Company 31 at Canal Street. Designed to resemble a French Renaissance chateau, this 1895 firehouse was meant to bring some architectural grandeur to a busy commercial corner of Lower Manhattan rather than simply hide a utilitarian garage. FDNY Engine 31 moved out in 1972, and the building spent decades afterward as the home of Downtown Community Television Center, a nonprofit documentary film organization. Its steep slate roof and red terracotta trim still stand out sharply from the office towers around it, close to the Canal Street station's Nassau Street platform.Photo: Jim.henderson · CC0
St. Paul's Chapel at Fulton Street. Completed in 1766, St. Paul's Chapel is the oldest surviving church building in Manhattan and a rare surviving example of colonial Georgian architecture. George Washington worshipped here on his inauguration day in 1789, and more than two centuries later the chapel served as a round-the-clock refuge for recovery workers after the September 11 attacks, escaping the disaster without even a broken window.Photo: PortableNYCTours · CC BY-SA 4.0