The Utica Avenue station is an express station on the IND Fulton Street Line of the New York City Subway. Located at Utica Avenue and Fulton Street in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, it is served by the A train at all times and the C train at all times except late nights. History This underground station opened on April 9, 1936, as part of an extension of the Independent Subway System (IND) from its previous Brooklyn terminus at Jay Street–Borough Hall, which opened three years earlier, to Rockaway Avenue. The new IND subway replaced the BMT Fulton Street El. The Reid Avenue El station, which was originally named Utica Avenue and was formerly above the current subway station, closed on May 31, 1940. Station layout The station has four tracks and two island platforms, typical for a four-track express station. The outer track walls are made of tile and have a maroon trim line with a dark maroon border. Small black tile captions reading "UTICA" in white lettering on a black background run below the trim line at regular intervals. The station's I-beam columns are painted maroon, alternating ones having the standard black station name plate with white lettering. Renovations added looping maroon tile patterns at the mezzanine level, as well as the platform's floor pattern. Renovations also added new old-fashioned light fixtures with modern sodium-vapor lamps in them, which are suspended on long rods from the high, vaulted ceilings. This station has two fare control areas, one at either end. The full-time side at the eastern (railroad south) end has two staircases from each platform going up to a crossover (the western ones go up to a ramp that leads to the main fare control area), where a turnstile bank and two exit-only turnstiles provide access to and from the station. Outside fare control, there is a token booth and two street stairs, each going to either western corners of Utica Avenue and Fulton Street. The station's other fare control area has two staircases going down to each platform, a crossover, part-time turnstile bank and customer assistance booth, high entry/exit turnstiles that provide full-time access to and from the station, and two staircases going up to either side of Fulton Street between Stuyvesant and Schenectady Avenues. Unusually, there are two mezzanine levels; the upper mezzanine level was closed off after a 1995 renovation, and the lower mezzanine level is actually the