Unbeknownst to most, an abandoned Long Island Railroad tunnel runs for a couple of blocks below Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn Heights. But this isn’t just any tunnel…it was abandoned for 140 years with virtually no one knowing about its existence! It was built in 1844 and was used in passenger service for fourteen years, ending [...]
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Monthly Archives: May 2013
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WALT WHITMAN and the ATLANTIC AVENUE TUNNEL
April 24, 2000Categorized in: Subways & Trains Tagged with: Brooklyn Heights Walt Whitman
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LOWER EAST SIDE STREET NECROLOGY
April 16, 2000
The Lower East Side of Manhattan, roughly defined by Houston Street on the north, the East River on the east and south, and by the Manhattan Bridge and the Bowery on the west, known in story and song as a teeming, bustling magnet for immigrants in the 19h and 20th Centuries, actually has a long [...]
Categorized in: Street Necrology Tagged with: Lower East Side Manhattan
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TAKE A LIQ-IN’ AND KEEP ON TICKIN’. New York’s ancient neon liquor store signs.
April 16, 2000There’s no real story here. But for years, I’ve noticed that many liquor stores in the five boroughs have the same signage they must have had decades ago…whether they’re ceramic, painted signs or my favorite, NEON. It must just be a matter of the signs doing the same job they’ve done for many years doing [...]
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RAMBLERSVILLE, Queens
April 9, 2000I sometimes hear the musical question, so what was at JFK Airport before JFK was built? Well, there was something there, though not a whole lot. Before the 1940s, the huge area that became home to the airport was basically a big marsh with creeks running though it, with small settlements dotting occasional roads that ran through the marsh. [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Street Scenes Tagged with: Hamilton Beach Queens Ramblersville
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INWOOD HILL PARK
April 9, 2000Most people think Manhattan is buried under layer upon layer of concrete, with all evidence of its primordial past vanished. There’s still hundreds of acres of natural Manhattan Island still left though! Take the IRT all the way to the last stop in Manhattan, at 215th Street, cross to Broadway, walk up the steps, go [...]
Categorized in: You'd Never Believe You're in NYC Tagged with: Inwood Manhattan
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LONG ISLAND RAIL ROAD RETIRED FLEET
April 6, 2000In the past few months (as of this writing, April 2000) the Long Island Rail Road (or, as some call it, the Long Island Fail Road) has completely replaced its fleet of ancient cars going back to the mid-1950s with a modern, bright fleet of bi-level cars. While many railfans (including me) welcome the new [...]
Categorized in: Subways & Trains Tagged with: Auburndale Flushing Queens Richmond Hill
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LONG ISLAND RAILROAD ROCKAWAY BRANCH
April 4, 2000The Rockaway Line is a mighty good road, the Rockaway Line is the road to ride, to paraphrase the old song. Or rather, it used to be the road to ride, since no passenger trains have run on it since 1962. The Long Island Railroad’s Rockaway Beach Branch diverged from the LIRR’s Main Line in Rego [...]
Categorized in: Subways & Trains Tagged with: Forest Hills Ozone Park Queens Rego Park Woodhaven
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QUEENS ALLEYS part 2
April 2, 2000Continued from Part 1 This time, our survey of little-noticed Queens alleyways takes us from gritty, concrete-enveloped Long Island City all the way east to bucolic, rural Little Neck–which could pass for an upstate village or a small North Shore town, which, of course, it is! So let’s start in Long Island City and work [...]
Categorized in: Alleys Neighborhoods Tagged with: Astoria Boker Briarwood Charlotte College Point Cornell Corona Elmhurst Flushing Forest Hills Glendale Hawtree Linneaus Little Neck Queens Ridgewood South Jamaica Sunnyside Whitestone