192nd STREET, Auburndale

by Kevin Walsh

Although it might look like it, I’m not standing in a burial crypt visiting the dear departed who died in 2003. No, I am on 192nd Street between 39th Avenue and Station Road in Auburndale.

In 1901, Auburndale, the neighborhood just east of Flushing, Queens, was empty farmland. Enter the New England Development & Improvement Co., which bought the 90-acre Thomas Willets farm, and lo and behold, Auburndale the community was born. The name comes from Auburndale, Massachusetts, the home of L. H. Green, who developed the community starting in 1901, when the Long Island Railroad started offering train service to the area. Auburndale’s early station house stood until 1929, when the grade crossing at Utopia Parkway was replaced by an overpass and as a result, Auburndale is one of the handful of LIRR stations without a station house. 

The station was renovated, top to bottom, once again in 2002-2003 when an elevator was added. This is one of the few true elevated stations long this LIRR branch (Port Washington branch) along with Woodside, Broadway and Plandome. The second renovation date was added to the first, and separated with a dash, making it look like a gravesite inscription.

Information from Ron Ziel’s Victorian Railroad Stations of Long Island.

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7/27/18

2 comments

Andy July 28, 2018 - 2:59 pm

Flushing Main Street Station is also elevated above street level. Current viaduct dates from 1913. The station is now undergoing a major rebuild including elevators, but the viaduct will be basically unchanged.

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Edward July 29, 2018 - 12:56 pm

And, as is always the case with NYC renovations, it looks like the station hasn’t been touched since 2003. NYC is very distinct in that it builds great things, then totally leaves them to their fate without so much as a quick paint touch-up.

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