President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the only President elected for four terms, served from 1933 to 1945, seeing the USA through the Great Depression and most of World War II. He is honored by the Franklin Roosevelt Drive in Manhattan, Roosevelt Island, and dozens of other NYC memorials. However, one of his smallest memorials has been missing since 2013. Sergey has the story.
By SERGEY KADINSKY
Forgotten NY correspondent
At Avenue I and East 16th Street in Midwood, there is a small circular stone in the middle of the cul-de-sac. This humble FDR memorial was installed at the intersection in 1946 by the Terrace Gardens Men’s Club.
photo from Sheepshead Bites
It disappeared in April 2013 and has not been seen or replaced since then. When the monument was completed, it also included a flagpole.
A block from the memorial is 915 East 17th Street, the Terrace Gardens Plaza apartments. Why is this building’s back wall curved?
Because it follows the right-of-way of the long-gone New York, Brooklyn and Manhattan Beach Railway near its junction with the still-active Bay Ridge Branch.
At the dead end of East 18th Street there is a ghost staircase that used to lead to a footbridge across the tracks. The 1924 aerial survey of the area (above photo) shows the outline of the former Manhattan Beach line and the East 18th Street footbridge.
1602 Avenue I also has a curved property line behind it as a sign of the old railway. In the front it has a fancy artificial waterfall.
Finally, next to the Midwood Branch Library at 975 East 16th Street, there is a wooded lot, also a remnant of the Bay Ridge Branch.
The only other remnant of the Manhattan Beach Branch that one can find today is a property line near Avenue V and East 18th Street and on Forgotten-NY, the ghost staircase at Neck Road. Passenger service on the railroad ended in 1924. Duly noted…
12/9/14