I don’t have any particularly new historic information to impart about the Queens Boulevard Flushing Line Viaduct in Sunnyside, except that I thought this photo I got in late 2020 was so cool I wanted to share it more widely. I’ve said most of what I had to say about the Flushing Line when it celebrated its centennial in 2017; four years have passed quickly.
From its beginnings in June 1915 running one stop from Grand Central to Vernon/Jackson what has become known since then as the Flushing Line has been extended eight times: east to Hunters Point Avenue and Court Square (11/5/1916); Queensboro Plaza to 103rd Street (4/21/1917); 111th Street (10/13/1925); Willets Point Boulevard (5/7/1927); Main Street (1/2/1928) and west to 5th Avenue (3/22/1926); Times Square (3/14/1927) and Hudson Yards (9/13/2015). (A tiled sign at the Hunters Point Avenue station says the line goes “to Astoria and Corona,” referring to the split at Queensboro Plaza that sends the BMT to Ditmars and the IRT to 103rd/Corona Plaza.)
This is still one of the lengthiest concrete-clad elevated trains in NYC, between Van Dam and 48th Streets atop Queens Boulevard, though the one in the Rockaways bests it by a couple of miles. Both the BMT and the IRT clad stations they deemed especially important in concrete, and I’ve never put them all on one page: I smell a page coming on, though I may have to wait till I feel completely comfortable subwaying and elling all over town again.
Check out the ForgottenBook, take a look at the gift shop, and as always, “comment…as you see fit.”
3/4/21