THESE are the remains of the old Ozone Park LIRR station just south of 101st Avenue at 100th Street. This was once a very important transfer point on the LIRR. The present remains of the old Ozone Park station date to 1930, when the elevated concrete station replaced the grade-level tracks. Service ceased on this line on June 8, 1962.
Herbert George, whose book Change At Ozone Park describes the various LIRR lines that extended to the Rockaway Peninsula, describes the Ozone Park station:
Ozone Park station was set up to enable passengers from Pennsylvania Station and Flatbush Avenue to reach the Rockaway Park area or Far Rockaway section simply by changing trains (“Change At Ozone Park!”) At certain times, the trains would stack end-to-end, and passengers would transfer back and forth on the platform. Of course, operation in the reverse direction also occurred. Due to street restrictions below, which limited the right-of-way width above, platforms were on the outside of the four track right-of-way, making an across-the-platform exchange impossible. To accommodate this, the platforms were made exceptionally long, so that non-rush hour length MU trains could stack end-to-end and allow passengers to transfer. A set of crossovers from the outside tracks to the inner tracks were at the east end of the station, to permit trains stopping at Ozone Park to run express after the station stop, or to perform the reverse move.
Sources: Herbert George, Change At Ozone Park, © 1993 RAE Publishing
There are two plans to do something with the old Rockaway LIRR: convert it to a linear park, a la the High Line in Manhattan, which was interesting when it first opened in 2009, but is now hemmed in by high rise towers, its views vanquished. The other plan is to revive it for transit, as a heavy rail LIRR or subway line or light rail.
Don’t bet on either.
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7/26/23
