BEACH 90th Street is a station on the A train in the Rockaways, the first on the line after it crosses Jamaica Bay en route to Rockaway Park at Beach 116th Street. Strictly speaking the neighborhood in which it is located is called Hammels, which comes from the name of a developer called Louis Hammel, who had the good fortune to lease a hotel called the Eldert House in 1869. The hotel received more business when the New York, Woodhaven & Rockaway Railroad, later a part of the Long Island Rail Road and ultimately home to the A train, built its line across Jamaica Bay in 1880.
However, it’s not Hammels who has his name on the A train subway sign along with Beach 90th Street: it’s Holland. There is a Holland Avenue in the region, but the street under the el station is Rockaway Freeway. Holland Avenue, shown here, runs a couple of blocks to the south, not bordering the station at all.
You guessed it: Holland station is named after another prominent area name, Michael P. Holland (1849-1917), who moved to the remote Rockaway peninsula with his family at age 8, in 1857. His father, also Michael P. Holland, was a hotelier and also operated a tobacco factory on the peninsula. The junior Michael became the area’s first postmaster during the era’s Republican administrations (Democrat Grover Cleveland replaced him during his two separate administrations), and as a prominent area personage belonged to Pioneers of Rockaway Beach, the Rockaway Board of Trade, the Jamaica Bay Yacht Club and was a volunteer fireman.
There was another Holland Avenue before the present one; it’s now called Beach 94th Street, and at its south end, Holland Jr’s daughter, Fannie, constructed the Holland Pier, a prominent amusement area. This area is now the south end of Cross Bay Boulevard, a prime vehicle connector to the mainland.
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11/30/23
9 comments
There is also a Holland Ave. in the Bronx.
The flying junction just east of that Beach 90 St station is called “Hammels Wye,” which also allows the inbound track from Beach 116 St to connect to the outbound track to Mott Av
Holland and the other A train stations on the Rockaway Peninsula were Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) stops from the 19th century until October 1955, when LIRR service ended. Subway service began in June 1956. Many stations had two names, reflecting both the numbered north-south street and an old street name long forgotten, similar to other Queens subway routes. Others have numbered street and neighborhood names that are still relevant.
In recent years the entire group of Rockaway A train stations have been rehabilitated with new station signage. I don’t use that line very often, but below are listed the current station names, geographically east to west, that appear on the most recent official MTA subway map. I have added the old names, such as Holland, that once adorned the station signs and are a relic of the LIRR days. The old names are in parentheses. Only the two terminal stations, Far Rockaway-Mott Avenue, and Beach 116th St-Rockaway Park, appear on today’s map with two names.
• Far Rockaway-Mott Avenue
• Beach 25th St. (Wavecrest)
• Beach 36th St. (Edgemere)
• Beach 44th St. (Frank Ave.)
• Beach 60th St. (Arveren-Straiton Ave.)
• Beach 67th St. (Arveren-(Gaston Ave.)
• Beach 90th St. (Holland)
• Beach 98th St. (Playland)
• Beach 105th St. (Seaside)
• Beach 116th St.-Rockaway Park
Just to clarify the origins a little more – Edgemere means “by the sea”; Arverne comes from “Remington Vernam”, who developed the area and signed his name “R. Vernam”; Playland refers to a long-gone amusement park, Wavecrest and Seaside are obvious. Not sure about Mott – there was a prominent surgeon named Valentine Mott (1785-1865), who pioneered vascular surgery (see encylopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/valentine-mott
What NYC streets have the names of countries besides Holland ? India, Lebanon and Columbia at least.
Colombia is the country, Columbia is a couple other things.
Columbia if you’re thinking of a way to refer to the United States.
Columbia is the name of a river, a university, a broadcasting system, but not a country. The country is spelled Colombia.
There are actually several NYC subway stops that have names for streets that don’t even have entrances for them with some of them being West 4th Street-Washington Square and Utica Avenue to name a few.
Concerning Hammels, I wrote an essay about this neighborhood a few years ago.