In early April I began what I hoped would be a lengthy walk in Ozone Park and Howard Beach, an intriguing area with odd dead ends and even some hidden cemeteries on a day that proved too windy and showery for my increasingly picky sensibilities and so spent only a half hour or so. Even the slices at New Park seem to be getting smaller. I took the Q53 from the LIRR in Woodside, which ought to be an express bus but has too many stops and so is a lengthy ride.
The neighborhood is also attainable from Manhattan or Brooklyn by taking the express A train to the North Conduit Ave. station, one of the least-trafficked in the system. It has been part of the NYC subways only since 1956, but before that, it was a station on the Long Island Rail Road Rockaway branch, as were all the stations on the Rockaway peninsula. The station still bears some telltale signs of its old LIRR legacy such as diamond-shaped platform sections—most other Rockaway stations have been repaved, losing the diamonds, but Aqueduct’s remain. It is the least-frequented station in the system by many accounts.
Place names in these parts, such as Conduit Blvd., North and South Conduit Aves., Aqueduct Racetrack, and even Force Tube Ave. in Cypress Hills, are named for the right-of-way of a former aqueduct that led from Ridgewood Reservoir in Forest Park all the way to the old Brooklyn Water Works in Freeport, which were decommissioned and removed decades ago. Like many locales, though, place names point at history.
Today, I didn’t want a lengthy subway ride, so took the A to Rockaway Boulevard to pick up the Q53 there. Bad move. I should have stayed on the A. Or better yet, stood in bed.
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5/30/24