STREET patterns can tell you a great deal about the characteristics of a neighborhood. For one thing, they call out the spirits of railroads past. We have already seen the ghost of the Central Railroad of Long Island, which stopped running in 1879, in Kissena Corridor Park. Similarly, the long lost spirit of the Creedmoor Spur, originally part of the CRLI, can be detected in Bellerose.
There’s a third long lost railroad line detectable in Rosedale, in the southeast corner of Queens. If you stumble down to the south end of Huxley Street, at the kayak launch at Hook Creek at the Idlewild Park Preserve separating Queens from Nassau. you’ll see some wood pilings sticking up from the water; you can see more at low tide, less at high.
The so-called Cedarhurst Cutoff branched off the LIRR main line in Laurelton and ran southeast to the Five Towns community. According to Bob Andersen in (now defunct) LIRRHistory, the line was built in 1872, saw service only until 1876, but was electrified in advance of planned service in 1918 that was never seen, due to America’s entry into WWI. It was once again rebuilt in 1928, but again, service never got restarted because of the Great Depression. The tracks were removed, but the street pattern still makes way for it.
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As this Open Street Map shows, for a long-defunct railroad, it still effectively controls street patterns and traffic. Rosedale, formerly called Fosters Meadows, was developed after trains stopped running on the line but the LIRR still reserved the grade-running spur in case it ever wanted to reactivate it. Hence, Landing and Edgewood Avenues and Huxley Street form diagonals against the grid. Homes were built in the old right of way, but few roads were ever built crossing it. Thus, 147th Avenue became a well-traveled Rosedale route.
The estimable Art Huneke will keep you occupied for hours on this branch and the rest of the LIRR.
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9/17/24
2 comments
The Cedarhurst Cutoff was designed to eliminate or supplement the more roundabout route that LIRR trains still use today between Valley Stream and Far Rockaway. That route was, until 1955, part of a longer LIRR route that went through the Rockaway Peninsula and crossed Jamaica Bay. In 1956 the tracks and right of way were transferred to the NYC subway which still operates the A train on then old LIRR route.
There is actually a fourth abandoned line that left some vestiges behind, and that is the Whitestone Branch. King Street, in Flushing, is actually the old right-of-way, and then you can follow it along Ulmer Street (and Higgins Street) into College Point. It then shows up at a few dead-ends north of 14th Avenue along what should be 12th Avenue. In Whitestone, 151st Place follows the old line to the terminal at Whitestone Landing.