REMNANTS of NYC’s streetcar lines, which existed in all five boroughs until the late 194os and early 1950s, are getting fewer and “far betweener” since I began photography for Forgotten New York in 1998. The odd iron trolley pole can be seen here, or a rail poking through pavement can be seen there. However in Ridgewood, you can find the equivalent of a full T-Rex skeleton on Woodbine Street between Onderdonk and Woodward Avenues, where you can see two pairs of tracks and the Belgian block pavement on which they rested.
The tracks once belonged to the #58, which connected Bushwick and Flushing and used the old Strongs Causeway route through Flushing Meadows. The current Q58 bus largely duplicates the old route, using the service road of the Long Island Expressway to cross Flushing Meadows.
The old tracks followed the right of way of the Myrtle Avenue Elevated, the current M train. Unusually, this el has its own right of way between Onderdonk and Metropolitan Avenues, separating back yards of homes and crossing trainyards. In this way, it behaves like Chicago’s elevated train scheme. In NYC, elevated trains were usually built over existing streets.
Here’s a map of Brooklyn’s streetcar lines, many of which ran into Queens.
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11/14/24