In September 2024 I walked Crescent Street in Long Island City almost its entire length and then headed east to 31st Street to get the N train at the end of the line at Ditmars Boulevard (which 22nd Avenue is called in NW Queens). I think I have taken a number of photos of the particular block before because I’m fascinated by two els bridged over each other (other instances are at Roosevelt Avenue and 61st Street, where the Long Island RR bridges over the Flushing #7 elevated; and the LIRR at the Jamaica el at Jamaica Avenue and Lefferts Boulevard).
Lots going on here: Amtrak, on its way to the Hell Gate Bridge, runs above a sequence of near perfect masonry arches, to my eye, for a batch of streets, of which this is just one. Lighting the. sidewalk is one of those L-shaped “Brownie” lampposts mostly used under elevateds but sometimes on park paths, complete with a “new gumball” fixture that actually contains a Holophane sodium bucket lamp. These are being phased out and replaced by bright white LEDs, which because they have no diffusion, actually produce darker conditions than the diffused sodium yelllow lights did.
As I have previously noted at such junctions, I think a considerably large ball was dropped when these two railroads were being built (both between 1917-1920). A substantial transit hub could have been built here, with LIC’ers being able to board trains here and then travel to all points on the map in North America. Instead, like everyone else in Queens, they need to travel to Penn Station to connect to those trains.
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12/7/24