Posts Tagged ‘Long Island Railroad’
wondering uneasily
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Each one of the DE30AC Long Island Railroad engines one typically observes at the ancient Long Island City station at Hunters Point is rated to 3,000 Horsepower. So says the google.
As a humble narrator is given to literal interpretations of statements like this, an idea occurred, which might present an answer to the so called “hum” which bedevils area residents.
Horses.
from wikipedia
The LIRR chartered the New York and Jamaica Railroad on September 3, 1859, and a supplement to the LIRR’s charter passed March 12, 1860 authorized it to buy the NY&J and extend to Hunters Point. The LIRR carried through with the NY&J purchase on April 25, along with the purchase of a short piece of the Brooklyn and Jamaica at Jamaica, and the next day it cancelled its lease of the Brooklyn and Jamaica, but continued to operate over it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Logistical conundrums abound in this scheme of mine, mastering a team of 3,000 horses for instance, would be hubris enough to make a Roman blush.
A thousand pounds of horseflesh each, the 3,000 strong equine army would each require some 10-12 gallons of water and 1-1.5% of it’s body weight in food per day (US Army daily forage rations were given as 12 lbs of oats and 14 lbs of hay per 900 lb. horse). Marvelously enough, the mountains of manure generated by the animals could act as fertilizer for roof top farms which could in turn grow the food.
It would be a virtuous circle for all, except for the customers of the LIRR itself, who will be moving to Syosset at no more than 3mph.
from wikipedia
The DE30AC and DM30AC locomotives replaced aging GP38s, Alco FA1/FA2s, F7As and F9As, and MP15AC and SW1001 locomotives, with GP38s used to push and pull diesel trains and other locomotives used to provide HEP for the trains. The bodies of the DE30AC and the DM30AC are similar; the difference is the ability of the DM30AC to use electric third rail while the diesel engine is off, enabling the locomotive to use the East River Tunnels into New York Penn Station. DM30ACs have third rail contact shoes, permitting direct service from non-electrified lines in eastern Long Island via the western electrified main lines all the way to Penn Station. A few such trains a day run on the Port Jefferson, Oyster Bay, and Montauk Branches. The engines’ naming scheme: DM = Dual Mode, DE = Diesel Engine, 30 = 3000 hp, AC = Alternating Current traction motors.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oh, and there’s also something like ten trains that use this station daily, so that’s actually 30,000 horses. That’s the estimated equine population of New Hampshire.
Imagine all the primate jobs this scheme would generate as well, hundreds if not thousands of green jobs- Veterinarians, Agriculturists, Teamsters, Roof-top Botanists.
from wikipedia
Long Island City station was built on June 26, 1854, and was rebuilt seven times during the 19th Century. On December 18, 1902, both the two-story station building, and an office building owned by the LIRR burned down. The station was rebuilt on April 26, 1903, and was electrified on June 16, 1910.
Before the East River Tunnels were built, the Long Island City station served as the terminus for Manhattan-bound passengers from Long Island, who took ferries to the East Side of Manhattan. The passenger ferry service was abandoned on March 3, 1925, although freight was carried by car floats (see Gantry Plaza State Park) to and from Manhattan until the middle twentieth century. Today ferry service is operated by NY Waterway.
high doors
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Let’s get two thing straight at the start of this, ok? Van Alst Avenue and Hunters Point Avenue translates into 21st Century lingo as 21st Street and 49th Avenue- that’s the first. Second, during the four years between 1916 and 1920, this was the absolute center of Long Island City.
Whilst lingering or loitering near 2100 49th Avenue in Long Island City, you may notice that it is the former Paragon Oils and Burners building- a 108,000 square foot, 6 story former factory and manufacturing facility which serves as a document storage warehouse and pedestal for advertising billboards today.
That is, you might notice it, if you aren’t distracted by the busy train tracks and rail station it sits on top of, or the manifest wonder of the skyline of that Shining City of Manhattan which frames the scene.
from wikipedia
Paragon Oil was founded by brothers Henry, Irving, Robert, Benjamin, and Arnold Schwartz. The brothers, and their sister Bess Schwartz Levy, were first-generation Americans, all born between 1896 and 1909 in Brooklyn, New York.
Their parents were Sholem or “Sam” (Chernofski) Schwartz, born circa 1868, and Lena Krakofsky, born circa 1874, who were Jewish immigrants originally from the town of Belaya Tserkov (Bila Tserkva), near Kiev, Ukraine, who had immigrated to the United States around 1895.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Many of the monolithic constructions of the early 20th century abide in this neighborhood, which is largely given over to industrial pursuits, even today.
As is often repeated in these postings- This is where the industrial revolution actually happened, and Long Island City was not just the workshop of New York City, but America itself (!).
This view is from Skillman Avenue, by the way.
also from wikipedia
…the family was poor upon arrival in New York. Sam worked once again as a blacksmith, but now in eastern Brooklyn. When they were young, elder brothers Henry and Irving went door-to-door in Brooklyn carrying around sacks of coal on their backs, peddling it to the nearby homes and residential buildings to earn extra money for their family. At that time, some large commercial buildings had oil-fired furnaces, but residential buildings did not. A combination of factors, including the equipment available at their father’s blacksmith shop and the experience of their relatives back in Ukraine who were involved in the whale oil business, led to the brothers experimenting, designing, and finally building the first oil heaters designed for residential buildings, which eventually earned the family several patents on the design.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the things which kept on popping up in my research on the place is the name “Queens Subway Building”.
The white structure which seems to be a seventh floor, according to online documentation, is some sort of “cellular telephonic” or other electronics installation.
Paragon Oil is a familiar name to some of you who may be acquainted with the story of that tortured cataract of urban infamy known to most as the Newtown Creek.
from nysdecgreenpoint.com
The former Paragon Oil Terminal property is bordered by Newtown Creek to the north, Meeker Avenue to the east, Bridgewater Street to the south, and the Apollo Street Creek parcels to the west. Beginning in 1886, two companies operated on this property; the Locust Hill Refining Company and Greenpoint Oil Refining. Both of these companies ended operation by 1905. From 1905 to 1921, a portion of the property operated as a cement works company. By 1929, a portion of the property was being operated as a petroleum storage terminal by Supreme Oil, which later became known as the Petroleum Terminal Corporation. The other portion of the property was privately owned until 1928 when it became the Brooklyn Ash Removal Company. In 1934, all operations throughout the entire property were either run by or affiliated with the Paragon Oil Company, which operated the site as petroleum storage terminal. Paragon Oil was purchased by Texaco Oil, now is known as the Chevron/Texaco Corporation, in 1960. The property was sold to Peerless Importers (now known as Empire Merchants) in 1968, which now operates the property as a liquor distribution warehouse. According to a 2005 consent agreement made with the NYSDEC, Texaco is responsible to delineate and remediate the portion of the free product plume underlying the Former Paragon Oil Terminal and control seepage of petroleum into Newtown Creek at this location.
– photo by Mitch Waxman, and HOLY MOLY, don’t miss this photo that nycsubway.org has.
About the “Queens Subway Building” angle-
It seems that Degnon Terminal and Realty, the folks who built the subway tunnels which the Paragon building stands over, and who later went on to build the vast industrial complex which began at Thomson and Skillman Avenues which ran all the way to Newtown Creek (the white building in the shot above is just one of the many gargantuan structures still extant) maintained offices at a “Queens Subway Building” for some period.
Add in the presence of the Borough President of Queens, a fellow named Maurice E. Connolly, who moved his offices to a “Queens Subway Building” in 1916 and there’s a whole lot of power and money all under one roof.
The use of the structure, known as “Queens Subway Building”, by both parties is confirmed by multiple sources. I just haven’t been able to ascertain if the Paragon Oil Burner building was indeed, the aforementioned “Queens Subway Building” also located at Van Alst Avenue and Hunters Point Avenue.
From “The Steinway Tunnels”, at nycsubway.org
At 2100 49th Ave., a 7-story office building was erected over the station during its construction and is known as the “Queens Subway Building” and was the former offices of Queens County & Borough. It is occupied today by the Paragon Oil Co.
Check this nycsubway.org shot out as well– WO! Is that the Paragon building going up?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Children in the streets of Long Island City take no notice of the building. Within it are stored pedantic records of business and law, not the lost ark of the covenant or a magick sword or some wizard’s cloak. Charming, the structure is often noticed by passerby that comment on quirky and quaint calligraphic advertisements which surely harken back to golden times of economic splendor and memory of a clear conscience.
from a 1987 report at nytimes.com
FLOOR after floor, row after row, thousands of cardboard boxes full of business memorabilia sit in the old Paragon Oil building two subway stops away from Manhattan in Long Island City, Queens.
Under fire sprinklers and the watchful eyes of security attendants, millions of documents and records wait for their day of destruction or, perhaps, for retrieval back to an office tower across the East River.
The seven-story building at 2100 Hunters Point Avenue is one of dozens serving as giant file cabinets for Manhattan service-sector industries.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The most detailed information on the place which I can pass on to you, lords and ladies, is the following link. It seems to be a 2005 report or proposal of some kind involving a brownfield remediation scheme, but is fairly well focused, and specific enough to claim veracity.
from aux.zicklin.baruch.cuny.edu, and fast forward to page 54
The Paragon Oils and Burners building was built in 1916 to house its growing petroleum products business. Occupied by Paragon through the 1950’s, it was used for production, warehousing, and distribution of petroleum-based products. Since the early 1960’s the building has been used primarily as a warehouse facility and most recently, a mini-storage company. The owner also generates a sizeable annual rent from exterior signage, which faces the entrance to the Midtown tunnel and the Long Island Railroad.
cool recesses
– photo courtesy google books, from: Queens Borough, New York City, 1910-1920: The Borough of Homes and Industry
This image was found in one of the many ancient books which your humble narrator is known to haunt. The shot’s vantage point is familiar to regular riders of the LIRR, and would be somewhere very close to Trimble Road’s intersection with 64th street in Woodside. Notice the Woodside Court building on the left, it would have been around 10 years old in the shot above, having been constructed in 1916.
It’s supposed to be the very first apartment house in all of Woodside, or so I’m told.
From the aforementioned book linked to above,
“The importance of this station as a transfer point is directly proportional to the number of Long Island Railroad trains which stop there. About seventy-four percent of the trains stop today. The Queensboro Chamber of Commerce believes that more trains should stop at that point for the interchange of passengers, at the same time realizing that passengers bound for all points in New York City can go through to the Pennsylvania Station and make connections there with the Seventh Avenue Subway”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman, 2011
My shot is from the platform of the modern Long Island Railroad platform, in the summer of 2011. The Woodside Court building is still there, as are the two electrical towers and the elevated train station which crosses over the LIRR tracks along Roosevelt Avenue. The elevated tracks arrived in 1917, so I guess that means that very little has actually changed- from an infrastructure point of view- in the intervening 94 years.
deeply hidden
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When your humble narrator was still a boy, certain promises and prognostications were offered by the society at large which have, frankly, just not worked out. Yes, we have the TV which you can wear on your wrist, and there are indeed robot vacuum cleaners… but where are the jet packs and moving sidewalks?
For another set of angles on the LIRR yard at Hunters Point, check out this Newtown Pentacle posting from September 12, “Little Memories“
from 1877′s “Long Island and where to go!!: A descriptive work compiled for the Long R.R. Co.“, courtesy google books:
Long Island City is the concentrating point upon the East river, of all the main avenues of travel from the back districts of Long Island to the city of New York. The great arteries of travel leading from New York are Thomson avenue, macadamized, 100 feet wide, leading directly to Newtown, Jamaica and the middle and southern roads on Long Island, and Jackson avenue, also 100 feet wide, and leading directly to Flushing, Whitestone and the northerly roads.
Long Island City is also the concentrating point upon the East river, of the railway system of Long Island.
The railways, upon reaching the city, pass under the main avenues of travel and traffic, and not upon or across their surface.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Concessions will be made that yes, people these days do indeed dress in the manner of superheroes when exercising- modern form fitting fabrics garishly colored are a common sight. However, personal jet packs have never materialized, and the “meal in pill form” is still not a reality.
from wikipedia
Long Island City station was built on June 26, 1854, and was rebuilt seven times during the 19th Century. On December 18, 1902, both the two-story station building, and an office building owned by the LIRR burned down. The station was rebuilt on April 26, 1903, and was electrified on June 16, 1910.
Before the East River Tunnels were built, the Long Island City station served as the terminus for Manhattan-bound passengers from Long Island, who took ferries to the East Side of Manhattan. The passenger ferry service was abandoned on March 3, 1925, although freight was carried by car floats (see Gantry Plaza State Park) to and from Manhattan until the middle twentieth century.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A game my adolescent friends and I used to play was guessing which future scenario offered by cinematic prophets might be the one that society would end up following. We always hoped for Star Trek, with its quasi socialist and expansionist state- but from my vantage point in October of 2011- our culture has instead lodged itself solidly into a Blade Runner/Robocop style dystopia.
from ny1.com
Residents of a building in Long Island City, Queens say they are near their wits’ end over the noise from train engines that idle all day in a nearby yard, and want the MTA to put the brakes on it. Borough reporter Ruschell Boone filed the following report.
For some Long Island City residents, the sound of idling train engines plow through their day.
“I’m not here to observe it all day. I wouldn’t want to be here five days a week,” said resident Mark Goetz.
“It’s really horrible. I mean, like I wake up to this noise every morning,” said resident Lillian Marchena.
Marchena’s apartment is directly across the street from the Long Island Rail Road rail yard. She says residents have been complaining for years about the diesel engine trains that sit idling during the day.
“It’s actually gotten a little bit better from the beginning when I first moved in, but it’s still a big problem,” she said.
Over the last two years, the LIRR has turned off some of the engines during the day and placed some trains in other parts of the rail yard as part of a compromise, but some residents said the noise is starting to increase again.
“From 7:30 in the morning ’til 5:30 at night, Monday through Friday,” said Community Board 2 Chairman Joe Conley.
It is a harsh reality for new residents moving to the once-industrial area. The rail yard has been there for more than 100 years, but residents want the diesel engines turned off during the day.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If you were to read the predictions of a century ago, it was all about optimism, locomotive ambition, and confidence. The promise of a pneumatic, electrified, and somewhat insect free world was the dream of the educated class in the early 20th century. When we dream of the future, here at the start of the 21st century, it’s about maintaining health insurance payments and staying ahead of our bills.
Where is my jet pack?
a Newtown Pentacle posting of April 26, 2011 discussed the LIRR yard in some detail- click here for “Squat Creatures”
cheering illusion
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Long island City, as we know it, was all about trains. Everywhere you go, tracks are. Despite this, the entire modern place is defined by it’s relationship to the automobile, which seems to have been the guiding principle behind much of its development in the middle 20th century- pull up the tracks and lay asphalt down for trucks. For those of you who might have seen me tagging along on one of Kevin Walsh’s audacious 2nd Saturday tours this summer, this will be a familiar refrain, but one of the things I’ve been going on about for the last several months is the “Locomotive City” versus the “Automotive City”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What I mean is that during the 19th and early 20th century, the place was set up and designed around access to rail based transportation rather than automotive needs. It’s why it’s so hard to park in LIC, except if you’re driving a train. 50 years ago, it was still not an uncommon or remarkable thing to see a Locomotive engine making its rounds at grade level around these parts, before everything switched over to truck and car based transport and the spars were cut.
This “locomotive city” had its own set of problems, of course, noise and pollution and accidents and all that- but the “automotive city” of the latter 20th century which we are all so familiar with is no picnic either. At least the earlier incarnation of the place was a lot more efficient.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As regular readers of this, your Newtown Pentacle, know- I’m kind of an infrastructure geek. One of my favorite topics are the sewers after all, and anyone who has accompanied me on a walk through LIC has had to endure me running over to a construction site and waxing rhapsodically about the layer cake of street systems which are revealed whenever workmen have dug their way down to perform maintenance or repairs on some buried subsystem.
In a single vertical yard, you will see asphalt, cement, belgian block cobblestones, macadamized or creosote treated wood blocks, oil saturated compacted earth- all the way down to the loose fill which was appropriate for horse carts. The industrial history of New York City, in cross section.
Today’s post is a bit of a placeholder, by the way, big announcements are imminent…
The Newtown Pentacle 