Tracing the New York & Manhattan Beach

Not your typical narrow gauge setting :

I found myself in Brooklyn, NY this morning with a few hours of free time, and thought I would try looking for some remnants (or at least locations) of New York City's forgotten narrow gauge, the New York & Manhattan Beach Railway.

The NY&MB narrow gauge was an ephemeral operation: opened in 1876, it was standard gauged by 1884 and merged into the LIRR a few years later, so it didn't leave much of a record of itself, or even much of a memory. It was built to carry urban vacationers from steamboat docks at Greenpoint and Bay Ridge, Brooklyn (this was before the Brooklyn Bridge was built, so a trip from Manhattan to Brooklyn required a boat ride to start) to a set of beachfront hotels on Coney Island. (The name "Manhattan Beach" was coined by the railroad's president Austin Corbin to refer to the east end of the Coney Island peninsula, which he had purchased and was developing as a resort that he wanted to be perceived as more genteel and exclusive than Coney Island proper.) The railroad only ran trains in the summer season, and I don't believe it ever even carried freight. However, its owners (Corbin plus other investors) were aiming for a wealthy clientele and advertised that the line was double tracked for its entire length with all steel rails, and all the engines were Mason Bogies -- the most high tech motive power of the era. It was a railroad built to impress.

Here's an undated photo from the Art Huneke collection of a NY&MB Mason Bogie and train at the Greenpoint depot. I believe the brick building on the right was the roundhouse. Note the peculiar closed vestibule coaches the NY&MB ran -- no open platforms on this railroad! This view is looking west across the East River toward Manhattan.


Detail of an 1870s fire insurance map of Greenpoint showing the NY&MB depot and yard (including brick roundhouse) on the south side of Quay Street, fronting Bushwick Inlet (perfect for docking steamboats). Note the crossing of the double tracked Brooklyn City Railroad horse car line at the intersection of Franklin and N. 15th Streets, which would have required quadruple diamonds in the middle of the street!


And a screenshot of Google's version of the same neighborhood now:


More to come!

-Philip Marshall



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2014 09:13PM by philip.marshall.