Randall Hess Wrote:
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> Something we tend not to think about is that New
> York City grew over time. In fact, my
> mother-in-law remembers active working farms in
> Brooklyn as recently as her high school days
> (roughly World War II). This map has a "City Line"
> line about halfway up the map; several collections
> that appear to be villages are scattered around
> the southern area (Flatlands, Gravesend, New
> Ultrecht, etc). We need to keep that context in
> mind as we think of steam railroads crossing "The
> City".
Randy, that's very true. In 1878 the City of Brooklyn (which was independent of New York City until 1898) had not yet expanded to fill the whole area we now call "Brooklyn", and southern Kings County (the townships of Flatbush, Flatlands, Gravesend, and New Utrecht) was still quite rural even into the early 1900s.
I was going to save Manhattan Beach Junction for later posts, partly because I'm still exploring the area, but consider the photo below. This is Manhattan Beach Junction in 1903, almost 20 years after the line was standard gauged, looking west toward Bay Ridge. In the foreground are the MB Jct. station platform and the east crossover, with the switches for the east leg of the wye and the LIRR's Tower 75 (later MJ Tower) behind them. This location is now in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, around East 19th Street between Avenue H and Avenue I, but in 1903 it was little more than a clearing in the woods. (Art Huneke collection)
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/06/2014 08:37PM by philip.marshall.