After a gap of several months, I had the opportunity today to continue my inner city ROW exploration on the old New York & Manhattan Beach, this time in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn.
Under LIRR control in the 20th century, this portion of the NY&MB in Bushwick and Ridgewood became known as the Evergreen Branch, so called because of its proximity to the Evergreen Cemetery on the Queens-Brooklyn border, and it saw limited carload freight service as recently as the early 1980s. (The last customer is reported to have been a lumber yard.) The ROW is still visible as a kind of irregular alleyway cutting diagonally across the middle of several city blocks.
Here is the view from Palmetto Street, looking west toward Myrtle Avenue, with an M train rumbling overhead on the Myrtle Avenue El. According to the New York State Railroad Commissioners report for 1879, the NY&MB's Myrtle Avenue crossing was at at MP 3.26.
Compare the view above with this 1956 photo by Art Huneke, taken on a fan trip (hence the Budd RDC):
At Cooper Avenue there are still rails in the pavement. (That's how you know you're in the right spot!) The New York State RR Commissioners place this crossing at MP 3.95.
-Philip Marshall
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/25/2014 12:01PM by philip.marshall.