First passenger train runs through Astoria in March 1917
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TIMESLEDGER | QNS.COM | MARCH 27-APRIL 2, 2020 17
In conjunction with the Greater
Astoria Historical Society,
TimesLedger Newspapers presents
noteworthy events in the borough’s
history.
The drumbeat to war rings ominously
through the pages of March
1917.
On March 16, Bohemians, eager to
show loyalty to United States, hold a
meeting at Bohemian Hall, where they
hail President Wilson as ‘a defender of
the rights of small nations.’ All who attend
the meeting take a Loyalty Pledge
to the United States.
Loft Candies announces a new factory
in Long Island City. Once completed,
two hundred persons will turn
50 barrels of sugar and 50 barrels of
cocoa into six tons of candy daily.
Degnon Terminal breaks ground
for an additional million square feet
of manufacturing space, the first major
addition to the two million feet put
up only three years before. The buildings
boast that, as a safe, secure location,
tenant insurance rates are lower.
Their massive size, making for efficient
electric distribution, is passed on
as cheaper utility bills to businesses.
The Astoria Taxpayers and Business
Association discusses the need
for a new bridge over the East River,
perhaps linking Fulton Street in Astoria
with 86th Street in Manhattan.
They note that trucks and autos have
an extensive wait for the 92nd Street
Ferry, or are forced to make the long
detour to the Queensborough Bridge.
The first passenger train runs over
the Hell Gate Bridge and through Astoria.
It is the aristocratic Federal
Express between Boston and Washington
(with a Pittsburgh sleeper.) Previously,
the trip was made from Port
Morris, in the Bronx, to Jersey City
on the steamer ‘Maryland.’ It was an
hour long fourteen mile trip through
the crowded East River.
More than 2000 signatures on a petition
ask for extending the ‘el’ from
Ditmars Boulevard to Steinway Street.
Attorney Peacock of the New York
and Queens County Railway tells the
Public Service Commission that traffic
is half its normal volume on Steinway
and Second Avenues (today 31st
Street) after the Ditmars ‘el’’ opens. He
proposes a trolley loop around Bridge
Plaza.
The Queensborough Elks, who
has recently completed a hall on Nott
Avenue in 1908, are already looking
to move to larger quarters more centrally
located in the borough. Of the
lodge’s 500 members, some 300 are
from Woodhaven, Richmond Hill and
Jamaica.
The Star-Journal complains about
the post office. Despite a special delivery
stamp, a letter is mailed from
Woodhaven on Thursday evening only
to arrive in Long Island City Saturday
morning. Its markings tell a vagabond
story. First its delivered to Far Rockaway,
its then sent to Pennsylvania
Station, Manhattan, then back across
the river to Brooklyn, finally arriving
in Long Island City two days later.
The release of Mrs. Margaret
Sanger, birth control propagandist,
is delayed two hours from the Queens
County jail while Warden McCann
and two keepers attempt to get her
fingerprints. She claims, to the thirty
adherents who greet her at the door,
that she successfully resists their forcible
attempts. “I told them it was time
that the law made a distinction between
political prisoners who went to
jail because of their principles and cut
throats and robbers.” After singing
the Marsellaise, they go off in several
automobiles for breakfast in Manhattan
That’s the way it was in March
1917!
For further info, call the Greater Astoria
Historical Society at 718-278-0700
or www.astorialic.org.
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