24 AUGUST 2, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD, THE WAY IT WAS
How the elevated train was built above Woodhaven
PRESENTED BY THE WOODHAVEN
HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL
SOCIETY
PROJECTWOODHAVEN@GMAIL.COM
During the early to mid-1800s, the
best transportation option in
and out of Woodhaven was the
Atlantic Avenue Long Island Railroad.
In 1865, a single-track horse-drawn
trolley began service between East New
York and Woodhaven, stopping service
at its’ stable on the southeast corner of
78th Street and Jamaica Avenue.
The cost of the ride was 10 cents
and once you arrived in Woodhaven,
if you wanted to continue further to
Richmond Hill, you paid an additional
dime. As this was single-track service,
the wait time could be quite long as
you had to wait for the car to reach the
end of the line, and for the driver to
turn the car and the horse around and
head back.
In 1887, an independent company
bought the line, double-tracked it, and
began running trolley cars powered
by steam engines. By the turn of the
century, the line was adopted into the
Brooklyn Rapid Transit system which
meant larger and more powerful, modern
trolley cars and much improved
service.
However, as Woodhaven’s population
began to explode, the trolley cars
were ill-equipped to handle the expanding
load. The BRT, in the process of
building the elevated line along Liberty
Avenue, experimented with running
the large cars from the elevated lines
along the surface of Jamaica Avenue.
The heavy trains were too much
for the roadway and the surrounding
buildings; the vibrations cracked
walls and shattered windows and the
experiment was halted. A few years
later, the BRT proposed building an
elevated line along Jamaica Avenue,
from the terminal in Cypress Hills
through Woodhaven and Richmond
Hill, straight into Jamaica.
Reaction towards the proposal was
swift and fi ercely negative. Civic and
business associations in Woodhaven
were unanimous in their opposition to
the proposal, suggesting instead that
the money be spent to upgrade and
improve the existing surface trolley
service. Another proposal was to build
the new line underground, running a
subway along Jamaica Avenue instead.
But the BRT was determined to build
the elevated line, with one offi cer stating
at one meeting that they “can walk if
you don't like it." And so, the battle lines
were drawn.
A public hearing was held, but
opponents to the plan felt they were
being railroaded. John Leich of the
Forest Park Taxpayers' Association
complained that the hearing was held
on a weekday, when residents were
hard-pressed to attend. “We people of
Forest Park and Woodhaven protest
strenuously against this hearing being
held in the daytime instead of at night.
There are none of us receiving $15,000
a year from the government as a salary,
and when we come here in the daytime
and give up our employment we lose
the $2.50 or $3 which we would have
received for working.”
At times, opponents’ objections to
the elevated line were over the top,
predicting that the line would be dangerous,
with trains crashing through
the apartments on Jamaica Avenue on
a regular basis. Other objections to
the plan predicted that the elevated
line would be dirty, unsightly, would
darken the avenue and be extremely
noisy. The BRT countered that their
plans were modern and safe and that
the line would, in fact, be “noiseless.”
Aft er numerous hearings and protests
the BRT made it clear that they
were not going to spend the money
to build a subway and faced with the
proposition of either an elevated line
or nothing, civic groups in Jamaica
and Richmond Hill voted in favor of
the BRT proposal.
Woodhaven was the last holdout,
bringing a lawsuit against the BRT in
1916, but the construction was already
underway and the lawsuit failed to
stop its arrival.
Throughout the construction, residents
and businesses complained
of dangerous conditions with large
stanchions and piles of debris blocking
sidewalks and entrances to stores.
But by 1917 the job was completed and
on Monday, May 28, of that year, the
elevated train began service without
the benefi t of a public ceremony.
Today, the anything but noiseless
elevated train still looms large over
Woodhaven, the last remnant of a hot
topic of controversy over 100 years old.
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