http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPWVQzN7AF8
The attached youtube video was narrated by the late transit historian, Roger Arcara. It is a great narrative for those of us born after 1950, because we get to see so many elevated lines that have been gone for over sixty years or more. You will get to see the els that died or were truncated in the 1940's, namely the Fifth Avenue - Culver El, the 5th Avenue - 3rd Avenue Bay Ridge Branch, the Fulton Street El, the western end of the Myrtle Avenue El. The Lexington Avenue El that died in 1950 is also shown and parts of the City Line Branch as well. The fabulous structure just south of the Brooklyn Bridge is also shown, near Sand Street where you will see various Brooklyn trolleys entering the elevated structure. Notice the lattice trolley wire support frames, they are most interesting. You will get to see a Fifth Avenue - Culver Elevated train pass through the 38th Street Yard, and you will see for a nanosecond that the trackless westerly ramps were not used, instead the present day yard leads were utilized. A young person walking near the Brooklyn Bridge today near Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn will never have imagined that such complicated rapid transit structures were in place, both for rapid transit and trolley. With the opening and the extention of the IND subway in Brooklyn in the 1930's through the 1950's, the number of passengers gradually fell on both trans East River elevated and trolley cars as a one seat, one fare ride was provided for passengers coming in from eastern Brooklyn and Queens to Manhattan. For this reason, and others, all these great structures and trains and trolleys were discarded. Today in Brooklyn, there are very little artifacts of our great elevated and trolley heritage except for some vastly spaced trolley line poles and some trolley track shadows under the asphalt on some streets. Thank you for making this video available for us to enjoy! Tramway Null(0)
No comments:
Post a Comment