Miracle on 35th Street

About 33 days after streetcar service came to an end on October 31, 1956, on December 3, 1956, this tragedy occured at a pier at 35th Street, Brooklyn, four blocks from the trolley turnround shown on this blog's headpiece.  Many people were killed and injured and windows were shattered many miles away from the blast site near the former trolley loop.

http://marine1fdny.com/miracle_35th_new.php

The above photo comes from Dave's Rail Pix and shows a Church Avenue Car on 13th Avenue
 bound for the waterfront, just about to turn unto 39th Street, to the side of the retail market shown below.
Windows at 13th Avenue and 39th Street at the wall paper store shown on the right broke from the shock wave of the explosion, many miles away from the Luckenbach pier at 35th Street.  In the background, you can see the staircase to the 13th Avenue Station of the Culver Line and you can see the horizontal wooden trough for the overhead of the South Brooklyn Railway beneath the el.  Windows also broke on 39th Street at a laundry right off 13th Avenue and other places all over the city.

At the time of the blast, doors similar to these at the 39th Street side were blown open by the force of the  explosion.  I was inside the market  at the 39th Street side at the time of the explosion.  Within minutes, the sky darked from the west eventhough the sun was setting.