Forgotten Lands, Places and Transit

The Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883, predating the adoption of the automobile by several decades. As such, it was originally envisioned as a bridge to transport horse-drawn carriages, trains and trolleys. The latter of which was carried over the bridge until 1950.  Today, pedestrians, bikes and cars use the bridge, and it remains a major tourist attraction for the city.  "Bird's-Eye View of the Great New York and Brooklyn Bridge and Grand Display of Fire Works on Opening Night" (1883) The New York and Brooklyn Bridge Railway , a cable car service, began operations in 1883, shortly after the bridge itself opened. It ran on the inner lanes of the bridge, between terminals at the Manhattan and Brooklyn ends. Harper's Weekly, 10/12/1895, "The erection of a new terminal at the New York end of the Brooklyn Bridge is a task of far greater difficulty than the erection of the one on the Brooklyn side. In Brooklyn a new station was built directly across the street from the...

The Prospect Park & Coney Island Railroad connected Brooklyn, NY with Coney Island , beginning in 1875. In that time, Brooklyn was independent from New York City, until it became a borough in 1898 . The line began at Greenwood Cemetery on its north end, using track on present-day McDonald Ave. From the cemetery, riders could transfer to horse drawn streetcars to connect to Downtown Brooklyn. Prospect Park & Coney Island Train On its south end, it ran the extent of Coney Island, ending at the north beach, until Surf Ave was extended in 1883, cutting about 500' off the line, the abandoned portion of which is viewable on our map of abandoned and out-of-service railroad lines . For a short time between 1895-1899 it was owned by the Long Island Railroad , who often scheduled trains to/from downtown Brooklyn from Coney Island. In 1899, the line switched from steam power to electricity. While most of the elevated right of way exists as today's Culver Line , run by the MTA, ...

In the early 20th century, with the advent of the automobile becoming inexpensive enough to be affordable by the Middle Class, America's highway infrastructure was nearly non-existent.  Road networks were essentially a series of dirt roads and plank roads outside of major cities, and the interurban  railways of the day were usually more reliable forms of transportation.  Historic Yellowstone Trail Marker in North Fond du Lac, WI. Image: RoyalBroil, Wikipedia Commons From these paths, an informal network of roads began to coalesce that would be become known as Auto Trails . Today we're going to look at this system, and how from the Auto Trails, the US Highway System, and later the Interstate Highway would come to fruition.  To understand the Auto Trail in the context of transportation history, one must go back to the beginning of the development of the transportation system of the United States, which begins thousands of years before the United St...

The Cedarhurst Cut-off is one of the abandoned branches of the Long Island Railroad . Incorporated as the New York and Rockaway Railroad  in 1871, the abandoned section began near present day Laurelton Station and continued south in between Lansing and Edgewood Aves, crossing a bridge at North Woodmere Park, continuing down to Cedarhurst. The branch has been abandoned and rebuilt twice, creating a rather complicated history of the relatively obscure line. It was first abandoned after the LIRR took control in 1876, it was rebuilt in 1905, but was never put into revenue service and instead was only used to route equipment.  Thirteen years later, it was abandoned again in 1918. It was rebuilt yet again in 1928 as a LIRR ploy to protect their right-of-way from development, but the branch was nonetheless considered redundant, and it was abandoned for good in 1934. Despite not having a revenue train in the last 100 years, and not any development since before World War II, there are...

While this blog is about New York City, I preface it with how I came to have an interest in the Interstate Highway System. As a child growing up outside of Chicago, I lived by two interstates, I-55 and I-355. I knew they had to be related somehow; what are the odds that roads with such similar numbers intersected by accident? I thankfully found out all one would need to know about the Interstate Highway System and US Routes in general from late-90's and early 00's websites like AARoads.com , Kurumi's 3-digit interstates page , and the International House of ZZYZX . Each had some very highly detailed information on what I was looking for, and would be the catalyst into the beginnings of my roadgeekery. Indeed, I-355 was a child interstate of I-55, in that it spurred off from 55 in a much shorter route than its parent. I was further interested in roads that were proposed, but never built, such as Chicago's Crosstown Expy , as well as completely decommissioned routes. ...

Scarchitecture , is a combination of the word scar and architecture, which refers to the remnants of former roads and railways hidden in today's cities, most easily identified in satellite imagery, thanks to the magic of Google Maps . I've already discussed examples in both Chicago and its suburbs . For today's blog, we're going all across the US in search of other examples of scarchitecture left behind by the days of railroading in major cities. Keep in mind that there are usually many examples of scarchitecture in cities both large and small, and I'm only going to show one for each city, so go and search for others yourself, and let me know in the comments of any interesting examples you find! 1) New York City - Lansing Ave & Edgewood Ave in Queens (40.66426, -73.7475) There are dozens of examples of scarchitecture in the Big Apple, and this one is of the most visually striking, given the grid system that exists to the southwest of here. Lansing Av...

Growing up, video games were a big part of my life. From my very first console, the SNES, I loved all sorts of different games and genres. Long before I would visit railroad museums and historic railroad bridges , I also loved seeing railroad tracks in video games, and in pretty much every open world game that had a rail system in it, I would explore all I could. Usually though, while railroad tracks were a common trope in games, even as early as the 1980's,  they rarely featured working trains, other than in backgrounds, which always left me a little disappointed. Ford Racing 3 had a railroad crossing that was permanently lit, which always distracted me even if it was just a set piece. That being said, some developers and games have found unique ways to integrate railroad tracks into the design of games, adding to the environment and universe within the game, much like they do today. Here are some of my favorite examples of railroad tracks in some of my favorite video games,...

The High Line is a public park built on a historic elevated railway in New York City. It runs from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to 34th Street, near the Hudson Yards development. The High Line was originally built in the 1930s as a freight rail line to lift dangerous goods off the streets of Manhattan and into factories. A tree in bloom right in the middle of one of The High Line's rebuilt tracks, to show nature and its relationship to technology. It is one of the best known linear parks in the world. I was lucky enough to experience this New York City gem for myself during a weekend trip on Cinco de Mayo in 2018. Here are some photos, a little history, and my own opinions of the park. The High Line does an excellent job of keeping the history of the line preserved, and accessible for future generations to understand. After experiencing the park firsthand, I believe that The High Line raises the bar for rail trails across the country. While many trails...