| We've gone up a hill as we passed the railroad and now we're heading down again to pass under Jamaica and then Hillside Avenues. Red brick apartment houses are visible off in the distance by Queens Blvd. An elevated subway line used to rumble across the coming overpass, torn down in the late 1970's and partially replaced a few years later by a new subway extension from Queens Blvd. The long sought after extension down the length of the Van Wyck has never materialized, but the ridiculous Port Authority of NY/NJ Skystain...I mean Skytrain will most probably darken the skies over the VW corridor very soon. |
| As we get to this point, the end of the Van Wyck as we've known it from JFK on north is drawing near to its end. It will soon split into a cars only ramp into the Grand Central Pkwy and the Triboro Bridge and a narrow two lane viaduct leading to the Van Wyck's mid-1960's era extension leading towards the LI Expressway and the Whitestone Bridge. |
 Up on Jamaica Avenue, a number of legacies
still survive from elevated train days of yore. Most city streets
encumbered by elevateds had stubby streetlights that kept the
luminaires aimed beneath the ironwork. In the 1960's, some of
those were fitted with mini versions of the uplift mast I dubbed
the quarterloop. You still see them scattered about the avenue,
the large GE M400A2 looking like a rather heavy load for one
so small. This cropped shot faces east towards Queens Blvd. Shot
10/29/1999.UPDATE: June 2001: Stubby is gone. |
