LIRR History (Valley Stream) and Surrounding areas.

That was all part of the Brooklyn Waterworks, yes? There's pumphouses scattered from Massapequa Park all the way west that used to serve that. 7285, if you're in VS, go to the library. I don't know where they keep it now, but they had a bunch of stuff about that and some interesting pics on the wall before they remodeled. They had one pic of when they laid the aquaduct and it had a derrick pulled by a steam engine, and the engine looked like it could've fit right inside the pipe, to give you an idea of how big it is. The aquaduct is still there and still in service, it paralleled the tracks just north of the tracks. There's recent pumphouses/monitoring stations just west of the station where the aquaduct has a junction from a big section curving down from Hendrickson Park, that's that clearing that is west of the station. There was a thread about this awhile back in this forum when someone inquired if it that was a trolley row. There's another recent pumping station between VS and Lynbrook just west of Horton and a developer sandwiched in 2 McMansions between it and the tracks and I met one of the owners while at the roller rink across the street and they said you can frequently hear water noises in the first floor, like a muted roaring sometimes. I wonder how much they paid for that, a stone's throw from the tracks!

yeh, I remember as a kid either knowing or having been told of the pipe from Merrick or so to the "city".... the pumping (?) station in VS was at the junction of the brook and the pipe. I think that it was just a "T" to the brook.. somewhere I have a pic of it, it was only about a 15ft sq ft brick or stone bldg, but I looked down a grate about 10-15 ft and saw the brook running thru there, then under the RR.. dont nail me too hard, this was 55-60 yrs ago... and the steep slope was on S franklin b4 it went under the tracks... and while we are going down memory lane in VS, I remember the little gate houses with coal stoves at Central and ?? avenues. they had a buzzer to alert each other that a train was coming, he would hit the buzzer and then go out and lower the gates....one day a car got stuck (backed up) southbound at the central/sunrise light on the tracks and the guy grabbed a red flag and ran like hell, but the car got out of the way... ed

I'm very glad that this thread is not locked. I just found it via a Google Search and I am sooooo interested in it since I am a Valley Stream resident and a history buff. I also belong to a Facebook page featuring Valley Stream nostalgia and we are trying to find out where the original 1869 LIRR station was located. The original thread seems rather vague with regard to this. Is anyone here who originally posted about this 5 years ago? If not, maybe someone else can shed some light on the subject.

Fran from Valley Stream

we are still here... I remember newspaper stands @ Both ends of the path between Rockaway & S Franklin.. but do not remember anything before the Rockaway/Franklin area was elevated.... from the elevated station I do remember it before it was elevated to the west though.... And even more interesting, the Green Hotel next to the entrance to the RR yard on Rockaway, with the parrot on the porch... Was told by parents to keep away from it.... seems 'twas a brothel...GBG... Rockaway & Merrick known as Rum Junction...EdM

On lower Rockaway and Roosevelt there was for 10 or 15 years a restaurant called "Il Bagatto." Next door, just east of the railroad trestle was a building that was shuttered and looked abandoned; it had the aspect of having been a hotel or "speakeasy." It intrigued me, and I remember driving past it many times. It was razed at least 5 years ago, but I don't exactly remember when.

The place with the parrot is from before my time. Where was it, exactly? Where the carwash is now?

Dave Keller wrote:There was also a huge, red-brick pumping station trackside in Baldwin as well (north side of tracks) and I remember seeing small pump houses north of the LIRR prior to the grade eliminations, with the water conduit at some instances above ground and some small bridges over the many streams.

Dave Keller

As an aside, The red brick water works pumping station in Baldwin on the Freeport border was recently demolished. It could be seen for years on the North side of the tracks just west of Brookside drive. Now its a pile of old bricks.
For some really cool photos of NYS and loads of Long Island (and LIRR too) go to this website of the FAIRCHILD REEPUBLIC Air Co.
http://iarchives.nysed.gov/PubImageWeb/ ... p?id=67356
The bridges that have been spoken about in Rosedale have a couple of photos when the Brookville Blvd Sunrise Highway interchange was being put in.
MADDOG

With regards to the Pump station in Baldwin. Does anyone know if the old sand stone with the name carved out was salvaged before during or after the demolition. It would only bee an atrocity to have loose the carved sand stone besides the whole building, which was fire damaged and badly vandalized .
The stone read If I remember correctly, "Brooklyn Water Works".

As far as the pipeline in Valley Stream, Just north of the elevated railroad tracks on the far west end of the elevated structure by the station There appears to be a pipe or what seems like a pipe exposed on the walking path to the village green.
What's the odds that this is the pipe of the pipeline?
What baffles me is that this pipe is high and is not visible crossing the stream. Does it duck under it?
Immediately North/West of the bridge over the stream on Valley Stream blvd that is scheduled to be replaced there is a small brick building that I was told houses a pump. Was this part of a dam that was used for the Brooklyn Water Works?
I know it's not railroad but it's runs parallel to the LIRR Montauk branch so it's related, The Pipe paralleling the railroads Right Of Way.

I'm going to take a look tomorrow. Is it just West of Hicks Street?

BTW I remember the Brooklyn Water Works building quite well. For a while in the early 1990s I was a reverse commuter, living in Manhattan and working in Freeport, so I went past it twice a day. Too bad they tore it down, but it was being brutalized by vandals, gang members, I'm imagining. Long Island has become quite dangerous lately.

The 1914 Nassau Atlas shows Valley Stream Depot located on SW intersection of Rockaway Ave and LIRR.
http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/ ... /New+York/

The Green Hotel was where the car wash is now.... The building on Roosevelt just east of Rockaway used to be some kinda of bakery... and I think at one time there was a safeway on that corner, but I am not sure. Further south on Rockway large brick building was Rockaway news, trucking firm for newspaper delivery. Across from the end of Roosevelt was Browns Hardware, guy named bergdahl worked there as a kid in the fifties. Then on Roosevelt we have the Third Base, local watering hole... Franklin Ave school was on VS Blvd and Franklin (dist 24), the lake was divided, swimming south, boating north, and before that my father used to skinny dip in it... living on S Franklin we could not keep a lawn for the mobs from the city walking from the RR to the lake, and we could ALWAYS smell the chlorine from the lake, even three blocks away...Ed

The lake: Do you mean Mill Pond? It is not used much for anything these days. I was there on Monday, and it looks like a really cool place. I like to walk down Mill Brook. It is such a peaceful, secluded place.

feisner wrote:The lake: Do you mean Mill Pond? It is not used much for anything these days. I was there on Monday, and it looks like a really cool place. I like to walk down Mill Brook. It is such a peaceful, secluded place.

I think he means Hendrickson Park, which is on Merrick Road (the only logic reason people from the RR station would be walking down S. Franklin Ave past residental property). Since I live in the area, and have for decades since I was a kid in the 1970s, I always thought that 'Pool Park' was for Valley Stream residents only (at least the pool was, the lake north of it where my school friends and I sank a few crappy wood boats we made back in the day, was open to whoever - and the bridge at the north end of the lake near Central was where the stoners ('druggies' we called them back in the 80s) hung out, cutting class . If Edm meant city folks going to Valley Stream State Park (north of the lake), well that would be a schlep from the RR station...

I'm back in Valley Stream these days, myself. I wish I had been around when people went swimming and boating in the lake. I'm not all that fond of pools, to tell the truth.

Fran from Valley Stream

The STATE park used to go south as far as Merrick Road.. The lake I was refering to began at the brick buildings just north of the parking lot on merrick road and continued north to the bridge at its north west corner. Boating went as far north as that bridge.. That bridge gave access to VSCHS from the north end of the lake, tho there was a cinder road surounding the entire lake partolled by STATE police..."WALK YOUR BIKE"!!!!, and we did.. There was a boat house on the west of the lake just south of E/W running part of the CHS fence. ... and south of the school auto mech building built by the students in the early 50's. I watched them pull three conductor power from the high school using ivory flakes and a jeep. The entire south 1/2 of the lake and surounding lakeside was filled with white beach sand (kick off the top soil a few inches, it is still there) and fenced!! [10 cents, but all the kids went over the fence] A fence bisected the lake, running e/w, to separate swimming from boating.. Swimming was halted in the late forties and the entire lake went over to boating with a "T" shaped pier at the south of the lake and the inner perimeter [10 cent] fencing removed... Not sure whether the title to the lake went over to VS then or later.. The tale of the chlorine smell was true and I am not sure whether polution [of perhaps the cost of chlorine ..GBG] was the cause of the swimming halt, but it sure could have been....
The mill pond was on Central Ave south of Sunrise, under Mill rd I guess it is called, was a ramp which divided the mill pond from the tidal creek to the south... Family named Blush owned property on the south of Mill Pond.. Carl Hopple had a Park Inn just south of Valley Stream park between hicks and (I think) Payne, the woods, now an old folks home south of Hopples' was my playground in the forties, went south to VS Blvd, with more woods from VS Blvd to the RR where the village green now is.. It was the south woods where I discovered remains of the old trolly ROW mentioned earlier. We put money in cans for the building of the Franklin Hosp, which was to have been west of Hopples' and east of Payne, but somehow it ended up north by the parkway. Ed
..

Thanks Ed, you are quite a good Valley Stream historian...! I wish I had been around in those days, but that would make me even older, and I'm old enough, after all...