Brooklyn Terminal Market: What's Going On?

All that equipment is there, and other stuff as well, all surplus Army equipment. Last I heard, the water cannon truck was up at Bronx Task Force on Sedgwick Ave., next to the Major Deegan Expwy. That's where the Disorder Control Unit is based. That last made an appearance during the Republican Convention in 2004. As with most things in the NYPD, it's all bark and no bite. You'll see the next Ice Age before seeing that water cannon truck used.....Also, to keep this rail-related, the decommissioned subway cars used for training by ESU are on tracks laid out for that purpose, not from trackage that existed on the post when it was a naval air station. There never was any rail service there.

pennsy wrote:but used to get to the Canarsie area from home in Far Rockaway by way of the Marine Parkway Bridge. I hear the toll there is now a buck. Last time I went across that bridge with its ice cube tray roadway, it was a DIME.

All railfans, (and anyone else!) using this bridge, or it's sister, the Crossbay Vets Memorial, now needs 25 of those dimes, effective 03/16/08. However, discounts go to as low as $1.03 for Rockaway residents with EZ pass. http://mta.info/bandt/traffic/btmain.htm.Talk about sticker shock!

Here's an interesting fact about the Marine Parkway Bridge: It is a throw-back to the time when Jamaica Bay and the area called Barren Island (Floyd Bennett Field) were planned as a deep water port. It was built as a center-lift bridge to handle the large cargo ships, ocean liners and tankers that were expected to pass under it. The only large ship that goes into the bay is the DEP boat and I don't believe the Marine Parkway Bridge has to be opened for it to pass.

In that same general area, Ft. Tilden had a small RR operation decades ago. You can still see tracks going from bunker to bunker in some spots. (off topic, I know... maybe we need a title change or split...)

Over 25 years ago I used to work at installing industrial cameras for a security company. One project was at the Key Food Warehouse in the BTM. I recall seeing Conrail switchers bringing freight cars right inside the warehouse bays so that the fork lift operators could unload the freight cars right away. It is a shame how this infrastructure was let go and is just history.

BMT wrote:Here's an interesting fact about the Marine Parkway Bridge: It is a throw-back to the time when Jamaica Bay and the area called Barren Island (Floyd Bennett Field) were planned as a deep water port. It was built as a center-lift bridge to handle the large cargo ships, ocean liners and tankers that were expected to pass under it. The only large ship that goes into the bay is the DEP boat and I don't believe the Marine Parkway Bridge has to be opened for it to pass.

I did some rehab work on the bridge some years ago. There are odd bump outs along the walkway with really thick plate steel making up the parapet. My co-workers and I dreamed up quite the scenario of planned gun placements to fend off Nazis.

Don't know if that actually took place, but I have read that during WWII German U boats did venture under that bridge. Yes, they got that close to our shores.

The U-boats got close, especially during the Paukenschlag, Operation Drum Roll, during 1942, but the vicinity of that bridge is way too close, and not deep enough for a U-boat to have laid on the bottom unseen during daylight. They would lay up on the bottom during daylight eight-ten miles offshore and surface after dusk, and then pick off the ships that were running blacked out but which were silhouetted against the south shore of Nassau/Suffolk/Queens/Brooklyn/Staten Island/northern Jersey Shore.

Yeah, the U-boat in Jamaica Bay's got to be Urban Legend. I know there is a channel that was dredged as shiping lane under the Marine Parkway Bridge (and off Breezy Point), but like Spartan Phalanx stated, doubt it was deep enough for a submerged sub to pass under w/o being visually detected.

Of course U-Boats were off the coast of Nassau and Suffolk...there was a case of two Nazi spies that got in through Shinnecock Inlet (IIRC) and went into the city before they were eventually caught and jailed. Somewhere I read they were executed here in the US, but oddly, not till the war was over.

The way the legend and some of the articles go, the Nazis were considerably bolder than that; super race and all that. They would wait until it was dark and then surface, and then boldly go where no man has gone before etc. In the darkness, the outline of ships and other targets of interest were well back lit by the lights of the towns along the shores. Story also goes that when surfaced, they wouldn't waste their torpedoes, they would use their deck guns. That 88 mm deck gun could easily sink a ship or level some warehouse.

I think the Nazi saboteurs came a shore a little further east than the Shinnecock Intlet. They allegedly boarded an LIRR train in Amagansett and were subsequently caught.

They allegedly had big plans, and were planning to destroy many targets that today would be considered targets for terrorism. One of their targets was railroad-related - Horseshoe Curve.

Remember at that time railroads were more of an integral part of national defense than they are today. That's how the troops traveled off to war, not to mention all the supplies.

Jay

All sorts of games going on at that time. And that included the Q boats. Some of them still exist at the various NY harbor and Jamaica bay marinas. They put a quick end to U boats sneaking around our shores.

Floyd Bennet Naval Air Station aka N.A.S.N.Y., the Grumann Albatross, U-boats, Q-ships and the Marine Park Bridge! This is my kinda' RR web posting! I was a Sea Explorer and my "Ship", 501 the Flying Cloud, was sponsored NASNY. We met on Friday nights and when driving to Gym, occasionally we'd have to wait for a taxiing Neptune P2V to pass. I think one of those magnificent airchines might be in one of the hangers. Our boat was docked at Rockaway Coast Guard Station and I frequently rode my Schwinn over that bridge. I remember seeing an RAF Vulcan bomber (the jet in the movie Thunderball) fly overhead on its way to NASNY. The RAF was about set a speed record from NY to London with a Phantom (RAF) or two. I even saw Nixon's Air Force One parked there when Nixon was in town. Had I known where to look I might have see a train on the RR bridge that had once been part of the LIRR.

If you wander through the docks at Sheepshead Bay, along Emmons ave. you will see all sorts of fishing ships, some deep sea. Looking closely at them, you may notice some of them still bear their WWII plaques identifying them as Q boats. Some even still carry their kill records next to those plaques. These fishing boats were U boat hunters during WWII. They normally appeared to be ordinary fishing boats, but they had very powerful engines, for high speeds, and some of their "apurtenances" were phony and would fall away revealing guns. These guns could easily sink a U boat, and did. They usually did not travel alone, as most fishing boats, and so could support one another. They were a lethal combination and cleared our shores of U boats. On the open water, a Q boat could easily catch up to a U boat and bring it under fire before it could dive.

Pennsy, I spent alot of time at the scout base on Emmons. Replaced by an Arthur Treacher's Fish & Chips last time I was there. Could the Wallaina, a doubled ended two masted boat moored in the bay been one? I heared that the Glory (long gone) might have been one.