East Williston is in Trouble

I thought we were past the nonsense of the 1960's when so many of the LIRR's station buildings were lost. Apparently we are not. I just found out that East Williston, the third oldest station on LI is on death watch.
Read about it in this thread at nycrail.com:
http://www.nycrail.com/amb/board1/3141.html

That they could even consider demolishing such a beautiful and historic station is beyond me. I thought we were past the 50's and 60's mentality.

East Williston 1991

Just for the record, I believe Hewlett is the oldest station on LI, and Saint James is the second oldest. East Williston follows right after those two. Hopefully the comunity outcry will save it.

According to my records, the stations date as follows:

Hewlett: 1870
St. James: October/1873
East Williston: 1880

While Hewlett is technically the oldest building, it was built by the South Side Railroad Co. and was therefore NOT the oldest LIRR depot in existence.

That category goes to St. James as it WAS built by the LIRR.

It's nit-picking, I know, but that's the reason why people always refer to St. James as being the oldest LIRR depot in existence.

Dave Keller

P.S. And if you're including buildings that still exist but are no longer depots, the old South Side Railroad depot building at Rockville Centre is still standing as a private residence. It was built c. 1868. DK

Where doesn Stony Brook fit in?

In my lirrhistory.com website, I have the following:

Stony Brook - Robert Emery (in 1959) lists the the station as having been built in 1888. Ron Ziel's "Victorian Stations of the LIRR" (1988) says 1873, and that it was completely rebuilt in 1917.


Anyone know the correct answer?

Bob Andersen

Dave -

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the old Rockville Centre station was torn down earlier this year. It stood for many years behind the parking lot of the old Arbor Inn on Woods Ave. (I think the Arbor Inn was at one time owned by the people who used to own Trainland on Sunrise Highway in Lynbrook.)

The Arbor Inn property was sold last year to developers who plan to construct luxury homes on the site. C'est la vie.

LI Loco

Thanx for the bad news

I was planning on photographing it when I came up there in October.

Oh, well . . . .



Bob Anderson:

While I have great respect for Bob Emery's data, I find that some of his station construction dates do not match the research done by Vincent Seyfried. I know Vincent's data comes from painstaking research through newspapers of the times. I don't know where Bob Emery obtained his station dates. He may be correct, but I lean towards Seyfried's as for stations. Towers, sidings, etc. I defer to Bob Emery!

The dates I have for Stony Brook are:
1. Built: 1873
2. Heavily remodeled: 1917

That remodeling was so intense, that the original depot can't be recognized in today's structure. So, while it was originally an 1873 structure, I would kind of think that the 1917 remodel really changed it to a 1917 structure.

Dave Keller

I agree with Dave's assesment. While there are some basic bones still in the old Stony Brook station, it started as a small boxed station with a peaked roof, somewhat similar to the St James station, although with less ornamentation. it didn't even have canopies on the sides. What happened in 1917, completely rebuilt the station from the studs out, and added a lot to the size of the building too. It is completely unrecognizable from it's original part. Hewlett, St James, and East Williston are basically all original, right down to the siding.

This photo at Stony Brook was taken soon after the tracks were realigned to where they are now. The tracks used to be in the foreground, where the pavement is right in front of the station.

Too bad, Dave. The Arbor Inn property is about a mile from my house. You can always stop by and check out the LIRR's newest station, in Oceanside.

The LIRR may be right. Have you ever been inside the East Williston Station Building?
It is unfortunately to small for the restroom to be enlarged to meet ADA accessability requirements.
It's also on the wrong side of the track to be used as a waiting room during the morning commute. And it's too small for that either.

Sea Cliff Station was rebuilt in 1981 and again in 1997, but it's a much bigger building.Glen Street was also rehabilitated, but chemicals were used to remove the paint from the brick, instead of sandblasting.

The irorny is the LIRR will put up one of those stupid "olde tyme RR station look" buildings in it's place. I find the rebuilding of the Babylon line stations like this to be pathetic at best, it looks stupid and is out of character with the line anyway.

NY in general seems to have a hangup with this crap - witness the Farley project. At least the Jamacia rebuild isn't like that, though I despise Airport Modern just as much. then again, I wouldn't expect anything groundbreaking from the MTA in terms of arcitechtual design - most of the stuff they've thrown up recently is ugly as heck.

hotbike wrote:It's also on the wrong side of the track to be used as a waiting room during the morning commute. And it's too small for that either.

Ironically, many stations are on the wrong side of the track for the "morning commute". For example, most of the Montauk Branch stations are on the wrong side. That's still no excuse.
And to tear down a historic building like that because it can't have a handicapped bathroom? There must be a way to do it. Even if they had to enclose under one of the canopies if it's "too small". It's still better than the alternative.
It's all excuses.

Even if they were to build a new station house, why not just leave the existing one standing. Maybe have friends of engine 35 take it under their wing as the southern museum for their excursion train from OB. After all, LIRR would want to build the new station house on the side that would be helpful to most commuters, meaning on the west side of the tracks.