CENTRAL AVENUE - THEN & NOW - (1919 & 2009) This was the commercial hub of Far Rockaway — Shown in a span of 90 years

THEN: 1919 - In a rare postcard view taken in July of 1919, we are standing in the intersection of Cornaga and Central Avenues - facing northeast. At the west side of the street (left side) we see the Gotham Inn -- a two-story "road house" built in the late 1870s - a wood-frame building (northwest corner) having the unusual distinction of being torn down, not burned down, in 1922 to make way for a new two-story commercial building which will occupy the side of this block - up to but not including the red-brick edifice with the flag at the top (the Healy Building - marked 1889). On the east side (right) of the northeast corner — three brick buildings erected in the mid 1880s still stand to this very day. The marquee of the newly-completed Columbia Theater is barely visible in the background (at the center of the card, on the right side of the top of the trolley car). It is the theater marquee that actually dates this card. We can see the "current" feature - "A Daughter Of The Wolf' - a 50-minute black & white silent feature which had its premier in Manhattan on June 22nd of 1919 and was released to neighborhood theaters about fourteen days later. The Columbia was originally built as a "B. F. Keith" vaudeville house and was for years a showcase of live performances as well as silent and "talkie" movies. A policeman directs traffic - there is no traffic light at the time but one will be installed shortly - a curved-suspension pole will be installed on the northeast corner of the street to carry the light out over Cornaga Avenue - a very busy intersection at the time and it will remain so for some fifty years. (Postcard from the collection of Stevie S. Stevens)

NOW: October, 2009 - No longer the main commercial strip of the small village (that distinction now goes to Mott Avenue) - this is the same scene as the "before" card - taken from approximately the same spot. The large commercial building replacing the Gotham Road House in 1922 was also demolished in the late 1970s. By that time, a new shopping center had been established on Mott Avenue - a large parcel of land made available when the train station was relocated, back in the mid 1950s. Sometime in the mid 1980s, a one-story building was built on the west side of the street and we see a computer center at the very northwest corner as well as a grocery store which replace the earlier structures. At the center of the block (west side), the Healy Building (a Far Rockaway landmark) still exists - but the quality stores once occupying its lower level have been replaced by a series of 99-cent stores. On the opposite side, the three red-brick buildings are still standing at the northeast corner. The R.K. 0. Columbia theater was torn down in the late 1970s after a minor fire and today an empty lot is all that can be found at the center of this once very busy and important street. (Photo taken by Marty Nislick)

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