Letters from Our Readers:

In a message dated August 28, 2010 Ed Gloeggler writes Stevie S. Stevens

Hello Stevie,

Loved that piece about the Arcade Building. And that's a nice photo. I've never seen one that good. Your memories of the place were quite similar to mine. We'd play pool on one of the pool tables in the bowling alley that took quarters. Then we'd slide down the terrazzo steps that led to the bowling alley from Beach 20th Street. I think we even bowled a few times.

Kitty Carson's Dance Studio was up there too, though I'm not much the dancer, and was never in it. I do recall reading that Mrs. Carson was quite a celebrity in her day, which was many, many years before my time there in the '60's.

You mentioned White Street, which we know as Beach 21st Street, that ran behind the Arcade, and the other buildings on Central Avenue. Of course in that area, Central Avenue was actually Beach 20th Street, but we called it Central Avenue. Woolworth's and W. T. Grants both had back doors leading to Beach 21st Street, and many of the upstairs businesses had small parking lots or entrances that fronted Beach 21st Street. I recall one vegetable place that was on the second floor and had a chute leading to a lot there. On our Sunday explorations, we'd slide down the metal chute.

Between Beach 21st and Beach 22 Street was a narrow right of way that, as you mentioned, carried a Long Island Rail Road spur many years prior. Being that I'm somewhat of an old-time railroader, I'd like to fill you in on its story.

Railroaders called that track the Grove Track, and they did for good reason. For the early part of the 20th Century it was merely a spur or siding that served a lumber yard on Cornega Avenue, where the track ended. The other end crossed Mott Avenue and linked up with the railroad's Far Rockaway Yard. But why "Grove Track"?.

The LIRR was not the first railroad to reach Rockaway. It's former rival, the South Side Railroad, constructed a station at Mott Avenue on July 29, 1869. The Long Island Rail Road followed suit, building its branch across the Woodmere meadows from Rosedale. As mentioned in your Arcade Building article, the Long Island, which folled the South Side's lead and built to Rockaway in 1872 was blocked from the seashore by court actions from wealthy residents. It was was forced to terminate it's branch just north of Brookhaven Avenue between what is now Beach 21st and Beach 22nd Streets. Benjamin C. Lockwood operated a picnic grove there and the station building was constructed in 1872 named "Lockwood's Grove".

While the first LIRR train to Far Rockaway left Long Island City at 10 AM on May 14, 1872, it only operated to Mott Avenue. The Grove Track wasn't operational until several weeks later.

The little branch between Mott Avenue and Brookhaven Avenue carried its last wooden passenger train on June 2, 1876, with the terminal being moved back to Mott Avenue. The building, an imposing wooden Victorian railroad station was loaded on a flatcar and moved to Syosset, where it later became faced with brick and forms the framing for the present station there.

Some other interesting railroad closing dates: The last trolley operated from the Mott Avenue station to Roche's Beach on September 13, 1924. The trolley from Far Rockaway to Hammels, which shared the LIRR's tracks quit on September 9, 1926 with the remaining operation on Rockaway Beach Boulevard to Neponsit closing on August 25, 1928.

The trolley that operated to Jamaica from Mott Avnue and Beach 21st Street ceased operating on September 13, 1930. Its station shelter stood as a taxi stand on Mott Avenue in the middle of Beach 21st Street (Redfern Ave. on later maps) late into the early 1980's.

Always a pleasure to read your fine work, Stevie. I do hope you are enjoying your summer.

Ed Gloeggler