Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 1 (1961).pdf/16



HILE the company was completing its main line Babylon, important events were happening on the west end of the line during the spring and summer of 1867. When the railhead approached the headwaters of Newtown Creek, it became necessary to make a decision: should the road seek its river-front terminal by going along the north bank of the creek into Long Island City, or should it follow the south bank into the Williamsburgh section of Brooklyn? Since the Long Island RR and the Flushing RR already had their termini in Long Island City, the company favored Brooklyn for its depot.

As early as the fall of 1866 long before the road turned a shovelful of earth, some of its promoters induced some of the prominent residents of Williamsburgh to support them in a petition addressed to the Common Council of Brooklyn to enter the city along the line of Metropolitan Avenue and North Third Street down to the ferry, and with a main depot at Union Avenue. The residents of the then very new village of Greenpoint signified that they were more than willing to let the railroad come through their area, should Brooklyn prove inhospitable.

Williamsburgh at the end of the Civil War had grown into a large city; between 1850 and 1855 it had been an independent city and had then merged into Brooklyn as the Eastern District. The Common Council was understandably hesitant about permitting a steam railroad to lay its tracks through a densely settled area where there was menace to life and limb. The Council wisely decided to open the question to public discussion and advertised public hearings in the press. The editors of the local papers seized upon the topic as one of paramount importance to the community, and threw open their columns to the widest public discussion.

Thanks to the long series of articles contributed by every shade of opinion, we can appreciate today the feelings pro and con