Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 1 (1961).pdf/20

 The South Side Reaches the East River at Montrose Avenue and a single-track horse-operated road to the ferry at the foot of South Seventh Street.

When it became evident to the South Side RR that an outlet to the East River was certain, negotiations were begun to acquire a site on the waterfront for a depot. The company first negotiated for the Tuttle Coal Yard at Wythe and South Seventh but the price of $33,000 for 3 lots struck the directors as too high. The ferry stand at the foot of South Eighth Street, and a lot at South Eighth and Kent either cost too much or else provided insufficient space. After much searching about, the railroad finally managed to buy a plot of ground directly on the water between Broadway (old South Seventh Street) and South Eighth Street. The site had formerly been a coal yard and the railroad simply took over the existing office building as a freight depot. The property consisted of eight city lots, with a frontage on Kent Avenue of sixty-eight feet and a depth of 156 feet. Since the property directly adjoined the Broadway Ferry, it provided ideal accommodations for passengers.

With the depot problem solved at last, the South Side RR lost no time in building its track from Jamaica to the Broadway Ferry. As of December 1867 the track was completed from Jamaica to 118th Street., Richmond Hill, and the iron and ties were distributed along the line as far as Fresh Pond Road only three miles from the South Seventh Street ferry. The hard frosts and winter weather made track laying unsuitable, so the company used to good advantage the months of February and March in securing a route between Bushwick terminus and South Seventh Street ferry. On February 20, 1868 a petition was presented by the owners of property on Broadway to permit the railroad to run horse cars on Broadway. On March 2 the Common Council granted this request, giving the South Side a line along Montrose Avenue from Bushwick Avenue to Union Avenue, down Union Avenue a block to Broadway, and thence along Broadway to the ferry. The only conditions set were that the company should pave the rails with stone, operate only steam coaches, not park cars in the public street, and transport no manure.

While this arrangement seemed to please everybody at first sight, there was one hidden flaw. The Broadway R.R. Co., a street car company, was already operating a line of horse cars