Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 1 (1961).pdf/21

 14 along Montrose Avenue to Bushwick Avenue. Rather than lay a second track beside that of the Broadway Company, or enter upon long and involved negotiations with them, President Fox of the South Side petitioned the Common Council to substitute Boerum Street instead, two blocks to the south. This time, miraculously, the permission was forthcoming immediately without long and dreary litigation.

With the entire route to Brooklyn cleared at last, the contractors building the road pushed their work. Just at this juncture, President Oliver Charlick of the LIRR shrewdly introduced another obstacle. As lessee of the Brooklyn Central & Jamaica RR since 1866, Charlick secured an injunction from the courts to prevent the South Side RR from crossing his road at Dunton west of Jamaica. It was but a delaying maneuver at best and within a month's time, the injunction was dissolved and construction continued onward.

By February 15, 1868 the gang had completed the track to Fresh Ponds and it was debated whether to open service immediately or wait to reach Brooklyn. On the nineteenth, as a party of workmen were excavating in a cut west of Fresh Pond Road, the bank suddenly caved in burying three men; thanks to prompt rescue work, all three were dug out uninjured. During April another gang was hard at work driving piles along the route through the meadows adjoining Newtown Creek. All during the fair spring weather the work was being pushed night and day and it was announced the road would enter Brooklyn by June 25. The heavy cutting involved in passing the ridge of hills near the Lutheran Cemetery proved the biggest obstacle.

On Saturday, July 18, 1868 the great day arrived after months of preparation; the first train passed over the South Side RR into Bushwick station, carrying 600 passengers. As yet there was no real depot. The railroad had taken over a farmhouse of Revolutionary vintage on the property, once the homestead of the Schenck family, and used it as a temporary waiting room and ticket office. The railroad had to rely on the Bushwick Avenue and Montrose Avenue horse cars to transport its passengers to the ferry, and there was lively competition for this privilege between the Brooklyn City and Broadway Railroads.

The opening of the South Side line to Brooklyn was welcomed as one of the greatest events in the history of Williamsburgh.