Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 1 (1961).pdf/22

 The South Side Reaches the East River The press saw it as a final rectification of the blunder of driving steam service from Atlantic Avenue seven years before. It was now possible to reach Jamaica in twenty minutes less time, and more important, brought the whole of the south side of Long Island into easy reach of Brooklyn. The new equipment and high standard of roadbed was favorably contrasted with the older Long Island RR, and looking far into the future, the press envisioned the many new villages and handsome residences that would grow up.

Even with the completion of the line into Bushwick, all did not run smoothly. In three days' time no less than four attempts were made to wreck the train by placing obstacles on the track; then on July 24 a torrential rain covered the track of the road with sand and water near Fresh Ponds and prevented service for half a day.

Laying of the rails into the ferry building was beset with difficulties. A sewer was being constructed along lower Broadway and the road was forced to wait till the work was done; in addition a horse car company operating on Union Avenue had been granted a terminus at South Eighth Street, and, as laid out, the railroad tracks and horse car rails would cross one another six times near Kent Avenue. To get out of this difficulty the South Side RR again appeared before the Common Council to exchange a portion of the two company's respective routes.

The permission to exchange track locations was easily forthcoming, but the Aldermen tacked on as a rider a prohibition against the use of T rail on Broadway, a right granted to the road in the earlier statute passed by the Council. Since part of the route was already laid with T rail, this eleventh-hour denial posed a new problem.

In the last days of September the tracks were laid through Boerum Street, and at the same time a large and commodious depot was going up at South Eighth Street. By the first week of November 1868, the work was almost completed; on November 4, Wednesday, the first train made the maiden trip through Brooklyn streets to the ferry terminus, eliminating at last the delay and inconvenience of changing cars at Bushwick. The South Side RR had at last reached the East River.

The South Side was not wholly satisfied with the new arrangement. Because the cars were drawn through Boerum Street and