Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 1 (1961).pdf/64

The Hempstead Branch struck out northeastward. It crossed Franklin Avenue, Malverne, close to the present little stream between Wheeler Avenue and Cornwell Avenue; here was situated the little hamlet and station of Bridgeport. The track then paralleled Cornwell Avenue exactly, crossing Hempstead Avenue, where was located the tiny settlement and station of Norwood. The Pine Brook was crossed on a little bridge only a foot or two above water level. At Woodfield Avenue and Oak Place was Woodfield depot. Immediately to the east the track crossed the Schodack Brook on an embankment and culvert about five or six feet above the stream bed. As the track approached Hempstead village, it crossed the Horse Brook or Rockaway Brook on a small bridge and then paralleled the brook a few blocks, terminating at a little station on the west side of Greenwich Street midway between Front Street and Prospect Street. Here there was a short stretch of double track but no turntable. Service was maintained with about six trains a day in each direction.

The local residents of both Hempstead and Valley Stream turned out en masse to ride the new facility, reaching a peak of 1028 in one day. The company hoped to build a handsome depot in Hempstead and covered platforms as soon as practicable. By mid-November the ticket office and waiting room were fitted up and most of the travel to New York patronized the new road in preference to the Long Island RR.

With the Valley Stream-Hempstead link completed and in operation, the New York & Hempstead Plains RR turned its attention to the west end of its route. In August the N. J. Bergen farm at Sixty-fifth Street, Bay Ridge, with a waterfront of 800 feet had been secured. The directors also voted to alter slightly northward the projected route, so as to pass through East New York, Woodhaven and Springfield. At least part of the reason for this was the urging of several committees of East New York civic officials who hoped the new road would help boom the town. In Woodhaven some of the right of way was donated, and Florian Grosjean, president of the Lalance and Grosjean Agate Works, the biggest industry in Woodhaven, offered to give any other land needed. Broadway, the present 101st Avenue, was considered the ideal east-west route for the company to take through Woodhaven to Jamaica. At Bay Ridge it was pointed out that the company's docks faced the great coal depot at