Page:Vincent F. Seyfried - The Long Island Rail Road A Comprehensive History - Vol. 2 (1963).pdf/84

 68 of Whitestone to open the main avenue, Poppenhusen and Hinsdale and the other directors put up the money and five bridges were installed. The breach with Locke, however, was not repaired. Whatever his motives, Locke withdrew from the company and over the summer of 1873 disposed of all his monied interests in Whitestone and removed to Flushing. The whole Whitestone & Westchester scheme collapsed, and for years thereafter the right-of-way lay unused and weed-grown until the Long Island R.R. completed the work thirteen years later, in August 1886.

Two additional major improvements along the main line in 1870 were the construction of steel bridges at Flushing Creek and over National Avenue, Corona. The old New York & Flushing bridge over the creek, inherited by the Flushing & North Side R.R. was in wretched condition. In November 1868 the company immediately razed the unsafe structure and built long pile approaches on each side and heavy timbers for a temporary draw. In the spring of 1870 plans were prepared for a new iron bridge. In the first week of June work was begun on both the creek and National Avenue sites under the supervision of the contractor Zachariah Roe of Flushing, who gathered a large force to complete the job in the stipulated two weeks. (July 5–19). By the first of July the timbers were already on the ground and in the second week the iron bridges themselves had been delivered. Sloop navigation at the creek had to be suspended for two weeks. By mid-August the two fifty-four-ton iron bridges were in position. On August 20, both jobs were completed. The new Flushing Creek span was a drawbridge eighty-eight feet long, sixteen feet wide and with sides eight and one-half feet high. The National Avenue span at Corona depot was similar.

The Flushing railroad's only other bridge, the original Woodside & Flushing structure over Flushing Creek, was new (1866) and built to the road's own specifications. All the road's bridges were of wrought iron, constructed by the Watson Mfg. Co. of Paterson, N. J. The crossing of the meadows in this day was entirely on pile work which began at about the present 108th Street, and continued to the creek. It is important to remember that the present level of Flushing Meadow Park is ten to twelve feet above the old level, because of the intensive filling operations that began in 1916 and continued to the first World's Fair in 1939.