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OCTOBER 2(;, 1912
WHERE HELL GATE'S WATERS WILL BE SPANNED
(iy4t Scaly Rock, a Secluded Place on the Astoria Shore, The Bronx and Queens
Will Be Linked Together to Join New England to Westerly, Long Island.
COMPARATIVELY few people in
Manhattan and not many more in
Brooklyn have the remotest idea where
Scaly Rock is. Even if you told them
that it is at the foot of Ditmars avenue,
Astoria, they probably would not be
able to get there without minute direc¬
tions. And until quite recently there
was nothing in the world to go there
for, unless one wished to get a practical
idea of what a remarkable city is New
York, with its strange contrasts ot
monster skyscrapers, teeming tene¬
ments and remote, silent shore fronts;
or unless, perhaps, one wished to demon¬
strate to oneself the fact that the Bor¬
ough of Queens is a place of magnificent
distances.
Scaly Rock, though a little less remote
than it was in the days of Patrick Glea¬
son, is still a secluded spot on the shores
of Astoria. If you drew a straight line
broken into rectangular spaces by dirt
street, cement curb and sidewalks—
the only visible indications that remote
Scaly Rock and its environs belong to
New York City. Here and there these
blocks of land are still diligently farm¬
ed. With a catapult you could almost
throw a stone from the beds of flourish¬
ing vegetables into the densely peopled
tenement section of Harlem, where the
high price of food is a matter of daily
concern.
But all this is in the way of being
changed. The quiet of Scaly Rock is
being disturbed by the noise and bustle
of a contractor's gang with all that that
means. A few yards from one of its
finest mansions a great hole is daily
growing larger and huge cranes are
swinging the excavated rock and earth
across the shore road to fill in an area
along the waterfront, at a point just op-
swerves west to join the Pennsylvania
tunnels under the East River to the
great passenger terminal at Seventh
avenue and Thirty-third street, Manhat¬
tan. From Woodside the other branch
continues south through Winfield, Glen¬
dale, passing the Queens border into
Brooklyn, through East New York,
then in a generally westerly course
through Flatbush to the Pennsylvania
Railroad piers at the foot of Sixty-
fourth and Sixty-fifth streets. Bay Ridge,
From Woodside, in Long Island City,
to the Bay Ridge waterfront, the road
is exclusively for freight, connection be¬
ing made with the Pennsylvania freight
yard at Greenville, N. J., by floats across
the Lower Bay from Bay Ridge. The
Long Island Railroad, which has had in
charge the work of constructing the
trackage from Long Island City to Bay
Ridge, has practically completed it,
FOOT OP DITMARS AVENUE SHOWING CONSTRUCTION OPERATIONS
A RIVER FRONT VIEW OP THE BRIDGE SITE.
from it across Ward's Island to Man¬
hattan the westerly end of your line
would project itself into Harlem Lake
in Central Park—just a block or two
below 100th street.
But like many secluded spots it is
more or less picturesque. It looks out
upon the narrow stretch of swirling,
eddying water that separates Astoria
from Ward's Island; a stream which,
swift as its own current, serves as
a sort of respite from the rougher
waters at its two extensions. Hell Gate
and Little Hell Gate, the Scylla and
Charybdis of East River traffic. Much
of the River and Sound travel passes it
by day and night.
Years ago about the neighborhood of
Scaly Rock stretched the country es¬
tates of well-to-do families. Some fine
specimens of these substantial homes
remain, but they no longer serve their
original purpose.
For a couple of miles north, east and
south, level fields stretch away towards
College Point and Long Island City,
posite the center of Ward's Island. For
here has been started a great $20,000,000
project that is to link New England
with the South and West and to fur¬
nish passenger and freight service by a
joint scheme involving three railroads.
This joint scheme is known as the
New York Connecting Railroad. In it
are the Pennsylvania Railroad, the New
York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad
and the Long Island Railroad; and the
most important part in the whole scheme
is the great bridge—commonly referred
to as the Hell Gate Bridge. This bridge,
with its foundations at Port Morris, in
The Bronx, and Scaly Rock, Astoria,
will span Bronx Kills, bearing south on
Randall's Island to Little Hell Gate,
crossing this and bearing still south to
about the center of Ward's Island, and
then swinging eastward, spanning Hell
Gate and touching the mainland at Scaly
Rock.
From here it follows a diagonal course
southeasterly through Astoria and Long
Island City. At Woodside one branch
with the exception of that portion be¬
tween Glendale and East New York.
The plan for the New York Connect¬
ing Railroad and the Hell Gate Bridge
was part of the general scheme of the
Pennsylvania Railroad in 1900 to enter
New York City by means of tunnels
under the North River, build a great
passenger station at Seventh avenue and
Thirty-third street and connect Long
Island City with Manhattan by East
River tunnels. The latter—the New
York part of the great plan—took pre¬
cedence over the less urgent one. In
1906 the late A. J. Cassatt, president of
the Pennsylvania Railroad, took up the
matter of the New York Connecting
Railroad with the old Rapid Transit
Board, of which Alexander E. Orr was
president. The franchise asked for was
granted by the Rapid Transit Board.
As was then necessary under the law,
the board forwarded the matter to the
Board of Aldermen for its consent. The
Board of Aldermen, however, held up
the franchise.