Richmond Hill (LIRR station)

Richmond Hill
The Richmond Hill station as it appears in 2008, photographed from a passing train.
Coordinates	40°42′02″N 73°49′56″W / 40.70056°N 73.83222°W / 40.70056; -73.83222Coordinates: 40°42′02″N 73°49′56″W / 40.70056°N 73.83222°W / 40.70056; -73.83222
Line(s)	Montauk Branch
Platforms	1 island platform
Tracks	2
History
Opened	1869
Closed	March 16, 1998
Rebuilt	1923
Electrified	August 29, 1905
Services
Preceding station   LIRR   Following station Ridgewood station Montauk Branch (current and former locations) Shops station

Richmond Hill Station is a closed station on the Montauk Branch of the Long Island Rail Road in the Richmond Hill section of the borough of Queens, in New York City. The station is located at Myrtle Avenue and spans from the intersection of Jamaica Avenue and Lefferts Boulevard through an unnumbered section of Hillside Avenue.

History

Richmond Hill station on an 1891 map

Richmond Hill Station was originally built by the South Side Railroad of Long Island in 1869 as Clarenceville Station,^[1][2][3] which is not to be confused with the nearby Clarenceville Station on the Atlantic Branch. Clarenceville was a farming community centered around Jamaica and Greenwood Avenues (the latter now 111th Street, where the Atlantic Branch station was located), which is now part of Richmond Hill.^[4] The Richmond Hill neighborhood was founded in 1868, with the purchase of the Lefferts and Welling farms by Albon Platt Man.^[4][5] The station name was changed to Richmond Hill in November 1871.^[1] It had two tracks with a station house on one side and an enclosed wooden shelter on the other.^[1]

In 1911, New York City and the Long Island Rail Road began negotiating the elimination of numerous at-grade crossings within Queens.^[6][7] In 1917, the LIRR finalized the grade crossing elimination project plans for the Montauk Branch in the Richmond Hill area, which would construct a new elevated station between Park Street (today's Hillside Avenue) and Lefferts Avenue (now Lefferts Boulevard).^[8] During the project, the wooden station was temporarily relocated.^[7] The current station opened in 1923.^[1] The project eliminated numerous at-grade crossings in the vicinity of the station, including those at St. Anne Avenue (now 84th Avenue), Ashland Avenue (now 85th Avenue), Park Street, the intersection of Jamaica and Lefferts Avenue, and Ridgewood Avenue (now 89th Avenue). It also extended the roads adjacent to the right-of-way then known as Railroad Avenue (now Babbage Street and Bessemer Street) east to Lefferts Avenue.^{[6][8][9][10]}

The station was closed on March 16, 1998, along with nine others (including the other four on the Lower Montauk branch) due to low ridership and the potential cost of upgrading the stations to modern standards (this station and Penny Bridge, also on the Lower Montauk, had just one daily rider each at the time of their closure).^[11] The station and platform remain, though access via the staircase at Jamaica Avenue is gated off.^[12][13][14] Shortly after the station's closure, the station became a hotbed for the homeless along with animals, and an illegal waste dumping site.^{[12][13][15][16][17][18]} In July 2003, new security fencing was installed around the trestle,^[12][15][16] though maintenance problems have continued into the present day.^[18]

Station layout

The station has two tracks and an island platform. Richmond Hill was the only station on the Lower Montauk Branch that was elevated with a high-level platform for passengers to wait for trains (the other four stations only had strips of pavement beside the tracks, requiring passengers to wait on track level and climb aboard trains).^[19][20] The station sits on a concrete trestle, supported by pairs of concrete arches.^[8][14][21] The station's island platform has a small shelter in the center, and two stairways down to the street. One staircase goes down from the shelter to Hillside Avenue. The other is at the south (railroad east) end that goes down to the three-way intersection of Myrtle Avenue, Lefferts Boulevard and Jamaica Avenue. The southern staircase is blocked by a security gate, and retains the sign from 1998 announcing the closure of the station.^[8][14][19] The platform could accommodate trains of six 85-foot (26 m) cars.^[20]

Most of the space underneath the trestle between Lefferts Boulevard and Hillside Avenue is gated off by green fencing, installed in 2003.^[16] The area has been used as parking space in the past.^{[12][13][15][16]}

The BMT Jamaica elevated (now part of the New York City Subway) runs over the Montauk Branch tracks along Jamaica Avenue; this section of the elevated was opened in 1917 by the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT), built after the LIRR station.^[22] The closest station is two blocks east at 121st Street.^[23]

Location

The station is adjacent to the "Richmond Hill Triangle", bracketed by Jamaica Avenue, Myrtle Avenue, and 117th Street. This was historically the commercial center of the Richmond Hill neighborhood, with several historical sites located in the area.^{[14][15][24][25]} The intersection of Jamaica and Myrtle Avenues is also known as James J. Creegan Square.^[14][26]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Richmond Hill (LIRR station).

• March 13, 1998 Photo (LIRR Unofficial History Website)
• Richmond Hill Station (Road and Rail Pictures)
• 1916 Photo