Re: [Fwd: (rshsdepot) East Williston, NY]

["Paul Luchter" <luckyshow_@_mindspring.com>]

Yes in the mid 1960s a lot was destroyed but we can give them an inch since at the time landmark preservation was hardly paramount
as yet....  As to the Montauk Branch in Queens, it was a travesty, but I guess the minimal amount of riders didn't have any power,
shutting down the passenger stations is stupid in Queens, but really this corridor should be upgraded and made mass transit anyway
but I guess that would impact the freight..

LIU Southampton is closing, maybe they knew that at time of station closing and just didn't care...

Yes Nassau County political corruption and favoritism probably will even doom the new stations built and they will fall in disrepair
as well...

Maybe we should form a list, oh I know they exist already...so the stations in Farmingdale, Mineola Sea Cliff, Glen Cove, etc will
not be lost as well...Recently the Lawrence station was fixed up, who did that?
- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Guthrie" <jguthrie_@_pipeline.com>
To: <rshsdepot_@_lists.railfan.net>
Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2004 9:31 AM
Subject: RE: [Fwd: (rshsdepot) East Williston, NY]


: Seth writes:
:
: > In our minds it is "criminal."  In their minds it is ridding themselves of
: > an eyesore, and at the risk of upsetting you, there is no choice
: > but to lay
: > you out on this one:  the salvation of a historic building is the
: > RESPONSIBILITY of the people of that community and they didn't care.
:
: Keep in mind, all that LIRR station repair and maintenance has been a county
: responsibility since the mid-1960s -- before the state purchased the LIRR.
: The biggest loss of station buildings came right after the agreement,
: because the counties and the LIRR negotiated agreements based on a total
: cost with the railroad charged with fitting the station budget into the
: cost -- hence the loss of a host of neat buildings at the outset.
:
: This also became an issue in the closing of all those stations a few years
: ago when the new bilevel diesel cars came on line with no traps. In Queens,
: all the Montauk branch stations were closed -- even Richmond Hill which had
: a high level platform (and in cases of strikes closing Penn Station has been
: used as a subway transfer point) because getting rid of stations impacts
: local government budgets. There's good reason that Suffolk did not protest
: closing of popular stations like LIU-Southampton College, for example.
:
: The dynamics of the situation are thus quite different than in most
: communities when it comes to saving stations or adaptive re-use because of
: these long-standing agreements on Long Island, so one cannot fairly compare.
: One of the things that happens is that the incorporated villages or
: townships (depending on local form of government) must negotiate with the
: county and the LIRR and the MTA on everything. This is not a "deal with the
: railroad."
:
: In Nassau County, years of political corruption further severely limited the
: options for things like station maintenance -- hence the loss of East
: Williston and probably others in the next few years.
:
: Cheers,
: Jim Guthrie (who still misses Flowerfield, Parkside, Brooklyn Manor and
: A&P-Bronze <g>)
:
:
:
: =================================
: The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
: railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org
:

=================================
The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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