East New York (LIRR Bay Ridge Branch Station)

East New York station was once served by the Bay Ridge Branch. It opened 1915 and closed 1924 when passenger service ended on that branch.

Construction and operation
East New York was a station on the Long Island Railroad's Manhattan Beach Branch, which ran from Long Island City to Manhattan Beach, the part of Coney Island east of Brighton Beach. The route was originally built in 1877 as one of the several summer railways that ran to the beach. The railroad was roughly a T shape: a north-south trunk from Manhattan Beach to Flatbush, and then branches at right angles to Bay Ridge (boat to New York) and Long Island City (ferry to New York).

Manhattan Beach was easily the largest and most exclusive property on the island, with its two luxury hotels and open spaces and with none of the tawdry amusements found to the west. But by 1910, its day was past: the railroad was down to four trains a day each way, and the property was sold for building lots. Service ended in 1924.

The Manhattan Beach Branch's original East New York station was at street level at its crossing with the Atlantic Branch, which was also at street level. Still a relatively remote spot in 1880, very nearby were also the terminal of the Brooklyn and Rockaway Beach Railroad that ran to Canarsie, the terminals of city streetcar lines and of the streetcar to Jamaica, and after 1888, stations of two elevated lines, all brought together by the lay of the land and the Brooklyn street pattern. It was sometimes known as Manhattan Junction or Manhattan Crossing.

At East New York, a half mile tunnel for four tracks was constructed under the ridge, both to get the line off the street and to increase its carrying capacity. Part of the old Manhattan Beach Branch was getting a new use, and a new name, the Bay Ridge Branch. The Pennsylvania Railroad had acquired the Long Island Railroad in 1900, and was now putting together a freight main line to New England, by way of carfloat from Greenville (southern Jersey City) to Bay Ridge, the Long Island Railroad from Bay Ridge to Fresh Pond, and the new New York Connecting Railroad over the Hell Gate Bridge. The minimal passenger service to Manhattan Beach ran a distant second in consideration, but it was provided for.

The new station at East New York is partly in tunnel and partly outside in cut. It was just a simple concrete high platform between the two passenger tracks, with one stairway to the street. The station was not below the Atlantic Branch station, and was not connected to it. Passengers would have had to walk a short block at street level to make a connection.

After just nine years, the station was closed when passenger service ended on the Manhattan Beach Branch. The stairway was closed up but the platform was left. The former northbound passenger track was lifted in 1939, and its tunnel was sealed at the inner end of the station platform.

The Bay Ridge Branch was electrified in 1927 for freight service, using the 11kv AC catenary of the Pennsylvania and New Haven roads, not the third rail the Long Island used. For forty years, the Bay Ridge line was heavily used, but not for passengers. The wires came down in 1969, and the Bay Ridge line slipped into near abandonment, after the newly merged Penn Central rerouted all the freight traffic to New England by way of Albany, to avoid the marine operation across the bay.