Side Line, officially known as the “30th Street Branch,” stretched 13 miles south to St. John’s Park. A combination of cuts, tunnels, and elevated struc- tures helped eliminate the hundreds of grade crossings and remove the rail- road from the streets of Manhattan. The section from 123rd Street to 72nd Street was part of city planner Robert Moses’ “West Side Improvement” that sunk the railroad below grade and cre- ated Riverside Park (a project reported to have cost more than the Hoover Dam). Meanwhile, the New York Cen- tral opened a new elevated structure to carry the railroad from 30th Street south to St. John’s Park in 1934. Traffic dropped off as Penn Central favored routing freight to its yards in neighboring New Jersey, where there was room to expand operations as needed. The majority of carfloat opera- tions ceased by the mid-1970s. Truck- ing continued to grow, but a lack of ad- equate parking facilities and poor highway access caused some of the meat and produce warehouses to relo- cate.
The last reported movement
south of 30th Street was three carloads of frozen turkeys in April 1980. Con- struction of the Jacob Javitz Conven- tion Center interrupted service for a year, and in that time two major cus- tomers relocated to New Jersey. Con- rail kept 72nd Street (60th Street Yard) open for
local freight until at least 1981. By this time most meat and pro-
40 AUGUST 2013 •
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duce deliveries were destined to the new Hunt’s Point Market and routed to the former New Haven yard at Oak Point in the Bronx.
In 1987 the 30th Street Yard was ac-
quired by the Long Island Rail Road, rebuilt and connected to Penn Station allowing mid-day trains to be stored without deadheading back to Long Is- land. Amtrak purchased the line north of 31st Street, rebuilt it, and connected it to Penn Station, allowing all passen-
TOP: High Line Park begins with a graceful curve between West 30th and West 29th Streets. ABOVE: This view looks west from the current northern end of High Line Park at 30th Street and 10th Avenue in August 2011. The final phase of park construction will include the ramp around the old 30th Street Yard and the unused branch to the U.S.P.S. Morgan Process- ing and Distribution Center. The angled West- yard Distribution Center dominates the scene at left. RIGHT: This view from near West 28th Street
looks north and shows the subtle
changes in elevation as you progress down the (Continued on page 42) High Line Park path. STEVE BARRY PHOTOS
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