Richmond Hill is a closed station on the
Montauk Branch
The Montauk Branch is a rail line owned and operated by the Long Island Rail Road in the U.S. state of New York. The branch runs the length of Long Island, 115 miles (185 km) from Long Island City on the west to Montauk on the east. How ...
of the
Long Island Rail Road
The Long Island Rail Road , often abbreviated as the LIRR, is a commuter rail system in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County, New York, Suffolk Co ...
in the
Richmond Hill neighborhood of
Queens
Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. The station is located at
Myrtle Avenue
Myrtle Avenue is a street that runs from Duffield Street in Downtown Brooklyn to Jamaica Avenue in Richmond Hill, Queens, in New York City, United States.
Route description Queens
Myrtle Avenue has been a major thoroughfare since the early ...
and cuts diagonally from the intersection of
Jamaica Avenue
Jamaica Avenue is a major avenue in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, New York, in the United States. Jamaica Avenue's western end is at Broadway and Fulton Street, as a continuation of East New York Avenue, in Brooklyn's ...
and Lefferts Boulevard through to
Hillside Avenue Hillside may refer to the side of a hill.
Places Australia
*Hillside mine, a proposed mine on the Yorke Peninsula, South Australia
* Hillside, New South Wales
*Hillside, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne
Canada
* Hillside, Nova Scotia
United Kin ...
. The station has two tracks and an
island platform
An island platform (also center platform, centre platform) is a station layout arrangement where a single platform is positioned between two tracks within a railway station, tram stop or transitway interchange. Island platforms are popular on ...
. Richmond Hill was the only station on the
Lower Montauk Branch
The Montauk Branch is a rail line owned and operated by the Long Island Rail Road in the U.S. state of New York. The branch runs the length of Long Island, 115 miles (185 km) from Long Island City on the west to Montauk on the east. Ho ...
that was elevated with a high-level platform for passengers to wait for trains; the others were at ground level, with low-level platforms.
Richmond Hill station was originally built by the
South Side Railroad of Long Island
The South Side Railroad of Long Island was a railroad company in the U.S. state of New York. Chartered in 1860 and first opened in 1867 as a competitor to the Long Island Rail Road, it was reorganized in 1874 as the Southern Railroad of Long Isla ...
in 1869 as Clarenceville station. After New York City and the Long Island Rail Road began negotiating the elimination of numerous at-grade crossings within Queens in the 1910s, the current station was opened on a viaduct in 1923. The station was closed on March 16, 1998, along with nine others due to low ridership and the potential cost of upgrading the stations to modern standards; at the time of its closure, the station had one passenger per day.
History
![LIRR 1891 Richmond Hill station](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/LIRR_1891_Richmond_Hill_station.jpg)
Richmond Hill station was originally built by the
South Side Railroad of Long Island
The South Side Railroad of Long Island was a railroad company in the U.S. state of New York. Chartered in 1860 and first opened in 1867 as a competitor to the Long Island Rail Road, it was reorganized in 1874 as the Southern Railroad of Long Isla ...
in 1869 as the Clarenceville station,
distinct from the
nearby Clarenceville station on the
Atlantic Branch
The Atlantic Branch is an electrified rail line owned and operated by the Long Island Rail Road in the U.S. state of New York. It is the only LIRR line with revenue passenger service in the borough of Brooklyn.
The line consists of two sectio ...
. 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.
The Richmond Hill neighborhood was founded in 1868, with the purchase of the Lefferts and Welling farms by Albon Platt Man.
The station name was changed to Richmond Hill in November 1871.
It had two tracks with a station house on one side and an enclosed wooden shelter on the other.
In 1911, New York City and the Long Island Rail Road began negotiating the elimination of numerous at-grade crossings within Queens.
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 Hillside may refer to the side of a hill.
Places Australia
*Hillside mine, a proposed mine on the Yorke Peninsula, South Australia
* Hillside, New South Wales
*Hillside, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne
Canada
* Hillside, Nova Scotia
United Kin ...
) and Lefferts Avenue (now Lefferts Boulevard).
During the project, the wooden station was temporarily relocated.
The current station opened in 1923.
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.
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 one daily rider each at the time of their closure.
The station and platform remain, though access via the staircase at Jamaica Avenue is gated off.
Shortly after the station's closure, it was frequented by the homeless and animals, and was used as an illegal waste dumping site.
[See:
*
* ] In July 2003, new security fencing was installed around the trestle,
though maintenance problems and trespassing issues have continued.
Station layout
![Richmond Hill LIRR from Hillside Ave-1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Richmond_Hill_LIRR_from_Hillside_Ave-1.jpg)
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).
[ The station sits on a concrete trestle, supported by pairs of concrete arches.] 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. The platform could accommodate trains of six cars.
Most of the space underneath the trestle between Lefferts Boulevard and Hillside Avenue is gated off by green fencing, installed in 2003. The area has been used as parking space in the past.[See:
*
* ]
The Jamaica elevated (serving the New York City Subway
The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October 2 ...
's ) runs above the Montauk Branch tracks along Jamaica Avenue. This section of the elevated was opened in 1917 by the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation
The Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) was an urban transit holding company, based in Brooklyn, New York City, United States, and incorporated in 1923. The system was sold to the city in 1940. Today, together with the IND subway s ...
(BMT), built after the LIRR station.[See:
*
*
* ] The closest station is two blocks east at 121st Street.
References
External links
March 13, 1998 Photo (LIRR Unofficial History Website)
1916 Photo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Richmond Hill (Lirr Station)
Former Long Island Rail Road stations in New York City
Railway stations closed in 1998
Railway stations in Queens, New York
Railway stations in the United States opened in 1869
Richmond Hill, Queens
Richmond Hill Historic District