Brooklyn Terminal Market: What's Going On?

Just drove past the Terminal Market earlier today. I saw the huge warehouse building previously home to Key Food at the intersection of Foster and Remsen Avenues partially demolished. I don't know if any of that affects NYA deliveries to the Terminal Market, but am interested in knowing what's happenned to that property? Condos replacing warehouses? Inquiring minds need to know!

Key Food hadn't taken deliveries at all from NYAR for years. Last I knew, the only NYAR business down there was potatoes, and they unloaded at the other end of the siding.

Jay

Sad to see that Brooklyn Terminal Market is in tough shape. Good old Canarsie. Used to ride the old Schwinn there with my buddies and have a blast with the Market and the Radio Controlled model airplanes. Occasionally you would see an 0-4-0 switcher come along and deliver some full cars and remove the empties. Then you would see an electric engine do the same more frequently. Those hoggers and crewmembers were some of the friendliest fellas I ever knew and probably were resposnible for many of us kids getting interested in trains.

i heard a rumor about Home Depot coming in there. that's all i heard.

Would Home Depot take deliveries from NYA via boxcars and flatcars?

Dropped off my membership renewal to the Wyckoff Family Farmhouse and Museum today and decided to drive past the Terminal Market just about two blocks away.

Got a SURPRISE: Caught Railroad Construction Corp (Passaic, NJ) doing tie replacement on the NOW single track Brooklyn Terminal Market siding. The guy working the tamper told me they took out the other track yesterday and were putting in new ties and ballast on the sole remaining track. Too bad about the other track, but guess it'snot needed since the bulk-grocery business is no longer viable there.

Supposedly, storage facilities will be built at the old Key Food building....there is no signage regarding the building of a Home Depot there, but who knows.

What's the car capacity of this one remaining spur at the Market?

Don't know, but you might get an answer tomorrow. I plan to get there early tomorrow with the camera and get some trackwork shots. I'll ask...hopefully the tamper gent will be there since he was willing to talk. Also, I'll be hoping to get a few date nails from the ties if it's not a proble (and if any were used).

Today was a transporation photographers dream: C-54 cargo plane (Berlin Airlift type) took off from Floyd Bennett Field about two miles away so I raced down there first to document the take-off then doubled-back to BTM. It was a photo-shoot two-for-one day!

Upon arriving at BTM I saw the track crew waaaaay down the spur/siding near where it inclines up to the Bay Ridge Branch (near Remsen Ave). They were working with a tamper. This gave me time to shoot the self-propelled tie-puller, and take a look at the ROW where the other track was removed. I was too far away for the crew to even notice me photographing their handi-work. Obviously, no one to ask questions about the track length, but the remaining trackage has not changed...it runs the full length of the Brooklyn Terminal Market in an east-west direction (bumping block on the west end up against the sidewalk of E. 92nd st).

Yo BMT,

Haven't been in that neck of the woods in years, but Floyd Bennett Field was also one of my stamping grounds. Last I heard it had been closed down. What is its present status ? Does the US Navy still run it ?

Last time I was at the Brookly Terminal Market, good old Canarsie, that stretch of track, the stub track, had a catenary above it and electric engines ran up and down that steep hill with the empties and full goods. Trucks would show up to load and unload the cars, usually box cars, but sometimes Reefers. Has that changed ?

I also enjoyed watching the radio controlled airplanes, models, as well as the U Reelies, model planes controlled by wires and could only fly in large circles. Two or more such planes often flew in combat with crepe paper attached to the rear of the plane. When the prop of one plane cut off the crepe paper of the other plane, that plane had lost the combat. Object of the game was not to let your crepe paper tail get cut off.

I see you've been away for a LONG time! Navy got out of Floyd Bennett in '69 and Nixon created Gateway National Park (best thing he did IMHO). Gateway includes Riis Park, Fort Tilden, Sandy Hook, NJ and everthing within and along the perimeter of Jamaica Bay.

BTW, to keep the subject on-topic I've seen plans of turn of the 20th-Century Brooklyn that depicted Jamaica Bay/Floyd Bennett Field area as a deep-water port with a rail connection from the LIRR Bay Ridge snaking down through what is today Mill Basin, and running adjacent to Flatbush Avenue to serve the port terminal. The advent of the first World War put an end to those plans and aviation took a foothold on the Bay (the rest as they say is history).

Planes don't always take off from FBF these days, but there is a group called HARP (Historic Aircraft Restoration Project) that gets a vintage plane or two in the air once or twice a year. They have a HUGE C-87 (IIRC) cargo plane in one of their hangars on the Bay side of the field. Lots of neat early aviation stuff over there. They may have a better collection than Mitchell Field.

Regarding Brooklyn Terminal: The big building that housed the Key Food headquarters is being demolished to make way for either a Home Depot or some self-storage facilities. Not exactly sure at this point what's going on with the property. All that I can be sure of is that the two track siding is down to one as of yesterday morning. What that means for NY&A is less capacity at that location. Doubt if both tracks were really necessary since the 1960's. Truck traffic took alot of the produce deliveries away.

Pennsy, hope I was able to answer your queries.

Floyd Bennett Field is the base of the NYPD Patrol Bureau's Special Operations Division, with the Aviation Unit and Emergency Service Unit located at the old Coast Guard hangar and adjacent buildings. To keep this rail-related, they have some track set up with some decommissioned NYCTA subway cars. They use these for tactical exercises and for training with rescue equipment. NYPD's helicopters are always in action, so in that regard, FBF is still busy. There is a small military presence still, a U.S. Marine Corps Reserve armory and motor pool, located across from the U.S. Park Police barracks.

Thanks for bringing me up to date. I used to take my speedboat right by Floyd Bennett Field until a Navy Albatross came in for a water landing in my wake. Scared the hell out of me, I made a fast turn to starboard, cavitated the prop and got the blazes out of there. The Albatross landed, lowered its landing gear, taxied up the ramp onto dry land and disapeared into a hangar.

Didn't know that there were any tracks on the field, but used to get to the Canarsie area from home in Far Rockaway by way of the Marine Parkway Bridge. I hear the toll there is now a buck. Last time I went across that bridge with its ice cube tray roadway, it was a DIME.

Hey, Spartan Phalanx;

Does the NYPD still have their funky, specialized vehicles over there like 'Any Time Baby', their armoured personnel carrier? How about the amphibious truck? They still have the fire truck that got them into 'hot water' a few years ago with the FDNY?

Pennsy, I don't think anyone else has mentioned, the wires are gone from the bay ridge branch.