Grab your cameras and hop in your cars!!!!!

Here's a shot of beautiful and still standing St James Station in Oct.2003 No wrecking ball here please....

John, thanks for posting that.
Saint James has come a long way from when I snapped the photo below in 1993. This story at least has a happy ending....for now. East Williston's fate shows that none of the stations are safe. Istill really can't believe they did it.

Both buildings at E. Williston, and St. James seemed to be built by the same architect by the way those buildings were built. St. James even before restoration looked outstanding. Too bad the MTA couldn't do the same thing for the old ticket house at E. Williston for even historical purposes.

Hey every one.
Were the only pple around it seems that cares about the preseveration of out railroads wonderfull past.
We as a group must now unite and stop any form of this civil vandilism on the MTA's agends they should have no right distroying such structures "unless thy presend a vissable danger, and cannot be restored in any way"
If yall dont want any more of this shit its only us that can unite to stop it.
we wrongfullu LOST NYP many other LIRR historical depots and now E Williston. WE cannot sit on our rears and watch and post about this crap on rr.net. we must get out there and show our support. not only LIRR but ingeneral " SAVE OUR HISTORY!!!!!!"
www.historychannel.com
lets not make fun of the above post if you care at all about your past.
(its not the fact that its a train station but the fact of its place in history. it's age, and it's rarity).

I agree with every one here, that it is a shame and should never have happened. As a History Buff I am sorry to see any historcaly significant building destroyed. However if, as Mr Keller posted, " when the first bite was taken out of the station canopy, the entire building hit the ground!!!" it is almost certain that the building was to far gone to save and was probably condemed requiring its destruction. So the fault lies with homever at the RR or the MTA decide years ago to stop maintaining the building, not with anyone here today.

It's time to get a little realistic here and stop using every instance of an old building being demolished as an excuse to bash the MTA and the LIRR.

There are quite a few instances of the MTA and LIRR restoring railroad stations to their former grandeur. As has been mentioned, Saint James and also Riverhead and Farmingdale are at the top of my head.

While we can mourn the passing of East Williston, the fact of the matter is that not everything can be saved. If that were the case, they'd still be running the Ariel and Postboy up and down the mainline.

There is a lot involved in preserving a building, and you can't honestly expect a railroad whose mission is to move commuters back and forth to become a historical society. And again, there isn't enough preservation dollars to go around to save everything.

If what was posted above is true, that the building came down that easily, it was probably prudent that it came down, before someone was hurt or killed.

Jay

The Aerial and the Post Boy running again? Wow!! Where? On the Central Branch?

Now there's a photo session of which I'd love to be part!!

Jay is right. Besides the depots mentioned, also restored were the Glen Clove, Glen Street depot as well as the multi-million $ beautiful restoration some years back of the Long Beach terminal.

Also beautifully restored was Port Jeff to it's original 1903 appearance.

Dave Keller

Just because it was architecturally beautiful doesn't mean it was safe. The above posts show some temperance of attitude. My last post above this one was the first in that thread of thought. We'll miss her, butif she collapsed on a bunch of pedestrians, you'd see a rush to eliminate all other such structures. Perhaps somebody can access the report on the stations condition before we carry this too much further without information?

And thus it starts . . ..

Someone on e-bay selling bricks from the depot:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 85480&rd=1

Dave Keller

I stopped at the station over the summer to look around. Frankly, it was in bad shape. You could see rot and what I would call termite damage both at the base of the building and in the roof line. Could the building have been saved? Not without alot of money.
The people of East Williston are very civic minded and make every attempt to preserve the architecture of the community. I have a friend who owns a restaurant on Hillside Ave who submitted plans for changing the facade of his place and it was met with stiff opposition from the community. The station has been fenced off from the public for some time now, so the locals had a clue of what was going to happen. If the village didn't make an effort to save the building it could have been because they realized it would have required a major investment. As stated above, not every building, locomotive, car, MOW equipment can or should be saved. There's plenty of stuff out there that has been saved that is in bad shape because of a lack of funds and manpower to do the job. I am just as angry about this as the next guy. But, sometimes demolition or scrapping is the only alternative.

It would be nice, then, to at least see a replica as a replacement, as opposed to some blandish structure. At least then, you'd preserve the look/feel of the station, and it'd be more acceptable, IMHO.

I think the way it happened so quick grabbed attention - no real explaination. of course, if it had suddenly become dangerous, you need to act. But, at least a note to the public as to what's happening would have helped ease things and clear conusion.

Why does LIRR management constantly drop the ball on PR issues, and notifying people on the general day in /day out things that affect them? It's not just this stuff, it's little things like knowing your train's late - it would take little effort (some programming and a cheap PC) to, for instance, get real time train status updates via RSS or whatever, so people running through Penn from the A/C/E can see if their train's actually going to get out on time, or it's delayed because Amtrak blew something up again...

Often the RR tends to zig and zag with no real logic to outsiders, and that breeds suspicion. If people knew why all of the sudden their train station was demolished, or if their train to Babylon was late, they'd be a lot more understanding.

As an aside, are all stations going to get those nice status display screens that have been popping up around the system? Sure Mineola and the Babylon line stuff could use them. This was one thing I noticed popping up lately that's nice - though i didn't see if they showed the current time on them.

BTW - if photographing them, use a slow speed shutter, they're LED and scanned, so if you use a fast shutter, you'll just get a few lines. I think 1/60th or 1/30th should do it (BTW, for TV - 1/15th works best)

When the tiny Plandome depot was burned to the ground by arsonists, the railroad replaced it with a depot building similar to the old-style depot that was there.

It's not identical, but looks very similar in style, sort of like the retro vehicles that have been coming out. (i.e. the 2005 Mustang looks very reminiscent of the old mid-60s model with fastback.)

Then, other stations, such as Hollis have been burned by arsonists and have never been replaced.

I'm sure it all depends on the needs of the community (and whether there was need for an agency previously.)

If East Williston didn't have an agency since 1996, the railroad obviously didn't feel that ticket sales there warranted a manned office.

Was the old depot open to the public as a shelter at all after 1996?

If it was locked up and unable to be used, it really stopped being of functional use to the railroad.

I'm very unhappy to see it go. I loved the architectural lines of that little building. I also feel that an era has gone with its demolition. I also feel that if the building was able to collapse with one tug on the platform room, then it most probably was not a safe edifice to remain standing where people would congregate.

I will miss the depot, and will always remember it the way it looked when I first photographed it in 1967 as a young teenage rail photographer.

Dave Keller

Dave Keller wrote:
I will miss the depot, and will always remember it the way it looked when I first photographed it in 1967 as a young teenage rail photographer.

I also photographed that little station as a teenager for the first time, and again in my early 20's. I will never forget the day I first walked under it's canopies. It was always one of my favorite LIRR stations. I liked the look of it. It will be missed. It was such a familiar site when driving on Hillside Ave (although I haven'e been near it in about 5 years).

Dave Keller wrote:And thus it starts . . ..

Someone on e-bay selling bricks from the depot:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 85480&rd=1

Dave Keller

People sure are creative, aren't they? There's a buck in everything I guess, more power to him....
I have about four bricks from when they demolished the Fremont Tower in Glendale in the late 90's. I wouldn't get rid of them, because they are a piece of such a great bunch of memories of the junction when I was a teenager.

It's a shame that this happened. Although I do understand the realities from all of this, as jayrmli stated. I can only imagine how much character is lost from a demolition like that. I know that if they knocked down the station house at Farmingdale a LOT of character would be lost.