Re: (erielack) Assorted Thoughts

[The Jordans <jjordan_@_blast.net>]

Ed-


Your dissertation on New York and New Jersey evoked many memories.


I remember watching the Sam Braen (an Erie customer) Construction 

Company building S-3 (and yes, I too refer to it as S-3, which 

stood for Superhighway #3, to this day).  I watched them move 

the houses on the border of Rutherford and Lyndhurst to make way 

for this super highway.  Prior to S-3, the major automobile 

route into the Jersey City and Hoboken areas was to take the 

Belleville Pike out into the vast unscarred meadowlands through 

pig smelling Secaucus and then the 'Hudson Tubes" (PATH to all 

you youngsters) in Jersey City into the big city or go into the 

Holland Tunnel by car.


OR as most did from Rutherford, was take the Erie Railroad with 

it's 'off rush hour' every half hour commuter trains with those 

beautiful Pacifics pulling Stillwell coaches into Jersey City.


Route 6 (now Route 46) westbound was used as the way to go to the 

'lake resort' areas such as Packanack Lake (Wayne, NJ) where we 

had a summer home (log cabin) in 1950.  My father sold that cabin 

in 1955 and we moved further out into the wilderness with our new summer 

home in Lake Hopatcong as Wayne was becoming "overbuilt".  'Overbuilt' 

means we could see three other houses on our block from our steps.


My father worked in New York City downtown for 40 years at 120 

Wall Street.  From every home we had, either winter in Rutherford 

or summer in Packanack Lake or Lake Hopatcong, he faithfully used 

the trains to commute to the big city.   From Packanack Lake, he 

used the Singac station in Wayne/Little Falls.  


I remember that when we went to Packanack Lake via Route 6, we 

turned off at Alps Road.  There was a big water tower for overheated 

<bold>automobiles</bold> at the top of the Alps Road hill in Wayne.  We
had a 

1947 Buick, one of the first cars built after WWII and we never had 

to use the water tower, but many of the older cars did.


-From Lake Hopatcong, he used the Lake Hopatcong station or sometimes 

drove down to Dover to start his train commute.  To get to Lake 

Hopatcong, we sat in our 1954 Buick through sweltering heat without 

A/C for an hour and a half on Route 6 (46) and Route 15.  When Interstate 

80 was built and connected to Route 15 in Denville, my father predicted 

that Lake Hopatcong would no longer be a 'lake resort' and that he looked 

toward moving further out away from civilization for summer homes.

He never did because the children were all grown up at that point and 

all but one on their own.


Today, I can't find our Packanack Lake summer home.  It's gone, replaced
by 

a large house that probably goes for $500,000.  The house in Lake 

Hopatcong has had a second story built on to it, now has forced hot 

air heating and is used all year round.  In our day, it had no heating - 

it was a summer home.  


I haven't gone into the city in years even though I'm still in New 

Jersey, but I remember the ferries being the slow but steady boats 

in the middle of the last century and irrevocably linked 

to the trains in Jersey City and Hoboken and the thrill of a kid going 

to work with his Dad into New York on the train and the ferry.


As we get older, these are the most precious things that we remember.


If Robert Moses isn't in hell, he should be made is sit in traffic on 

I-287 or I-78 during rush hour as punishment for his "plans".


- -Joe Jordan



At 12:48 PM 12/1/01 -0500, MONTGOMERY| ED wrote:

>A week ago yesterday, I got to visit "ground zero".  Thanks to all of 

>you who gave me information about the site.  There is an 

>emptiness there similar to what I experienced last September when 

>I visited the site at the Pentagon.  There was a lot of people all 

>around, but not a lot of arrogant attitudes.  People respected each 

>other.  Taking the ferry back to Hoboken I was thinking that it was 

>just about 34 years ago on that date that I rode the "Elmira" on 

>here last passage from Barclay Street.  The Imperiali ferries are 

>nice and face, but they bob in the river like a toy in a bathtube.  I 

>remarked to another older passenger that the old steam ferries 

>hardly even rocked in any kind of weather.  Hopefully the boats that 

>use the old ferryhouse, when it is restored will be a little bigger.

>

>While all of this has been going on, I have been watching the PBS 

>documentary on New York.  I usually watch it in 30 minute 

>segments taking in as much information as I can.  There is a lot of 

>information on Robert Moses and his views of how a city should be 

>designed.  Moses's plans extended far beyond the city.  The 

>documentary showed a map with his plans to provide automobile 

>access to the city.  In it were outlines of Route 6 (now US 46) and 

>S-3.  (I suppose most people now just call it Route 3, but back 

>when I was growing up, it was S-3 for some reason).  When these 

>roads were constructed, in the 40's and early 50's they took a large 

>number of commuters away from the Erie's mainline, DL&W 

>Boonton Line, and the Susquehenna.  This was at a time when the 

>commuter equipment was at replacement age.  Only the 

>Susquehenna made the effort to upgrade.  With all the new roads, I 

>can imagine railroad management wondering how long they would 

>have to keep the commuter trains running.  In the late 50s there 

>was always the threat from the Lackawanna that all Boonton Line 

>passenger service would be eliminated.

>

>Moses seemed to have no use for any form of rail transportation.  

>Even the New York Subways were being ignored.  He wanted 

>automobiles and expressways all over the place.  In the 1950s 

>there was a plan for the "Bergan-Passaic Expressway".  I would 

>imagine Moses had something to do with this.  It originally was 

>planned to run from the George Washington Bridge to Route 46 

>just west of Willowbrook.  It became I-80.  

>

>The railroad infrastructure was pretty much ignored during that 

>time.  The only commuter line that came close to making money 

>was the DL&W's M&E electrics.  There were no highways to 

>compete with these lines.  Even the PRR's line sufferred from the 

>New Jersey Turnpike.  The documentary didn't mention it, but I 

>suspect Moses had some input on building that road as well. 

>

>The documentary points out that what Moses never figured out was 

>that the more roads built, produced more cars and more traffic.  It 

>produced the urban sprawl and the subdivisions all over the place.  

>It's a fascinating piece of video that explains why the railroads 

>suffered the way they did in the New York area.  It also touches on 

>the loss of industry and the development of containerization that 

>made waterfront property on the Hudson less desirable.

>

>Ed Montgomery

>

>

>

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