Ken, thanks for the quick come back about Erie main in the north end of
Paterson. I left the area in 1966, so I'm sure a lot of stuff changed that I
did'nt see. You are correct that the River street station was in a
neighborhood of commuters. Since I grew up on Putnam st., which lead down the
hill to the station, I would see the same people day after day going to and
from their work places via the Erie commuter trains. I've got a NJT tape of
the old main, and I can still pick out the streets that the railroad crosses,
but some of the names are getting fuzzy as time passes.
About the "high bridge" of the DL&W from W. Paterson to Totowa, I'm just
old enough to remember seeing coal trains high above Mc Bride Ave. while on
those famous Sunday car rides in my Fathers "35" Hudson.
Many years later, I was working for the General Electric Co. on Fairfield
Rd., just barely out of Little Falls, in N. Caldwell, but I was liveing on
Vreeland Ave. Paterson. Funny, just a stones throw fron the NYSW east station
in Paterson. Back to the "high bridge". Every day, I would drive from
Paterson, through W. Paterson and on to Little Falls on Mc Bride Ave. under
the "high bridge". Then the omnipotent high way dept. started to demolish the
bridge.
It must have taken them six months to accomplish this feat, just to put
another bridge in its place that more than likely can't match the quality of
the DL&W "high bridge". If my memory serves me right, in the concrete, the
date on that bridge was 1903.
By the way, as they removed the cement faces on the W. Paterson side of
the Passaic River, high up on the embankment, there seemed to be sand stone
faces that had been covered by the cement. From the street below, it appeared
that there had been an earlier bridge structure in that same spot. Any more
info on that?
I hope my ramblings are of some interest.
Bruce R.
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