Essay
My photograph appeared in the October 28 2958 Daily News alongside the last trolley of New York City. This photo appeared with other photos that would appear collected together in the middle of this newspaper - sort of a trademark feature of the Daily News. Art Whitaker picked me as his model as my family was well known in the area around the Queensborough Bridge. My dad operated Pete's Luncheonette at 59th Street and Second Avenue and surely one of his customers directed Whitaker to our place of business. Notice the prop - the model airplane; I got to keep this model as my reward for posing.
This trolley ran over the 59th Street Bridge immortalized by Simon and Garfunkel. The trolley car line lasted so long as it was about the only way that the disadvantaged could get to Welfare Island for medical care. Riders would disembark from the trolley in the middle of the bridge and remarkably take a elevator down to Welfare Island (now christened as "Roosevelt Island"). Interestingly, the trolley line was served by an underground terminal at the Manhattan side of the line. A beautiful above-ground kiosk topped the underground terminal. The kiosk has been relocated and preserved on Roosevelt Island. An ornate light post also adorned this facility - its fate I am unsure of.
Now Roosevelt Island is served by both a vehicular bridge from Queens and a gondola system seen in the Spiderman Movie. The gondola station in Manhattan was across 60th Street from a diner operated for decades by my cousin.
The trolley I posed beside has been severely damaged by outside storage at the destination museum. I did run into a fellow who had been one of the railfans photographed with this same trolley - a photo I lost track of.
The trolley I posed beside has been severely damaged by outside storage at the destination museum. I did run into a fellow who had been one of the railfans photographed with this same trolley - a photo I lost track of.
See below a model of same trolley … may not be
the same number
Photograph is useful for depicting the color scheme of this
trolley line - that is rarely photographed or filmed in color -
most shots are in black and white
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