Welcome to City-Data.com forum! Make sure to register - it's free and very quick! You have to register before you can post and participate in our discussions with 700,000 other registered members. User profiles and some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your free account you will be able to customize many options, you will have the full access to over 15,000 posts/day about local topics and you will see fewer ads.
Thanks for those fabulous pictures. The one of the blizzard in Long beach blew me away. I spent half my time there growing up as my grandmother, aunts and uncles lived in LB years ago. All of the pics are great. Please keep posting them.
Thanks for the great pictures, please keep them coming, I left Long Island 2 years ago for Florida and it is really nice to see the old places again!!!
What's the Ridgewood station? Is that supposed to be some old station no longer used and now a museum or something?
That was the Wantagh LIRR station before the Babylon line was elevated in the late 60s. It was moved about a 1/4 mile north on Wantagh Avenue and is now home to the preservation society's museum.
It's the Ridgewood Station because it was built in 1885, before the name "Wantagh" existed, and the community was widely known as "Ridgewood Station" because of it's proximity to the Brooklyn Water Works reservoir that - along with many other man-made lakes along what is now Sunrise Highway - pumped the City of Brooklyn's drinking water into the main Ridgewood Queens/Brooklyn reservoir. That's why most roads near Babylon branch LIRR tracks are named "Brooklyn Avenue", and also why Sunrise becomes Conduit Avenue when you get into Queens. Where's that LI History thread??
All of this brings us to.......Twin Lakes Preserve, Wantagh...the former reservoir that the little train station was named for. If you have ancestry that lived in Brooklyn, they drank out of this a hundred years ago.
What memories Left Long Island due to a transfer to Texas then wound up in Florida.. sure do miss Home... Thanks for the photos, please keep them coming.
That was the Wantagh LIRR station before the Babylon line was elevated in the late 60s. It was moved about a 1/4 mile north on Wantagh Avenue and is now home to the preservation society's museum.
It's the Ridgewood Station because it was built in 1885, before the name "Wantagh" existed, and the community was widely known as "Ridgewood Station" because of it's proximity to the Brooklyn Water Works reservoir that - along with many other man-made lakes along what is now Sunrise Highway - pumped the City of Brooklyn's drinking water into the main Ridgewood Queens/Brooklyn reservoir. That's why most roads near Babylon branch LIRR tracks are named "Brooklyn Avenue", and also why Sunrise becomes Conduit Avenue when you get into Queens. Where's that LI History thread??
All of this brings us to.......Twin Lakes Preserve, Wantagh...the former reservoir that the little train station was named for. If you have ancestry that lived in Brooklyn, they drank out of this a hundred years ago.
You got it backwards! Years ago LI got it's water from the Brooklyn water works! The pipes are still there. Ever notice the huge pipes rite next to the rail (LIRR) on Sunrise highway? That's from the Brooklyn water works.
You got it backwards! Years ago LI got it's water from the Brooklyn water works! The pipes are still there. Ever notice the huge pipes rite next to the rail (LIRR) on Sunrise highway? That's from the Brooklyn water works.
Nope, I got it right I swear! There's a real lengthy documentary on Youtube about it, it moves reaalllyyy slow at points but it's interesting (to me at least).
Nope, I got it right I swear! There's a real lengthy documentary on Youtube about it, it moves reaalllyyy slow at points but it's interesting (to me at least).
No, our , LI's water used to come from NYC. There is something to those lakes though. I used to live in Massapequa rite down the block from the woods. And in there they had those lakes all along the paved bike path there. They've been there forever. I'll ask my father what they exactly were for. He grew up there. Which is how I found out about the Brooklyn Water works.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Welcome to City-Data.com forum! Make sure to register - it's free and very quick! You have to register before you can post and participate in our discussions with 700,000 other registered members. User profiles and some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your free account you will be able to customize many options, you will have the full access to over 15,000 posts/day about local topics and you will see fewer ads. 
Left Long Island due to a transfer to Texas then wound up in Florida.. sure do miss Home... Thanks for the photos, please keep them coming.
Linear Mode
