A Trolley Remnant: Tower Square

William Steinway, the scion of the piano manufacturing family,  electrified his Long Island City streetcar line, the Steinway Railway Company, and joined up with developer Cord Meyer’s Newtown Railway Company, which extended to Corona, in 1894.  Two years later, the lines reorganized as The New York and Queens County Railway Company  and built a handsome, twin-spired brick depot at Northern Boulevard and Woodside Avenues. Trolleys would ply these roads to Queens’ eastern sections. Steinway had tried to extend his trolley line to Manhattan via two tunnels under the East River in 1892, but financial and engineering problems stymied the project. Steinway’s friend, banking tycoon August Belmont, completed the tunnels in 1907, but they were not to gain regular use until 1915, when the Interborough Rapid Transit modified them for subway use. The IRT built the Flushing Line in increments, finally reaching Main Street in Flushing by 1928.

Meanwhile, trolley service out of the New York and Queens County Railway depot continued until September 1937, when buses took over. The eastern end of the building was torn down in 1930 after a fire. Over the decades, the old trolley barn was deserted and was in danger of demolition until it was preserved in 1987 as part of the Tower Square Shopping Center. The north tower’s clock again works, and the arched entrance you can still find “N.Y. and Queens County Ry. Company” and “Waiting Room” emblazoned. A short walk down Woodside Avenue under the Amtrak tracks at 37^th Avenue will bring you to a corner laundromat; walk around the corner to find yet another “New York and Queens County Ry. Company” sign chiseled into the side of the building.