Woodside Trolley Barn Door

Woodside Trolley Barn Door by Ian Schoenherr (1986)

My family called the sprawling brick structure at the corner of Woodside Avenue and Northern Boulevard the “Trolley Barns,” but it was, more officially, the depot of the New York and Queens County Railroad Company.

Most of it was pulled down in the late 1980s, but not before I inadvertently documented it in a few “artistic” photos, including this one of a boarded-up doorway on Woodside Avenue.

My parents, all four grandparents, two sets of great-grandparents, a great-great-grandmother, and a great-great-great-grandmother (who came over from Ireland before the Great Famine and was married to a Tammany Hall-connected shoemaker who became a Keeper of City Hall Park in Manhattan) and countless aunts, uncles, and cousins have lived within a few blocks of the place.

Read more about it at the great Forgotten New York site.