Tompkins Avenue Overpass
Description
A railway-crossing bridge carrying Tompkins Avenue was built during the mid-1930s as part of a massive grade separation project along what was then the South Beach Branch of the Staten Island Railway. The line has long since been abandoned (as the line was discontinued in 1953) and the space beneath the bridge has been filled in. Traces of the bridge structure can be seen by way of the different cement used along 260 feet of Tompkins Avenue, and the dropoff from Tompkins Avenue to the west.
The Public Works Administration (PWA) provided a $1.46 million grant for the $6 million grade crossing elimination project, which included work elsewhere in Staten Island and even in Manhattan. PWA Docket No. NY 4926.
-
-
Tompkins Avenue overpass site aerial view
Source notes
National Archives Record Group 135-SAR: Prints: Photographs rejected for use in the Photographic Report to the Survey of the Architecture of Completed Projects of the PWA, 1939; Box 14: New York State; Folder 24-26. Scanned and processed by Evan Kalish.
National Archives: Record Group 135: Public Works Administration; Projects Control Division; Entry 52: Indices to Non-Federal Projects; Report No. 5: Status of All Completed Non-Federal Allotted Projects, page 22.
Gary Owen’s S.I.R.T. South Beach Line Page: https://www.gretschviking.net/GOSIRTPage1.htm (accessed Mar. 2018)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Wadsworth_(Staten_Island_Railway_station)
Project originally submitted by Evan Kalish on March 7, 2018.
We welcome contributions of additional information on any New Deal project site.
SUBMIT MORE INFORMATION OR PHOTOGRAPHS FOR THIS SITE