Nostalgia & History > Nanuet NY Station and Wye 1977

My family used to go to Ringwood Manor in New Jersey all the time. One day, after our twelfth (or 100th) tour of the manor, we went into the bookstore and I found the books, "'The Next Station Will Be..." These paperbacks follwed different lines of the Erie Railroad, showing old photographs of the stations on each line. The New Jersey & New York copy of the book astounded me. I only knew the stations in River Edge and Oradell. Finding out there had once been a station between them, New Milford, let alone that there were all these other stations north and south of where I was became a revelation that actually drove me to start taking photographs. I set out, over a couple months, to shoot each and every station on the line. Many were already gone. But then again, many that I photographed back then have since gone away. On one adventure, re-documenting the stations of the New Jersrey & New York (by then Conrail's Pascack Valley Line), I found the wye in Nanuet, and the old station building. Sadly this building later burned to the ground. This photo was taken on an Argus A and is probably the best focus that camera ever did. Side note about this slide - about 25 years after I took this photo, I gave one of my old slide projectors to a second-hand store. I included some carousels. I go back in the store one day, maybe three months later and there is my old projecter and the carousels. No idea what got me to do this, but I opened the box with one of the carousels, and "HOLY CRAP" there was a slide in it. It was this one. I was going to explain to the store, but thought, "it's my slide." So I just took it back. (Nanuet NY, March 1977, Photograph by Charles Freericks.)

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Excellent photo and great story! Those old depots have a way of disappearing.
ALLEN

The Nanuet NY Veterans Memorial sits on the property now.
The same Post Office sits in the background at 10 Prospect St, Nanuet, NY.
The Memorial sits just north east of the Nanuet NJ Transit station.
 

Those "Next Station Will Be..." books were great. I hope I still have mine (lots of untouched boxes from past moves).