This photo from 1954 was taken from the top level of the Queensboro Plaza Station, looking west to Manhattan. That’s the Queensboro Bridge on the right. If you take the 7 train to Flushing, as I used to, the odds are not bad that you’ll change trains at this station, as it’s where you can change to the Astoria trains (now the N, previously the R) that travel up Broadway in Manhattan. There’s a nice view from the upper (eastbound) level of the station, as you can see here; the lower (westbound) level is enclosed and has very little view.
There are three sets of tracks visible, but one was already dead. On the left, obviously, is the track belonging to the 7 train, running from the Steinway tunnel (out of frame to the left) to Flushing. The track on the far right is the (now) N, running from the 60th Street tunnel (hidden behind the tracks and the bridge approach) to Astoria. The dead track is the one in the middle, being used to store rails. It used to join up with the Astoria track on the right – you can see where the Y connection used to be – and then it ran over the bridge into Manhattan, where it turned left and headed south on the Second Avenue elevated. Past the end of the dead tracks and rail storage you can see the lighter-colored steel of the upper platform on the bridge, where the tracks used to continue across. That was eventually converted to additional upper-level roadway space.
A small portion of the steel structure that carried the tracks from the upper level of the station to the bridge remains. I’m surprised that so much of it was still there in 1954, given that the Second Avenue el closed in 1942.
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