From: Phil.Kane@nov.shmovz.ka.pop   
      
   On Wed, 4 Nov 2015 07:31:05 -0800 (PST), hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:   
      
   >Last I heard--a while ago--was that the concession buildings on Canarsie   
   >Pier were closed.  One can still visit the pier.  Don't know what's there.   
      
   I certainly remember the Howard Johnson there (late 1940s).  That'   
   was where we could get the junk food that was not available or that   
   our parents forbade us to have in our ENY neighborhood.  :)   
      
   >> The Canarsie Line ran BMT Standards, of course.   
      
   >The Canarsie Line had the last grade crossing in the city, until it   
   >was replaced by a new station, E 105.  Judging by old pictures,   
   >it was extremely heavily protected, although it was an out of the way   
   >location with little auto traffic.  I think it's an industrial area now.   
   >(check google street view).   
      
   Oh yes!  I posted my reminiscences of that grade crossing a while ago   
   both here and on the Railway Signaling Yahoo group.  I can dig it out   
   if desired.   
      
   >I think a lot of Canarsie was built up after WW II.  Two-family row houses.   
   >Some folks chose to stay in the city and get a house; others chose to   
   >leave the city for Levittown communities.  Each had its pros and cons.   
      
   As the crowded tenements of ENY deteriorated but welcomed new   
   immigrants, the existing first-generation residents moved into the new   
   Canarsie housing.  Some were built on open land that was created by   
   landfill.  Many family friends moved there in the late 1950s and early   
   1960s.   
      
   >I don't know the economics of buying a two-family house, living in one   
   >half and renting out the other half.  The ads claimed the rent would   
   >pay for the house's carrying charges, but who knows if that was true.   
   >One also had the aggravation of being a landlord.   
      
   An erstwhile college girlfriend's family moved there in the late 1950s   
   and did quite well from the rents.  After her parents passed away, she   
   and her partner lived there until it was again sold to a later wave of   
   upwardly-mobile  immigrants.   
      
   >Some of the two-family houses in Brooklyn and Queens have been [illegally]   
   >sub-divided into three units.  I guess when apt rents are sky high there   
   >would be demand for a tiny room.   
      
   In San Francisco such illegal conversions were called  "mother-in-law   
   apartments".  At least there, the trend became to tear down the   
   post-war single family two-story row house and put up a genuine   
   three-story three-family "set of flats" to use the local term.  It   
   became so egregious that an ordinance was passed limiting the number   
   of such conversions that could be made per year.   
      
   Phil Kane   
   Beaverton, OR   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)