START: Atlantic Terminal, Brooklyn (Long Island Rail Road, fully accessible)
FINISH: Moynihan Train Hall, Pennsylvania Station (Amtrak and Long Island Rail Road, fully accessible)
WALKING DISTANCE: 2.7 miles (4.3 kilometers)
Photographs by Michael Cairl except where noted. Maps courtesy Google Maps.
This was an all-day adventure on the Long Island Rail Road, Suffolk Transit, Cross Sound Ferry, and Amtrak, plus walks in Greenport, New York and New London, Connecticut. The “walk around town” was a short walk in Greenport and a longer walk in New London. I’m writing about this because the whole trip was accessible. This was a day very well spent and a trip worth doing again.
The first leg of the trip, from Brooklyn to Greenport, was on the original main line of the Long Island Rail Road. The LIRR was chartered in 1834 and started operations from Brooklyn to Jamaica, Queens (9 miles). Today, Jamaica Station is a busy place, the hub of all LIRR branches except one, plus a subway station and one terminal of the JFK AirTrain. I had to change trains at Jamaica and would do so again at Ronkonkoma, the eastern end of electric train service on the main line.
First leg of the trip: Brooklyn to Greenport on the Long Island Rail Road.
At the old Greenport train station.
The LIRR reached Greenport in 1844. The old station building from the 1880s is now a maritime museum, and the ferry to Shelter Island is just steps from the station. Greenport still has something of a fishing village about it but it has been “discovered” by tourists and day trippers.
From the station it’s a short walk along the waterfront and across Front Street to the S92 bus to the ferry at Orient Point. The Suffolk Transit bus was new, comfortable, and accessible. The bus ride takes about 15 minutes, but don’t schedule too close a connection to the ferry as heavy traffic west of Greenport is common and delays the bus. The bus I took ran very late but the ferry for which I had bought a ticket was also late, and was still boarding cars and passengers when I got there.
Second leg of the trip: Suffolk Transit S92 bus.
Scenes from Greenport: map of the walk from the train station to the bus, the waterfront walk, two views on Front Street.
Most of Cross Sound Ferry’s boats are accessible but some are not; mine was not but I got up the stairs to where there was seating. Accessible ferries are noted on their website. Note that the ramp between ferry and dock might be a little steep.
On the crossing there was a good breeze, the sea was choppy, and the day was cool. It felt great to be out on deck!
Ferry route from Orient Point (bottom) to New London, approaching New London, the U.S. Coast Guard training ship Eagle moored near Fort Trumbull, New London from the ferry.
New London has a long history, much of it tied to the sea. New London is home to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, a U.S. Navy submarine base, and the Navy’s submariners school. Across the Thames River in Groton is a shipyard, still referred to by its old name Electric Boat, that has built submarines for the Navy since before World War I, and Pfizer’s major research and development center. A few miles to the east is Mystic, a major whaling port in the 19th century.
Walking along Bank Street in New London proved quite interesting. There wasn’t much going on this gray Saturday afternoon, but there was history everywhere.
Route of my walk in New London, starting at the ferry and ending at Union Station; historical note outside Thames Landing restaurant; two of several historical plaques in the sidewalk along Bank Street; the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument across from Union Station; where I walked for lunch (it was good but no match for Lenny & Joe’s Fish Tale in Madison, Connecticut).
Before I did that walk I didn’t know that Benedict Arnold set fire to the city in 1781. I certainly didn’t know the city’s connection with the drive to abolish slavery. I was to learn something in front of the old U.S. Customs House, now a museum.
ON THIS SITE, AUGUST 29, 1839 -
“A Federal investigative inquiry indicted 38 enslaved Mende Africans accused of revolt on the high seas and murder of the captain and cook of the Spanish slave ship Amistad which was captured and brought into New London by U.S. revenue cutter Washington, Lt. Gedney commanding.
“This first step to freedom revealed resources which ultimately through trials in Hartford and New Haven and an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court by former President John Quincy Adams, won their liberty as persons to return home by missionary ship to Sierra Leone in 1841.
“Thames River waves lapped against the white-striped low black hull of Amistad for 14 months until it was refurbished and sold for salvage at Joseph Lawrence’s dock. The cargo of silks, satins and other treasures were auctioned off at this Custom House on these front steps.
“Amistad had unjustly held leader Joseph Cinque and his people as slaves in its hold before it became the vehicle for their passage to freedom. Never before, or since, has there been record of such freedom won!”
The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument was donated to the city by the sons of Joseph Lawrence, a prosperous whaler in the 19th century. Learn more about him and the monument at http://ctmonuments.net/2010/01/soldiers%E2%80%99-and-sailors%E2%80%99-monument-new-london/
Union Station, designed by H.H. Richardson, is a handsome structure completed in 1887. Today it serves Amtrak (Northeast Regional and some Acela trains) and Connecticut Shore Line East trains to New Haven. It was a fine place to await the last leg of this trip, the train to New York.
New London Union Station. Photograph courtesy Wikipedia.
Final leg of the trip, on Amtrak from New London (right) to New York.