BLUE POINT           
 

South Side Rail Road depot opened: 2/1/1870, closed: 6/1/1882
2nd Depot opened: June/1900, Agency closed:  6/1946, razed: 1951
Concrete shelter shed built: 1951.  
Discontinued as station stop per G.O. #207, eff: 9/6/1980   Research: Dave Keller

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Blue Point, South Side Rail Road view E - 1878 
Photo: George Brainerd Archive: Art Huneke

A 4-4-0 engine near Blue Point Station 5/02/1913.  A sign to the right of the telephone pole reads, "This road crosses private property and is not a public thoroughfare".
Photo: William Rugen Archive: Queens Public Library

Blue Point Station - View SE  c.1910
(Jamaica Library-Morrison)
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Blue Point Station pre-1910 view SE

Blue Point Station - View E c.1910
Archive: Dave Morrison

E51sa Camelback #4 westbound Blue Point - 1910
(A. Noble Chapman-John Weeks)

Blue Point - battery car inaugural run 7/01/1911 View N Archive: Dave Morrison

Blue Point Ave. view N 5/02/1913 (William J. Rugen - Queens Public Library)

Blue Point Station - View E c.1925
 (J. V. Osborne-D. Keller)

 
Blue Point Express House  View W c. 1950
Archive: Emery SUNY Stony Brook

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Blue Point view E 12/02/1962 
Archive: Brad Phillips

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Blue Point LIRR RS3 #1555 view E 12/1962 Photo/Archive: Brad Phillips 

Note: The express house was moved to a private location, see photo below, as the agency was closed in June, 1946 and the depot razed in 1951. With no agent on duty, the express house served no purpose, so it was probably purchased and moved sometime after the agency closed.  If not moved in June, 1946, then most definitely removed when the depot was razed 5 years later.  Dave Keller

Sta-Exp-Bluepoint-1972.jpg (105167 bytes)
The old Bluepoint express house moved from its original location to a private residence trackside at River Avenue, Patchogue.  1972 view is looking NW  from the crossing. The structure has long since 
been demolished. Photo/Archive: Dave Keller

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Bayport-Blue Point Station closing 9/05/80
Archive: William Gilligan

 

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Blue Point  Emery Map MP51-52
Archive: Dave Keller

 

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Blue Point  Emery Map MP52-53
Archive: Dave Keller

CPA20-5-2001-PRR_RPO_Car-Mailbag_Pickup_and_Dropoff_Blue-Point_eastbound_1951_Myers-Keller.jpg (98199 bytes)LIRR FM CPA20-5 #2001 is pulling a Pennsylvania R.R. RPO car which is not only about to pick up the suspended mailbag from the trackside mail crane, but also shows a mailbag for local delivery airborne in the process of being tossed-off. The foldout metal bar on the car door is about to hit the racked mailbag dead-center. Eastbound at Blue Point - 1951.

The photo was taken just after diesels took over the LIRR.  I always wanted a picture of a train picking up mail but I had forgotten railway mail pick-up rule #1: What gets picked up also is detrained.  

Anyhow, I felt an object go whizzing by my head just as I snapped the photo. It was the off-loaded bag and it missed me by inches. It appears in the photo just about at the coupling point of the engine and RPO car.

I was lucky--another few inches and my brain would have been scattered along the ROW and deservedly so. Well, it was a lesson I would never forget! Stephen Myers   Note: MC (Mail Crane) location on MP51-52 map above. 
Steve Myers data and photo, Dave Keller archive

 

REID ICE CREAM
Note: Located just east of MP52 SW corner of Atlantic Ave (Blue Point) part of "Y" cabin. 


Reid Iced Cream Reefer - "Fantasy" model of c.1920's
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Patchogue Advance 2/16/1961 - "35 Years Ago" - 
Opening of Reid Ice Cream Co., Blue Point  2/19/1926
Emery-Reid-Ice-Cream_closeup_MP52_5-58.jpg (36722 bytes) reid_ice_cream_company_truck_poster.jpg (28762 bytes)
Reid Ice Cream Co. truck poster c.1920
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Reid's Ice Cream Williamsburg, Brooklyn 1944
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Reid's Ice Cream, West Sayville c.1930
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Ticket LH-262 Patchogue - Blue Point 4/9/62
Archive: Brad Phillips
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timetable_Sayville-Bayport-Bluepoint_10-13-79_WGilligan.jpg (287763 bytes)                       timetable_Sayville-Bayport-Bluepoint-back_10-13-79_WGilligan.jpg (304140 bytes)
Timetable - Sayville, Bayport, Blue Point  October 13, 1979
Archive: William Gilligan 
timetable_10-13-1979_WGilligan.jpg (105661 bytes)

Reid Ice Cream retail sidewalk sign  -  The Reid Ice Cream Corp. factory (of Bayport), opened in 1926, and was sold to Borden Corp. at some point in the very early 1930s. The plant officially closed its doors on October 3, 1969. This is per an article by Jo Ann McGrath. "Reid Plant in Local History." [no source indicated, but could be the Bayport-Blue Point Historical Society Newsletter, n.d.]: pp. 3, 6. The article reports the property and factory on the market placed with McDee Realty, for $1.2 million, so it was written before the factory was demolished.

The article also said that Suffolk County's real ice cream baron, and the man who first cornered that commercial market, was Augustus Floyd Smith, of East Patchogue, starting in 1879. "Blocks of ice were cut from Robinson's Pond. Some of it was stored...and some of it was chopped and liberally salted. The salted ice was packed around a freezer container into which the ice cream mixture was poured. A horse was then harnessed to a large wheeland walked 'round and round' to agitate the paddles. In this manner Smith was able to provide ice cream to all the hotels and restaurants in Patchogue; to both Clarence and Charley Hawkins' Bellport confectionery store and, with some 'modernization' of his equipment, to the men stationed at Camp Upton during WW I." (p. 3.)  His son took over in 1919, and sold out to Reid Ice Cream Corp. in 1926.

Reid's Ice Cream Plant does show up on Atlantic Avenue Gene Horton's Blue Point, Long Island, New York, Then and Now.  East Patchogue, NY:  Searles Graphics, Inc., 1999:  p. 6.  At the time the "now" shot shows it still there.   Courtesy Research of: Mark Rothenberg, Senior Reference Specialist, Suffolk Cooperative Library System & Patchogue-Medford Library

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Reid Ice Cream - Atlantic Ave  view W, (East below) 1940
Photo: Fred Weber Archive: SUNY Stony Brook

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Patchogue Yard Limit sign in background
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Reid Ice Cream view W 2001
Atlantic Ave, Blue Point  Photo: Steven Lynch

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Reid Ice Cream view SE 2001

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Reid Ice Cream view S 2001


Islip Township - South Shore - Sayville to Patchogue - Hagstrom map 1976