I was born in Woodside, lived by the Bulova watch building, and when my family moved out to Copiague, I always spent part of my summer (an other school vacations) at my great grandmother's on 64th Street . 

I was riding the LIRR to Woodside alone by the time I was 10 years old.  My father would put me on the train, and tell the conductor where I was going, and let me know if I had to change at Jamaica.  My great aunt would meet me at the Woodside station.  During the week, she would give me $1 when she left for work in the morning, and I would plan my day's ramble. 

I could go over to 65th Street and the BMT and take the train to the Museum of Natural History, or over to 61st Street and hop the IRT to the city, or go to visit friends in Jackson Heights or Corona (and later to the World's Fair and Shea).  Sometimes, I took the bus to LaGuardia and sat up on the terminal roof and watched planes.  Other times, the Rockaway bus on 61st took me to the beach or Playland. I even rode the Fifth Avenue bus along Roosevelt when I wanted to go over the bridge to Manhattan  or out to the Sunnyside yards to watch trains.  That dollar would cover my round trip fares (30 cents) and a lunch (hot dog and soda for about 60 cents) and leave me a dime to buy a comic book at the tobacco store on 39th Ave , between 64th and 65th.

You are right about the modeling possibilities of Roosevelt Ave. , and that is part of why I want to do this area.  I always liked the 61st Street IRT / LIRR station complex. The entrance way to the LIRR platforms on 61st were just a boring tunnel compared to the stairs leading up to the IRT mezzanine over Roosevelt . And that escalator on the south-east corner of Roosevelt & 61st was great.  Closed inside the shed, bouncing and bumping its way up that seemingly great height, was a fantastic noisy ride.  From the mezzanine (where we used to play handball against the walls) you could look down on the LIRR platforms.

I still have vivid memories of Roosevelt Avenue, although I can't quite place everything in their exact spots. I do remember the tiny corner newspaper/tobacco shop, at the foot of the stairs leading up to the El.  To the left of the entry door, there was a window, from which you could order a root beer in a frosted mug and one of those famous NYC big salted hot pretzels from. Inside, you could get newspapers (there were about 5-6 NYC papers at the time, and they all had multiple editions each day!), magazines, candy, and cigarettes. Outside the store, under the LIRR bridge, was a big wooden table with the papers stacked up, held down by iron weights with the name of the paper cast into it and a depression for you to put the coins to pay for the paper you took.  Next to that, heading towards 62nd, was the shoe shine man.  I seem top remember that there were four chairs up on a platform, with foot rests where you placed the shoe to be shined.  The shoeshine man sat on a box on the sidewalk as he shined your shoes.  Sometimes all the chairs were full, and one or two men would be shining all those shoes.

Next to the shine stand was the open air vegetable and fruit stand, still under the LIRR.  Across the street, by the escalator was an old diner and a bar, tucked under the bridge.  As you came out from under the bridge, there was a hobby shop that I spent lots of time and money in as a kid.  I used to buy a model plane or AMT car every time I visited Woodside, and would work on them back at the apartment at night.  A few doors down was the Deluxe movie house.  I remember many double features and matinees with cartoons, serials and newsreels at the Deluxe and also over at the Sunnyside.  My father, who grew up in Woodside, always called the Deluxe the "Fleabag" for some unknown reason.  Other stores I remember along Roosevelt were the bakery (that always used that red and white string to tie the box with your purchase closed), the candy store, a couple of clothing stores and one or two shoe shops, the grocery store (was it a Cracker Barrel or an Associated?) with those cool (at least to me) delivery bikes with the little front wheel and the giant basket and the triangular kick stand and the back wheel the held the bike upright when parked, and the butcher's, with the chickens and sausages hanging from the hooks in the window and the sawdust on the floor, at least one jewelry store and wasn't there an army-navy type store there as well.

It would be fun to get pictures of all those store fronts, or a map showing the name and location of all the stores along Roosevelt from 65th to 60th.   If you remember any other details or find any photos you would care to share, let me know.  I still have much to do with just mapping out the two stations and getting reference photos of the structures and the immediate area of Roosevelt Ave., so the rest of the street scene will come later, but gathering the information will be ongoing.

Even though I grew up in Woodside and used both the LIRR and IRT stations hundreds and hundreds of times, I have precious few photos at Woodside. While Woodside was substantially rebuilt during the 90's, it did undergo big changes for the 64-65 Worlds Fair. That was when the railroad had a ground level ticket office (a large three window affair with a passageway connecting the three platforms). The late Ben Dwyer, who was once a teacher, handled this busy agency--Ben was an East End refugee who had worked early in his career as an agent-operator with people of the stature of Jimmy Osborne

The platform A ticket office was built new to accommodate the agency and newsstand and platform B got its own ticket office to at first handle Worlds Fair sales and then AM rush hour only sales. It also opened for Jets and Mets Games but that separate facility probably closed for good in the late 70's.

Prior to the 64-65 Fair, Woodside had an express office at the east end of Platform C. There was a concrete pathway across the Port Wash tracks to access Platform B from the express house. That building was demolished prior to the Fair because it was unused and was considered an eyesore to Fair passengers. During a short period in 1964, the unused waiting room/ticket office structures at Elmhurst were demolished and Corona was totally obliterated. 

1960 is an excellent year. The intersection of 61st Street and Roosevelt Ave was a modeler's dream with shoe shine stands, fruit and vegetable stands under the LIRR bridge, a diner, restaurant, several taverns, a Bickford's, two bakeries, candy stores, the DeLuxe Theatre, a Merkel's butcher shop. The list goes on and on.