The first page, an ad from Brooks Brothers for AUTOMOBILE CLOTHING AND LIVERIES,
with such goodies as ENGLISH LUNCHEON BASKETS, LAP ROBES, LEGGINGS,
GAUNTLET GLOVES, and such, is inscribed John Warner Foster;
I wonder who he might have been.
Vanderbilt Cup racing is of such great popularity even today that there are modern replicas of the Stanley Steamer racers built and running (replicars) and Websites about them.
(There is more about Old 16 on my Automotive page 1.)
The NE-SW jog in Whaleneck/Merrick Avenue is gone, now, but there is still a NW-SE jog only about 100 yards further south.
For an aerial photograph of this course, see below.
[Aviation History aside - see that low, east-facing, sand bluff along the E side of Whaleneck? There was a corresponding one facing the other way, between Roosevelt Flying Field and what became the raceway (the "Eastern Field"), with a smoothed path between the two, which is where (and why) Lindy took his grossly-overloaded Ryan off from the far NE corner (lower right), roughly where the "H" is in "CLUBHOUSE", to get the added, and desperately-needed, advantage of a downhill run.]
A few maps of the area and era; starting with the 1904 (first) Vanderbilt Cup Race course, have been moved to the
Here's a postcard view of Robertson driving the Locomobile #16 that won the 24 October 1908 race, at speed on a lightly banked curve, courtesy of Panel Associate Mark Desantis:
Note the ubiquitous water pipe that ran alongside the early LIMP to supply water for construction, wetting the roadway, etc.
From the October 1st*, 1910, (sixth) race, here is parking space ticket No. 1077 for Pratt's Farm at the corner of School Street and Old Country Road in Westbury:
From that same 1910 race, here is a poster (a chromolithograph - in B&W for the moment) from a non-copyrighted brochure announcing "The Crowd Goes Wild!!! - Spectator Sports on Long Island", an exhibit running to 03 Nov 2002 at the Long Island Museum of American Art, History & Carriages in Stony Brook:
(07 Sep 02)
Note that the right front wheel, which should be grinding into the ground on that wild let turn, is 'way up in the air; in charity with the illustrator, let us assume the car had just hit a bad bump!
Note also that, as with so many images, the race appears to be on a dirt road, NOT on the LIMP!
* - Verrrry interesting - the poster clearly states October 15th! If we had a color image, we'd see that the Cup race was on the 1st and a "Grand Prize" {sic} race was on the 15th. Busy place, the LIMP and surrounding roads! Notice also that the race started at daylight.
Associate Mark DeSantis sent this photo of a 1909 Cup Race pennant (thanks, Mark):
See his site for many more, including these two significant shots Mark sent out on 05 Dec 01:
The first is of an LIRR train bringing fans to the race; the second is labeled "The turn from the old Westbury road into the new Parkway."
The train seems to be at Westbury station heading west and appears to have a Pennsy D16b-class American (4-4-0, Nos. 201 to 231) loco on point (they were leased to the LIRR) and is remarkable in that there are people all over the place, even on the tender and on the roof of the first car!
The road shot puzzles me; did they construct massive ramps to run from the public roads to the course/LIMP, or is the gap in the fence (beyond) the entry?
Note again that ubiquitous water pipe that parallels the LIMP in all early photos. It was for construction and also probably to wet down dust and supply the lodges and service areas; 45 miles of water pipe?
This seems as good a place as any (where there's a bit of room!) to show a picture that Dr. Mark DeSantis sent me of Old 16, the Locomobile that won the 1908 race getting ready to run the parade lap at Roosevelt Field in 1936:
(courtesy M. DeSantis)
Only fly in this ointment is that it seems to me that the streamlined car behind Old 16 is quite clearly the 1939 World's Fair Lincoln Zephyr show car, which I knew quite well (see Automotive). I suppose it must be the 1936 Pierce Silver Arrow concept car, witness those faired headlights, but an enlargement of the grille sure looks like the Lincoln.
Here's an unprovenanced photo of George Robertson and Joe Tracy seated in the car years later:
(unprovenanced photo courtesy of M. DeSantis)
[Thumbnail image; click on picture for larger image.]
It's a nostalgic, yet sad, sight; there was a problem that day. It seems that Tracy still owned her and Robertson pressed him to let him (Robertson) drive it again (and both of them elderly and frail). Most reluctantly, Tracy aquiesced, warning Robertson to go easy on the old beast and Robertson REALLY FLOGGED her and ticked Tracy off so badly that Tracy vowed never to let any one drive Old 16 again. That held until Peter Helck bought her and allowed her to run ca. 1965, as noted above.
Now, here, thanks to Panel Associate Mark DeSantis, is an aerial view of the 1937 course, which I believed to be taken looking SW over what is now Roosevelt Field Shopping Center; the only lone hangar like that of which I know is the old Moisant Hangar in which George Dade lived and that was along Clinton Street. Ah, but tread carefully, here!
(unprovenanced photo courtesy of M. DeSantis)
{That dark line at lower right appears to be a wing strut.}
This is that same photo with suggested features added; the view is supposedly to the SW:
Thus {at first glance. eh?}, the LIMP RoW would appear comes in from the N at the upper right, run along the W side of the field, loop around past the Garden City Toll Lodge (TL) and Superintendant's House (on today's Vanderbilt Court - the dark blob is the water tower immediately N of the TL site and still there), and continue due E along the S edge of the Field, disappearing off the left edge of the picture near the top, as noted. The white line at upper right was inducated as probably Washington Street (with Franklin Avenue out of sight beyond it) and Stewart Avenue running from just beyond the vertex of the SW turn off to the upper right.
(unprovenanced photo courtesy of M. DeSantis; altered by SB,III)
The fill over that underpass allowing access to Old Country Road (supposedly out of sight to the lower right) might therefore well be the odd bridge-like structure shown in that other aerial shown elsewhere on these pages, before earth fill was added {?}. Nope, that was on LIMP History page 3, 2/3 of the way towards the bottom, in 1931, and runs SW-NE, although it may well serve a similar purpose (access to the infield).
Well, in my enthusiasm, I homed in on the lone hangar, completely forgetting that this is Roosevelt Raceway, NOT Roosevelt Field!. Thus, all the above is balderdash, except about the access underpass and the wing strut. Having instantly been gently but firmly pulled up short by eagle-eyed Panel Associate Mitch Kaften, I redid the image as follows:
(unprovenanced photo courtesy of M. DeSantis; re-altered by SB,III)
You can even see the line of Roosevelt Flying Field hangars along Old Country Road, between the apron and the road, between the words "FIELD" and "OLD".
So, now we realize that we are looking NW (NOT SW) and that the hangar is the one on Old Country Road at Roosevelt Raceway, to the E of Roosevelt Field, a small corner of which appear at the upper left, and that this is the same racecourse (apparently during construction) as that shown on a conceptual view near the top of this very page(!), and that the LIMP RoW runs diagonally, parallel to old Country Road, at the lower left, but, most unfortunately, OUT OF RANGE OF THIS PHOTO! The N-S road between the Field and the Raceway may well be Ellison Avenue (note how cautious I am, now).
(Incidentally, the Moisant hangar faced Roosevelt Field, not sided on it; that fact, alone, should have clued me in!)
Oh, well; win a few, lose a few!
Far from being annoyed with me, Mark sent three more pictures; the first two are almost indistinguishable from the one above and so I show them at low resolution (memory, doncha know?), but the third (an earlier frame) is from an entirely different angle, looking NNW from roughly dead over the LIMP Row at Merrick Avenue and so I show it as a thumbnail so that you can click on it for a much higher resolution image. If we could push up on the aileron strut (and it IS that; see the lower wing and the outboard interplane strut to its right?) to lift the port ailerons a wee bit and drop the port wings, we could see the LIMP across the lower margin, parallel to OCR which shows clearly near the top margin, running from left to right (W to E).
(unprovenanced photo courtesy of M. DeSantis)
[The bottom image is a thumbnail; click on the photo for a larger (248Kb) image.]
{Those dark lines at the right are the aileron (l.) and interplane (r.) struts.}
These pictures appear to be from a single run; the course is clearly NOT just under construction; the stands are packed as is the parking behind them, but there desn't appear to be any infield parking; perhaps it was just practice (or "just" a motorcycle race or very poor attendance)?
Those streets in Westbury running down (N-to-S) to OCR are almost certainly (l-to-r) Ellison and Central Avenues and Grand and Fulton Streets, with Post/Merrick Avenue just off the image to the right, and Ellison Avenue and Maple, Pine, and Fulton Streets S of OCR, crossing Taylor Avenue and ending at Privado Road.
More material not directly pertaining to the Motor Parkway will be extracted from the LIMP pages
and placed here as time permits.
THUMBS UP!
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S. Berliner, III
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of this series of Long Island Motor Parkway pages.
© Copyright S. Berliner, III -
2000, 2001, 2002,
2005
- All rights reserved.
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[If my discs weren't floppy, my photos wouldn't be LIMP!]
times since the counter was installed.
The index on this page has been truncated (links removed) to save page space; see the LIMP Index on the page preceding the main LIMP page.
(12 Apr 05)
(photo from George Thane site - all rights reserved)
