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Erie And DL&W In Hudson County, NJ Bill Brennan's 1958-1959 Black & White Photo
The Erie And DL&W In Hudson County, NJ Bill Brennan's 1958-1959 BLACK & WHITE Photography BY ROBERT J. YANOSEY Morning Sun Books
SOFTCOVER 128 PAGES
Copyright 2017
Bill Brennan captures these two roads in Kearny, Jersey City, Hoboken, and Secaucus in the years just prior to the EL merger.
In 1955 at the tender age of nine, this author moved "uptown" (if such a word can be applied to a one-square-mile town) to a two-family house at 40 Hendel Avenue, North Arlington, NJ. I grew up fascinated by trains due to annual summer pilgrimages back to my folks' hometowns in Western Pennsylvania (my dad's in Bradenville, outside Latrobe and my mom's in East Vandergrift, a.k.a. "Morning Sun") where main lines of the Pennsylvania Railroad dominated the little communities.
On my new street, I mingled with kids my age playing touch football, stick ball, "ring-a-levio", and other games as long as the day permitted and paid scant attention to the skinny, scholarly-looking teenager (he was six years my elder) with black-rimmed glasses I occasionally saw walking down the block, school briefcase in hand. Although Bill Brennan (1940-2012) lived almost directly across the street, I didn't get to know him until about 1958 or '59.
Exactly who told me, I do not recall, but one of the other kids or my older brother Tom mentioned something that got my attention: Bill loved trains. Wow. If this was true, it would be wonderful to meet someone with the same interest I had. I was intrigued enough to approach him one day coming down the street and, indeed, Bill confirmed, he did love trains. He proved himself a walking encyclopedia on the subject and more than willing to share. I quickly learned that my casual fascination was actually an organized hobby; that there were tons of literature written about it; and, most of all, one of its more dynamic aspects was photography. On that first day, Bill encouraged me (pleased, no doubt, that a neighboring kid took an interest in his hobby) and even gave me a fistful of black-and-white prints; reproductions of some of which are found in this book. Friendly, generous, and always eager to promote the hobby, Bill became my mentor in the world of railroad enthusiasts. It was the start of a lifelong friendship and my ultimate profession as a railroad book publisher and author.
In 1958-59, Bill was in his sophomore and junior years at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, studying mechanical and electrical engineering. He opted to continue living at home and commute every day from North Arlington to Hoboken. This involved a mile-and-a-half walk south to the Arlington station in Kearny, a 14-minute ride east on the Erie's Greenwood Lake Division, and a half-mile walk north to Stevens. North Arlington is the southernmost town in Bergen County, but once Bill crossed the North Arlington-Kearny border, he entered Hudson County, home base for the New York Terminal operations of both the Erie and Delaware, Lackawanna and Western railroads and the subject of this book.
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