Red Hook Trolleys Up Close

With the Fairway in Red Hook now open, you can finally get up close to the trolleys that have been sitting at the end of Van Brunt Street for years. (At least, depending on what sort of mood Fairway and New York Water Taxi employees are in. Both tend to be a bit mercurial in this regard. Some days you can wander around and other days you can't.) In any case, this is the sad state of these trolleys. At one time, they were covered in tarp to protect them from the elements and vandals, but no longer. The trolleys are left over from an effort to show the value of light rail transit in Red Hook. The city Department of Transportation ended the experiment in 2003 and even ordered some of the demonstration tracks covered over. (Burying trolley tracks, after all, is a grand Brooklyn tradition.) Gowanus Lounge admits to being a bit obssessed with trolleys-light rail being a solution to Red Hook's isolation from subway lines. We offered a bit of background on the issue the other day.