page_title: Kew Gardens station (LIRR)
section_title: Lefferts Boulevard Bridge
hierarchical_section_title: Kew Gardens station (LIRR) / Lefferts Boulevard Bridge
caption_attribution_description: English: Looking north at shops on a sunny midday. Apart from the pizza place, all are on the Lefferts Avenue Bridge over the station glimpsed on left.
context_page_description: Kew Gardens is a station on the Main Line of the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR). It is located in the Kew Gardens neighborhood of Queens, New York City, near Austin Street and Lefferts Boulevard. The station is located within the City Terminal Zone, part of LIRR fare zone 1. It contains four tracks and two side platforms for the outermost tracks.
  The Kew Gardens station was built on the site of a station named Hopedale, which operated from 1875 to 1884 and served the Maple Grove Cemetery nearby. Another station named Maple Grove was built even closer to the cemetery in 1879. The station closed in 1909 as the LIRR was rerouted onto a more direct alignment with the construction of the Maple Grove Cut-Off. Maple Grove was replaced by the current Kew Gardens station in 1910. The station's opening played an integral part in the construction of the community of Kew Gardens. The Kew Gardens train crash took place east of the station on November 22, 1950, which killed 78 people and injured 363 others in the worst crash in the LIRR's history.
context_section_description: In order to pass over the Long Island Rail Road, at the eastern end of the Kew Gardens station, Lefferts Boulevard passes over on an 180 foot (55 m)-long bridge, which is lined on both sides with commercial buildings. The bridge was built in 1910, and the stores on either side of the bridge, which were located on their own bridges, were constructed in the early 1930s. The bridges that hold the stores in place actually run through their roofs, with the stores hanging from the bridge. The bridge upon which Lefferts Boulevard passes over is owned by the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) while the other two bridges are owned by the LIRR and are leased to a master tenant which leases out the buildings to local businesses. The building facade for the stores on the western side of the bridge is in the neo-Tudor design while the facade for the stores on the eastern side is in the Art Deco style. The bridge has been called Ponte Vecchio, meaning "old bridge" in Italian, and refers to the bridge in Florence, which has stores on either side of it. The Bridge is the heart of the community of Kew Gardens, and its residents have attributed the charm of the neighborhood to it. It is the only bridge in New York City, and likely in the United States that has stores on either side of it, and therefore many Kew Gardens residents have pushed for its designation as a landmark on the National Registry of Historical Places to protect it from development.
caption: All the shops to the right of the pizzeria are on the Lefferts Boulevard bridge over the station
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