Vanderbilt Cup Races

Identify the aerial’s location and orientation of the photographer.
Over Roosevelt Field looking West-Northwest directly at Mineola.

Identify the major roads and a railroad.
Central Line, Old Country Rd, Jericho Tpke, Clinton Ave.

Identify the bridges of the Long Island Motor Parkway.
Mineola RR bridge, Old Country Rd, and the Mayan ruins

What is the series of ovals on the left section of the aerial? What is currently in this location?
Mineola Fairgrounds- now the Supreme Court building

Identify the buildings in the lower right section of the aerial.
Roosevelt Field buildings and entrance at the intersection of OCR and Clinton

What is the approximate date of the aerial? Provide a rationale.
Mid to late 1930’s- LIMP appears to still be active and the Roosevelt Field buildings approximate the date for me

Kudos bonus: Identify a building in the aerial that was associated with the 1904 Vanderbilt Cup Race.
Krugs Hotel on Jericho Tpke.

Correction; not the Central RR line- it’s the main LIRR line

What a great shot!  This is Garden City looking west-northwest.  LIMP is in the bottom right quadrant as its coming from the north, goes over the LIRR and under Old Country road.  A few hangers from Roosevelt field are also present in the bottom right. 

The circles are from the Mineola Fairgrounds, which I believe had automobile racing and ran parallel to Washington Ave.  The court buildings are currently in that location.

The reason why I love this shot so much is I’ve never seen a picture of the Mott section with buildings that belonged to Camp Mills.  If I had to guess this was 31 or 32, since the Motts went up starting in 36.

I would love to see more GC pics from this era.

Identify the aerial’s location and orientation of the photographer.  Garden City, looking west and north

Identify the major roads and a railroad.  Old Country Road, Franklin, Clinton, Motor Parkway, Washington, Roslyn, Transverse.  Main line of the LIRR

Identify the bridges of the Long Island Motor Parkway.  LIRR Bridge, Old Country Road, Mayan Ruins

What is the series of ovals on the left section of the aerial? What is currently in this location? Racing track of the Mineola/Nassau Fair/Queens Agricultural Society.  Currently the Nassau County Court Complex

Identify the buildings in the lower right section of the aerial.  Part of Roosevelt Field

What is the approximate date of the aerial? Provide a rationale.  Late 1920s - mid 1930s.  Limited development east of the racetrack ovals towards Roosevelt Field.

Kudos bonus: Identify a building in the aerial that was associated with the 1904 Vanderbilt Cup Race.  Initial entries - may try to finalize later this weekend.  But here are some possibilities - The Denton Building that housed the offices of the Vanderbilt Cup Race Committee in Garden City - but that may not have been until 1909.  Perhaps Graves Garage in Mineola.  Or August Porrier’s Garage, but that might not actually be shown on the pic.  Hopefully will find more time to do more research on this one. 

*Location/Orientation:  Bird’s Eye View of Garden City & Mineola

*Major Rd’s/Railroads:  LIMP of course. Clinton, Transverse, & Old Country Rd’s. Washington, Franklin, & Westbury Ave’s. LIRR Main & Oyster Bay Line’s.

*LIMP Bridges:  Mayan Ruin abutments, Old Country Rd. Hwy Type, and LIRR Pkwy Type. If this crystal clear image captured more north, we would see the Westbury Ave Pkwy/Trolley Bridge.

*Ovals within aerial & present day view:  Mineola Fairgrounds, now the Nassau County Court Complex.

*Buildings lower right:  All part of Roosevelt Field.

*Date aerial/rationale:  An active LIMP ( southbound auto between LIRR & Old Country Rd. ) About 1930.

*Building associated w/1904 VCR:  Upper right & extreme closeup, Krug’s Hotel at NW corner of Jericho Tpke & Mineola Ave.

For the bonus question I’m revising my answer to Krug’s Hotel on the corner of Willis and Jericho Turnpikes.

Aerial photo over Garden City,at edge of Roosevelt field, facing west.
Roads- Motor Parkway running north from Clinton Ave up past OLd Country road, between (between what would later become Russel Rd and Pell Terrace)
Clinton Avenue bottom right, intersecting with Old Country Road in right corner of picture
Bridges- Bridge over LIRR and Old Country Highway bridge
The Ovals were part of the Mineola Fairgrounds- now the Nassau County Court complex on Washington ST in Garden City
Buildings in bottom right were the hangars of Roosevelt Field
Date: I would guess 1930s given the hangars and lack of development in east GArden City

No time for research but can’t resist - wild guess/first stab:  over Roosevelt Field, looking northwest,  LIMP diagonally across lower center right.  LIRR Main LIne upper left to lower right, with Old Country Road immediately to its south (lower left).  Clinton Road at lower right, with RF hangars.  Ovals are old Mineola Fairgrounds; now Nassau County courts complex.  OCR and LIRR bridges.  Very early aerial - Garden City not yet built up.  GC Hotel?  Gotta run.  Sam, III

The picture was taken over Roosevelt Airfield looking west.
LIRR Ronkonkama and Oyster Bay lines. Old Country Road, Mineola Blvd, Willis Ave, Roslyn Road, ect.
LIMP bridges - over LIRR, under Old Country Rd and over farmway in Garden City.
Mineola Fairgrounds with harness racing ovals, now Nassau County Court complex.
Airplane hangers for Roosevelt Field.
Picture was taken at the end of 1920’s early ‘30’s judging by the start of sub divisions.

Long Island Rail Road mineola Station is visible.  Junctions to Hempstead Branch and Oyster Bay branch visible along with large substation where Hempstead branch drops off heading south.  This is before Hempstead line was cut back to Country Life Press.
Photographer is facing wet-northwest

I think the ovals are on site of the Bloomingdale Saks Fifth Avenue location in Garden City. Race track for autos. Building to west side of ovals was there in conjunction with stands in 1904.  All related to County Fair Groinds in Mineola

LIMP passes over the LIRR and under Old Country Road.

Road to the north Edge of the ovals is Old Country Road

Lower right structures are part of Mitchell Field.

My time estimates is 1925-30 based on railroad, level of development and Mitchell Field

The photographer is over East Garden City looking west toward Mineola. Along with the LIMP, we can see Roslyn Road, Mineola Blvd, Franklin Ave, Old Country Road, Clinton Road, and Glen Cove Road. The two LIMP bridges are over the LIRR Mainline and under Old Country Road, along with the “Mayan Ruins” abutments. The series of ovals are various race tracks at the old Mineola Fairgrounds which is the current site of the Nassau County Court Complex. The buildings in the lower right are hangars, etc. at Roosevelt Field. Since the first “new” courthouse on the fairgrounds property opened in 1940 and there is no evidence of any construction for this building, I think the photo dates to around 1936. The building associated with the 1904 V. C. Race is probably the “old” Nassau County Courthouse in which Supreme Court Justice (and famous Patchogue resident) Wilmot M. Smith made the decision on 10/7/1904 to allow the race to take place the next day.

Looking northwest over Mineola.
Old Country Road and LIRR Central branch diagonally upper left-lower right
Oval in center is Mineola Fairgrounds racetrack.
Nassau County Courthouse on Franklin Avenue
Police headquarters to the left of the courthouse.
Approximate year 1930 based on the look of the police building.

Additional info - The Queens-Nassau Agricultural Society sold the site where the Nassau County Courthouse currently is to Nassau County in 1938.  As part of the agreement, Nassau County was to take over all of the grounds as a civic center and after the 1952 fair, the County used it for the rest of the buildings currently there today.

Identify the aerial’s location and orientation of the photographer.
Generally north west over Carl Place towards Mineola.

Identify the major roads and a railroad.
At the bottom we see Clinton Rd, then the LIMP. Running across is Old Country Road. The LIRR runs parallel to OCR; the Mineola station is just visible along with the Oyster Bay branch and the branch line to Hempstead.

Identify the bridges of the Long Island Motor Parkway.
I only see the bridge over OCR middle right side

These are all the answers I have.

Mystery Foto #28… I am going to take a stab at it because my research had poor results. The series of ovals on the left section of the aerial could be Deer Park Speedway (Dix Hills Racetrack) long ago closed and replaced by a community called Baldwin Estates. That’s all I’ve got this time.

The photo was taken over Garden City and Mineola facing northwest
Major roads - Clinton Rd, Old Country Rd, Glen Cove Rd, Jericho Turnpike, Westbury Rd, Roslyn Rd, Washington Ave, Franklin Ave, Mineola Blvd, and LIMP

LIRR Mainline, LIRR Oyster Bay branch, Mineola spur to Garden City
LIMP Bridges- Mayan ruins, Old Country Rd, and LIRR mainline.

The ovals is the Mineola Fairgrounds which is now the Nassau County Court Complex
The buildings in the lower right hand side is part of Roosevelt Field off of Clinton Rd
I would date the photo to be around 1938/39 due to comparing it with the 1942 photo.
It looks like Krugs corner and Hotel is still there and also the building across the other side of Willis Ave, 136 Jericho Turnpike

Howard, would it be a possibility to expand the picture where NYU Winthrop Hospital is located ? It would be really cool to see it’s buildings there at the time (which btw in the lobby has the names of many of the LIMP benefactors carved onto 2 huge marble stones), and possibly do a focus story on the hospital’s history and its connection to the cup races.  Thanks, Mike
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Howard Kroplick

Mike, close-up has been added above.

Art - personal favor, please.  Can you put a street number on the Denton Building?  Ca. 1956, I worked in what I then knew as the Denton Building, at the south-east corner of Hilton Avenue and the tracks (between 6th and 7th Streets).  Perhaps I misremember; there’s no trace of any such there, now.  I also worked in the basement of George Dade’s building on the north side of OCR immediately east of the LIMP RoW and in the Oxford-Pendaflex (ex-Curtiss) building at Clinton between Stewart and Commercial and lived many years in the ca. 1928 Mott section of Mineola (Marcellus, between Jericho and Hillside).  So, this picture is quite a kick for me!  By the way, the old Garden City Hotel is just off screen at the center left and certainly would qualify for a bonus if it were visible.  Darn!  What are the grouped rectangles two-three blocks north of Osborne and what’s in that big field just to the east?  Sam, III

1926 aerial of the Mineola Fair and Clinton Road Motor Parkway Bridge added above.

sam - would you happen to remember who you worked for in the Denton Building?

Camp Mills?  NO.  Camp Mills was east of Clinton and south of the LIRR Central Branch tracks; see <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Camp_mills_new_york.jpg>.  There’s a monument to the Rainbow Division (the 42nd) at St James Street and Rainbow Place (the triangle at Clinton) across from the site of Camp Mills.  I asked about the same area, above.  Sam, III
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Howard Kroplick

Garden City Village Historian Bill Bellmer has confirmed that the remnants of the Camp Mill Hospital Complex can be seen in the middle of both the 1926 and 1931 aerials. More documentation to follow.

Howard,

Any chance you could make a high quality available for download?  I’m collecting early Mott aerials for a photo collage of the area and would love to add this to my wall. Dave
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Dave,

I sent you a high resolution jpeg courtesy of Richard Panchyk.

Sorry I missed this but this aerial also displays the sharpest view to date of the Old Country Road highway bridge and the Mineola RR bridge. Howard, would love to see these zoomed by your methods. Nice aerial shot.
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Howard Kroplick
Close-ups added above.

Update #3: Close-ups of the Old Country Road Motor Parkway Bridge, LIRR Mainline Bridge and Mayan Ruins Motor Parkway Bridge added above.

Art - I “happen” to remember; it was my first job back on LI after Aberdeen and was for Theiss, Inc., first in the Dade building basement, then Denton 2nd floor rear.  Also, let’s be careful, lest we propagate another myth, to remember, all of you, that there NEVER WAS a bridge over Transverse Road; only the abutments, the so-called (by us, now) Mayan Ruins, were ever built and the depressed roadway was later filled in back up to grade.  Sam, III
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Howard Kroplick I

Agree with Sam II, it was just a planned bridge that was never completed.

While I’m at it, the “Right Corner: Mayan Ruins Mo{to}r Parkway Bridge” photo clearly shows the rectangular features north of Osborne to which I referred and the large field to their east.  What is that all about?  Also, in the second close-up, “North of Oyster Bay LIRR:- Buildings of the Camp Mills Hospital Complex” probably should read “Between Old Country Road and the LIRR Main Line”.  The OB Branch cuts off north further west in downtown Mineola (top center in main photo).  Sam, III

Courtesy of Richard Panchyk, if anyone wants a high-resolution jpeg of this aerial, please send your request to me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)