Vanderbilt Cup Races

Regarding the other person with Christie, could he be Walter Jones ?  Jones had worked with Christie in the past.

From Mystery Foto #14 Solved: Walter Christie making the Bull's Head Turn during a practice run

On further examination, I’m not sure it’s Mr Treadwell in the car.  The man in the car appears to have a mustache.

From Mystery Foto #14 Solved: Walter Christie making the Bull's Head Turn during a practice run

The passenger alongside Christie may be his investor Henry Treadwell.  The photo I have of Mr Treadwell here looks somewhat similar.  Mr Treadwell actually took possession of the Christie Taxi upon the collapse of Christie’s car business. The Treadwell family preserved one of the very few collections of Christie automobile material in existence. The collection contains one of the Christie Automobile brochures, 18 pages, very nicely produced by The Trow Press in NY.  The famous artist Peter Helck produced a color drawing of one of Christie’s racers for the Treadwells in 1961. I am the caretaker of this collection at this time.

From Mystery Foto #14 Solved: Walter Christie making the Bull's Head Turn during a practice run

A closeup of Lewis Strang, he doesn’t resemble the mystery mechanician.

From Mystery Foto #14 Solved: Walter Christie making the Bull's Head Turn during a practice run

Thanks for the info, Al.  And the comments from everyone else.  Never know what’s out there on LI!

From Kleiner's Korner - "Speeders, Wrecks and Cows!" or A Day in the Life of Motor Parkway Officers Zinzi and Ericson

Art, With regard to the Broman’s…. some of the family still live in the area. Also, besides the cows, there is another connection between the family and the Motor Parkway. The sand pits, where the Parkway bridge embankments are located,.... one of the principals is a Broman, the grandson of Adolph.

From Kleiner's Korner - "Speeders, Wrecks and Cows!" or A Day in the Life of Motor Parkway Officers Zinzi and Ericson

Art,....The 50 cents ticket not necessarily a motorcycle ticket. the toll between the Brentwood and Lake Ronkonkoma Lodges for automobiles was 50 cents. ..............Most of the time when the Mr. is listed as the toll collector the Mrs. is really the one collecting the tolls. This situation came up when the toll collectors were enrolled as Special Deputy Sheriffs which gave them limited police powers and allowed them to carry fire arms which were bought and payed for by the Parkway. I’m guessing, “men only” ?      The Parkway police had their own language when describing accident sites. There are literally dozens of these accident reports in the Parkway records at Centreport. The Dip-o-Death was the Parkway section south of Half Hollow Rd. east of Burr’s Lane,.... coming from the east,  a severe downhill stretch crossing Burr’s Lane into a southbound curve just west of Bagatelle Rd. Another example is in Queens where the Motor Parkway west of today’s Francis Lewis Blvd., goes from a east west alignment to a north south direction. That section on accident reports is called the “Big Curve”

From Kleiner's Korner - "Speeders, Wrecks and Cows!" or A Day in the Life of Motor Parkway Officers Zinzi and Ericson

Greg,    the Ernst, McCamish and Scheuer families were all good friends. See page 108 in my book.

From Kleiner's Korner - "Speeders, Wrecks and Cows!" or A Day in the Life of Motor Parkway Officers Zinzi and Ericson

Great post and research Art! Love the cow incidents.
Typo in the report - there was never a 512 St. in NYC.
Dip-O-Death - quite possibly the grade crossing at Bagatelle Rd (Conklin Rd/Av). LIMP was mostly elevated on the west side of Bagatelle.
Speeding - yeah I can see that
Great stuff!

From Kleiner's Korner - "Speeders, Wrecks and Cows!" or A Day in the Life of Motor Parkway Officers Zinzi and Ericson

My “symbol” at the end of my above comment was meant to be a cow, but the legs and head became separated, darn cows!

From Kleiner's Korner - "Speeders, Wrecks and Cows!" or A Day in the Life of Motor Parkway Officers Zinzi and Ericson

Think the speed limit for the LIMP was 40mph. Just read that speeding was measured with a stopwatch along with the general distance between 2 points prior to radar detecting. Guessing whatever mph it took to catch up with the speedster is how the officer came up with a number. The livestock crowding the parkway is amusing now, but probably wasn’t too fun back then <^^>....~
                / \  / \

From Kleiner's Korner - "Speeders, Wrecks and Cows!" or A Day in the Life of Motor Parkway Officers Zinzi and Ericson

I like the connection Bill Cruickshank relayed to me about his Grandfather, Otto McCamish [lodge keeper of the Meadow Brook lodge] accidentally flew his American flag upside down out front and ‘Tommy the cop’ came by to see if there was any trouble.

You get the feeling from that story, and Art’s post, that all the Parkway employees were a tight knit bunch. I’m sure Al V. could expand on that…

From Kleiner's Korner - "Speeders, Wrecks and Cows!" or A Day in the Life of Motor Parkway Officers Zinzi and Ericson

The name Ericson immediately made me think of the Ronkonkoma lodge. Below is a “1920s photograph shows the Ronkonkoma Lodge porte cochere in the background. The young lady is Evelyn Ericson, the daughter of Eric Ericson, the Ronkonkoma lodgekeeper.The Erickson family continued to live in the lodge into the 1960s. (Photo courtesy of Evelyn Miller).”

https://www.vanderbiltcupraces.com/blog/article/the_motor_parkway_toll_collection_structures19_and_20_the_ronkonkoma_toll_g

From Kleiner's Korner - "Speeders, Wrecks and Cows!" or A Day in the Life of Motor Parkway Officers Zinzi and Ericson

Mystery Foto #14… The race car is a 1905 Christie front wheel drive. The driver in this photo is probably George Robertson because this image was taken on a practice day and the race numbers were not yet applied. George drove it in practice only. In the 1905 Vanderbilt Cup Race J. Walter Christie himself was the driver. The mechanician for Christie was Nicolas Leichtener. The date of the photo was probably October 13, 1905 which was a practice day prior to race day.
And as I said above Christie drove the race car in the 1905 Vanderbilt Cup.

From Mystery Foto #14 Solved: Walter Christie making the Bull's Head Turn during a practice run

Nice bald tire on that motorcycle!  Not too safe, chasing those “speedsters”

From Kleiner's Korner - "Speeders, Wrecks and Cows!" or A Day in the Life of Motor Parkway Officers Zinzi and Ericson

A Christie race car. J.W.Christie also built at least one passenger car and one taxi. The hood for the taxi was in the loft of the Long Island Auto Museum for decades and in good shape. Austin had no idea where the rest of the car was or if it even existed. I al;ways thought I should buy that hood but was faced with the problem of where to store it once I got it home.
Austin also had a good collection of sales catalogs issued by the Christie company that he had borrowed from someone whose relatives had invested in the company or knew J.W. Christie. All memories from decades ago.

From Mystery Foto #14 Solved: Walter Christie making the Bull's Head Turn during a practice run

Thanks for the additional info. on Ericson, Gary!

From Kleiner's Korner - "Speeders, Wrecks and Cows!" or A Day in the Life of Motor Parkway Officers Zinzi and Ericson

A little bit more on Gustaf Eric Ericson.  He was born June 10, 1895 and died February 9, 1984.  In the 1930 Census he was listed as living on Rose Street, Ronkonkoma, as Lodge Keeper, Motor Parkway, age 34.  Also in 1940 still at the Motor Parkway, Ronkonkoma.  He also served in the Army in WWI, and was working at Grumman Aircraft Eng. Corp. in 1942.  In 1942 he was described as 5’11” tall, blue eyes, brown hair, light complexion, and weighing 195 lbs.

From Kleiner's Korner - "Speeders, Wrecks and Cows!" or A Day in the Life of Motor Parkway Officers Zinzi and Ericson

Your postcard made me look through my collection where I found this undated triple card of Felice’ on the Island which might be of interest.

From Family Photos of Henry Schmidt's Meadowbrook Hotel in Westbury

This is John Walter Christie passing the Bulls Head Hotel in his Christie front wheel drive race car.  The photo is in the National Automotive History Collection of the Detroit Public Library.  This is an odd photo, notice the car shows neither it’s Elimination Race number 6 or it’s Vanderbilt Cup race number 11.  Walter is driving without his usual leather cap, you can see his hair in the photo.  The passenger is unknown to me, perhaps he gave a ride to one of his investors (H.H.Tredwell) or a journalist?  It is not George Robertson, who drove the Christie in the Elimination Race. George never seemed to get the hang on driving a front wheel drive car, so Walter put himself back behind the wheel for the main race. The date of the photo could be anywhere from Sept 22 to Oct 13, 1905.

From Mystery Foto #14 Solved: Walter Christie making the Bull's Head Turn during a practice run