The Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal was a shortline railroad and marine terminal with its main facilities and administrative offices located on 86–88 Kent Avenue (now part of East River State Park and Bushwick Inlet Park) in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York City.
Background The BEDT was first organized in 1906 as a marine and navigation company independent of the railroad operations of the East River Terminal Railroad, incorporated in 1907, but its parentage precedes that date to the company Palmer's Docks. Palmer's Docks was the original combined rail-marine operation, and from all research to date, it was the first rail-marine terminal to operate in Brooklyn.
The BEDT was not large, with a cumulative total of of track at its peak. However, BEDT had many locomotives and was 100% steam-powered until 1963. It would be the largest of the four independent rail-marine terminals in Brooklyn, the others being Bush Terminal Company, Jay Street Terminal (Jay Street Connecting Railroad), and New York Dock Railway.
Throughout its history, the BEDT had at least six car float bridges along the Brooklyn waterfront located at North 3rd Street, North 5th Street, North 6th Street, North 9th Street, Wallabout Market (1935-1941), and Brooklyn Navy Yard (after 1941). The company maintained one float bridge in Queens at Pidgeon Street and one in New Jersey at Warren Street (1910 – ca. 1929). There was one pier station at Queensboro Terminal in Queens at 14th Street in Long Island City, near the Long Island Rail Road's Long Island City station. Wallabout Market opened around 1933 and was eventually merged with Navy Yard operations in 1941. Queensboro Terminal had a long run, opening in 1914 and closing around 1930.
For most of its history, the BEDT operated around the clock Monday through Saturday with occasional Sunday operations. In its later years, days of operations were reduced to Monday through Friday with occasional Saturday operations.
The BEDT is famous for being the last operator of steam locomotives for freight service in New York, with steam locomotive operations ceasing on October 25, 1963. Operations continued until 1983 with diesel locomotives.
Rail-marine terminal A rail-marine terminal is also known as a carfloating operation, whereby railroad freight cars are loaded upon a barge by locomotive via a floatbridge, and transported across the water by tugboat to another such location where they are unloaded by another locomotive and float bridge. There, the cars are placed spotted at their desired locations.
The Rail-Marine Terminals located in Brooklyn, NY; (BEDT, Bush Terminal, New York Dock and Jay Street Terminal) were also known as "Contract Terminals". They are so named because they would be contracted by the Class 1 railroads (i.e.: PRR, LV, DL&W, etc..) to transport freight to and from destinations not serviced by the consigned carrier.
Owners
The BEDT was organized by the principals of Havemeyers & Elder, primarily Henry O. Havemeyer, (1847–1907). The BEDT was the successor to Palmer's Docks, which was a combined marine/rail operation, which was organized by Lowell Mason Palmer, (1845–1915). Palmer would partner with the Havemeyers in 1875 to expand the scope of operations of Palmer's Docks through 1905. In 1906, when Lowell Palmer took leave of the operation, the Havemeyer's re-incorporated the organization into the Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal as a navigation corporation. The railroad operation was incorporated separately as the East River Terminal Railroad in 1907. In 1915 however, the railroad and the navigation corporation Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal were merged and reincorporated into the Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal as a freight terminal corporation.
The Havemeyers were widely recognized for their large and successful business interests in the sugar refining industry as "Havemeyer & Elder Sugar Refining" and then "American Sugar Refining" which were located in the New York metropolitan area. See Domino Foods, Inc.
The BEDT, however, was organized as a completely separate business entity from the sugar interests. Reasons for this are not definitive, but it is hypothesized that this railroad/marine operation was kept organizationally independent of the sugar interests due to several legal problems that the sugar operation was embroiled in.
The Havemeyer family would be directly involved in the administration of the BEDT right through 1972, at which time the BEDT would be purchased by Petro Oil, (1972–1976), R.J. Reynolds (1976–1978) and finally New York Dock Properties (1978 through 1983).
Operations
1870–1876 In the beginning, Palmer's Dock, organized by Lowell Palmer; was primarily responsible for the transportation of incoming raw sugar and outgoing refined sugar products, with its fledgling freight business growing throughout the years. Lowell Palmer became partners with the Havemeyers in this venture, after becoming financially partnered with Havemeyer & Elder, and in that Palmer was also the main supplier of casks and barrels for the transportation of Havemeyer & Elder's refined sugar products.
Palmer had been located on the Williamsburg waterfront since the 1860s as Palmer's Cooperage. In 1870, Palmer organized Palmer's Dock, a freight terminal. In 1873, he started a navigation company with a single tugboat and car float that would transport railroad freight cars to the Williamsburg waterfront where those freight cars would be unloaded directly at the bulkhead, but no floatbridge existed at this time to unload the freight cars.
Palmer's descendants, including his son Lowell, would have controlling interests in the Brooklyn Cooperage Company, also located along the Williamsburg Waterfront.
1876–1905 At this time, Lowell Palmer had constructed a carfloat at the foot of North 5th Street with team tracks splitting up from the floatbridge, and trackage extended east up North 5th Street. The construction of the floatbridge enabled Palmer to place or "spot" railroad freight cars directly next to the structures of his customers on the various streets.
Palmer also constructed a consolidated coal facility on Kent Avenue and North 9th Street. This coal facility was state of the art at that time, and greatly reduced the amount of physical labor required for the coal wholesale suppliers in the area. Prior to the construction of this facility, these coal suppliers had to employ large amounts of labor to manually unload the coal barges at the waterfront, where men in the coal barge would shovel the coal into buckets and hoist it up to the dock. The coal would be dumped into wheelbarrows, and wheeled two blocks east to the coal bins. Where it was dumped into street level bins. To load into a coal retailers wagon or truck, it would have to be shoveled again.
With the construction of the coal facility, railroad hopper cars loaded with coal could be brought directly by way of carfloat, where a locomotive hauled the hopper car(s) off the carfloat and brought it up an incline, and placed it in the elevated coal facility. The hopper car had chutes on its underside and these chutes were placed over the coal bins by locomotive, and when opened, the coal would discharge into the storage bins (silo) below. These storage bins themselves were elevated above street level, and at such time when the retailers wagon or truck, located under the silo chute; the coal could be dispensed directly into the coal retailers vehicle.
Palmer would also construct large buildings along these streets and lease the space to Class 1 railroads as freight depots. A freight customer could ship or take delivery of their items with the West Shore, Erie or Central Railroad of New Jersey among others at these freight depots. Customers would now have a choice of carrier to transport their goods.
The Pennsylvania Railroad also had a freight depot: the "North 4th Street Terminal" located adjacent to the Palmers Dock operation, but this property was not affiliated with or leased space from Palmer as the other railroads were.
Also along the water front and served by Palmer's Docks, were a sulfur works, a grain and feed elevator, a rubber factory and a lumber yard, among many smaller storage buildings.
Throughout the years, railroad tracks would expand north and east from the original installation at North 5th Street, eventually reaching North 10th Street, where Palmer also constructed a large warehouse, which was used as hay depot for the various stables in the area.
1905–1915 Lowell Palmer left the Palmer's Dock organization in 1905 after testifying at a hearing on the railroad 'rebate' scandals, and the Havemeyer's reincorporated the railroad operation in 1907 as the "East River Terminal Railroad". The marine aspect of the operation would be reincorporated as the "Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal" in 1906.
Also in 1906, the Pidgeon Street Yard would open to freight traffic, having been planned several years prior by Lowell Palmer.
At this juncture, only the tugboat and carfloat operations carried the BEDT name, while the railroad aspect of operations was known and incorporated as the East River Terminal Railroad in 1907.
In 1909, the Havemeyers announced their construction of a huge building with railroad access, between Kent Avenue and the bulkhead and between North 3 and North 4th Streets. Ironically, the mighty Pennsylvania RR tried to block this construction in court, as it would 'box them in' with no room to expand.
The courts ruled in favor of the East River Terminal RR and when completed in 1915, the building and the connecting railroad trackage would become home to Austin Nichols, a most prominent grocer and sundry wholesaler of the time.
In 1910, the Havemeyers also opened a railroad terminal in Jersey City, known as the Warren Street Terminal. This terminal would have a floatbridge in the Morris Basin Canal, and the terminal would service an American sugar refining plant (owned by Havemeyer & Elder) located there.
In 1914, the ERTRR/BEDT would also open another terminal in northern Long Island City, known as the Queensboro Terminal. This was located on the East River waterfront at 14th Street, west of Vernon Boulevard. A newspaper article announced that the railyard was planned for this location but reference to property maps of the area in various archives do not show these tracks, and yet some Interstate Commerce Commission documents state there were tracks and a floatbridge at this facility. At the least, the BEDT had built a pier or "wharf" station at this location.
1915–1939 In 1915, the Havemeyer's would consolidate both East River Terminal RR and Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal (navigation) corporations under the Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal name, and incorporate such as a consolidated freight terminal.
In 1935, the BEDT entered into agreement with the City of New York to construct a float bridge and team tracks at the Wallabout Market in Brooklyn, inside the Brooklyn Navy Yard and south of the Delaware, and Lackawanna & Western's Wallabout Terminal. Pursuant to this agreement, the BEDT had to agree to trackage connecting this terminal to the Navy Yard tracks, despite the fact that a separate float bridge was already in place for the Navy Yard. This float bridge and team tracks would allow vendors to receive carload lots of produce for resale in the Wallabout Market.
The BEDT was an independent carrier, with no affiliation with any Class 1 railroads such as the Pennsylvania Railroad and Erie Railroad. However, it was contracted by those Class 1 railroads to transport their freight cars across New York Harbor to desired customers in Brooklyn that were receiving service from the BEDT.
1939–1963