In early March, ‘Then & Now’ featured a 1906 view of the Erie Railroad Cut as seen from the Kearny Ave. bridge between Locust and Washngton Aves. This week’s photo is from 1907, looking toward that bridge from below.’The Cut,’ which served the Erie, Erie-Lackawanna, and then NJ Transit, saw its last passenger train in 2002. Today, only a portions of the tracks remain to indicate the site’s former use. It has become a virtual jungle.
We would have liked to have shown the bridge in the ‘Now’ photo, but we were not about to venture through the underbrush. Not alone, anyway. As has been noted before, disused railroad tracks have become a common travel route for forest animals coming down from rural areas; animals that are being displaced by mini-malls and condos and such.
We wouldn’t have minded seeing a deer or a raccoon or wild turkeys, but who knows what might be lurking in ‘The Cut’? Just last week, small packs of coyotes were reported roaming around Elmwood Park.
Coyotes! In Elmwood Park? Be alert. And if you happen to hear howling some night, don’t assume it’s just your neighbor.
– Karen Zautyk
