A photograph taken in Inwood in September 1975 captures a railroad scene that would look very out of place today. Three young children stand beside the Long Island Rail Road tracks while a train approaches behind them. There is no fence separating the children from the active railroad right-of-way.
The Long Island Daily Press did not give the photograph a subtle title. It called it “An Accident Waiting to Happen.”
The photograph was taken on September 13, 1975, just east of the Inwood LIRR station in Nassau County.
According to the newspaper’s original description, the three children were from Pearsall Place, the residential street visible at the far right of the photograph. Inwood station can be seen farther down the tracks in the background.
The basic details preserved with the image are straightforward:
- The photograph was taken September 13, 1975.
- The children were residents of Pearsall Place in Inwood.
- They were standing beside unfenced Long Island Rail Road tracks.
- The location was just east of Inwood station.
- An LIRR train was on the tracks behind them.
The photograph belonged to the Long Island Daily Press Photograph Morgue Collection and was produced as a 7-by-9-inch gelatin silver print.
The newspaper’s title, “An Accident Waiting to Happen,” provides important context.
This was not simply a photograph of neighborhood children watching a train. The lack of a fence along an active railroad line was the point of the image.
More than half a century later, the photograph preserves a remarkably specific moment in Inwood: three neighborhood children, Pearsall Place, the Long Island Rail Road and an unfenced stretch of track on September 13, 1975.
Photo: Long Island Daily Press, September 13, 1975. An Accident Waiting to Happen. Long Island Daily Press Photograph Morgue Collection. Copyright holder unknown.
