May 21st, 1971, it was the end of the life for this end of the line – the section of track, commonly refered to as a Rail Spur was built in 1930 to service Pilgrim State Hospital, the largest hospital ever built.
Pilgrim was specifically built as an answer to one of New York city’s greatest problems – mental illness, millions of the mentally ill would see transit over the track in it’s forty years of service as it broke out from the Ronkonkoma line. Now as it fades into part of nature we walk to where the rails disappear and any recollection of such vast industrious human processing vanishes into a memory that many would rather soon forget.
