Ozone Park (LIRR station)

Ozone Park is a former Long Island Rail Road station. Ozone Park station was set up to enable passengers from Pennsylvania Station and Flatbush Avenue to reach the Rockaway Park area or Far Rockaway section simply by changing trains ("Change At Ozone Park!"). The trains would stack end-to-end, and passengers would transfer back and forth on the platform. Operation in the reverse direction also occurred. Due to street restrictions below, which limited the right-of-way width above, platforms were on the outside of the four track right-of-way, making an across-the-platform exchange impossible. To accommodate this, the platforms were made exceptionally long, so that non-rush hour length MU trains could stack end-to-end and allow passengers to transfer. A set of crossovers from the outside tracks to the inner tracks were at the east end of the station, to permit trains stopping at Ozone Park to run express after the station stop, or to perform the reverse move.

Ozone Park along with remaining stations of the Rockaway Beach Branch still operated by the LIRR, after the 1955 takeover of the line south of Liberty Avenue by the transit authority, were abandoned in 1962 when service between Rego Park and Ozone Park ended. The station and right of way remained intact though with the thought that the transit authority would eventually take over the line north of Liberty Avenue, a proposal that never took place. Ozone Park station remains in place as of current (2009) though in a dilapidated state along with electric utility poles and signal bridges the adorn the right of way.

Since the closing of the line many businesses in the area have set up shop in the portion of trestle below the station. In the late 1980's the F.B.I. used the abandoned platforms to set up a sting operation to monitor the activities of John Gotti and the Gambino crime family, whose social club was down the street from the station.