Richmond Hill (LIRR station)

Richmond Hill
The Richmond Hill station as it appears in 2008, photographed from a passing train.
Coordinates	40°42′02″N 73°49′56″W / 40.70056°N 73.83222°W / 40.70056; -73.83222Coordinates: 40°42′02″N 73°49′56″W / 40.70056°N 73.83222°W / 40.70056; -73.83222
Line(s)	Montauk Branch
Platforms	1 island platform
Tracks	2
History
Opened	1869
Closed	March 16, 1998
Rebuilt	1923
Electrified	August 29, 1905
Previous names	Clarenceville (1869-1871)
Services
Preceding station   LIRR   Following station Ridgewood station Montauk Branch (current and former locations) Shops station

Richmond Hill Station is a closed station on the Montauk Branch of the Long Island Rail Road in the Richmond Hill section of the borough of Queens, in New York City. The station is located at Myrtle Avenue and spans from the intersection of Jamaica Avenue and Lefferts Boulevard through an unnumbered section of Hillside Avenue.

Richmond Hill Station was originally built by the South Side Railroad of Long Island in 1869 as Clarenceville Station, which is not to be confused with the nearby Clarenceville Station on the Atlantic Branch. Clarenceville was a farming community centered around Jamaica and Greenwood Avenues (the latter now 111th Street, where the Atlantic Branch station was located), which is now part of Richmond Hill. The Richmond Hill neighborhood was founded in 1868, with the purchase of the Lefferts and Welling farms by Albon Platt Man. The station name was changed to Richmond Hill in November 1871. It had two tracks with a station house on one side and an enclosed wooden shelter on the other.

In 1911, New York City and the Long Island Rail Road began negotiating the elimination of numerous at-grade crossings within Queens. In 1917, the LIRR finalized the grade crossing elimination project plans for the Montauk Branch in the Richmond Hill area, which would construct a new elevated station between Park Street (today's Hillside Avenue) and Lefferts Avenue (now Lefferts Boulevard). During the project, the wooden station was temporarily relocated. The current station opened in 1923. The project eliminated numerous at-grade crossings in the vicinity of the station, including those at St. Anne Avenue (now 84th Avenue), Ashland Avenue (now 85th Avenue), Park Street, the intersection of Jamaica and Lefferts Avenue, and Ridgewood Avenue (now 89th Avenue). It also extended the roads adjacent to the right-of-way then known as Railroad Avenue (now Babbage Street and Bessemer Street) east to Lefferts Avenue.