By David J. Glenn
Try this one – Did the Long Island Rail Road have a station at Floral Park in 1885?
If you don't know the answers but would like to – as well as find out about many other tidbits in New York history, even though they're not likely to be asked by Regis Philbin anytime soon – John Henderson of Oakland Gardens can help you out.
Henderson operates his own publishing company out of his home, specializing in histories of New York, transportation, and sports. We're not talking here of desktop publishing – these are beautifully illustrated coffee-table books and clear reproductions of impossible-to-find maps, like the 1885 LIRR route or a 1904 atlas of the business districts of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Jersey City.
Henderson's H&M Productions's latest offering is “Metro Ice – A Century of Hockey in Greater New York,” authored by Stan Fischler, who watched his first hockey game, the Washington Eagles vs. the New York Rovers, at the Garden in 1939 when he was 7 years old, and went on to a career of announcing for the NHL and now analyzing hockey for the Fox network, and by Tom Sarro, a longtime goalie and youth coach.
The 278-page volume, amply illustrated with color and back-and-white photos of the players on and off the ice, and reproductions of programs, tickets, news clips, and ads, is an open candy store for hockey fans. It chronicles a full hundred years of the New York Rangers, Islanders, Rovers, Raiders and Golden Blades, as well as the New Jersey Devils and the Long Island Ducks.
Henderson, a longtime hockey fan himself, is the first one named in the acknowledgments. Henderson, Fischler wrote, “saw the merits of such a volume and was willing to devote his time, money, and insights in order to guide it from idea to reality.”
Here's a sampling of what's described and reproduced in the $49.95 book:
* The cover of the 1926-27 Rangers program, priced 15 cents.
* The original Tin Pan Alley music score of the “Rangers Victory Song.”
* A National Hockey League player's contract for $5,000 for the 1941-42 season, with a bonus of $500 “if he is selected on either the first or second All-Star team as conducted by the Canadian Press.”
* A photo of Claude Lemieux holding the Conn Smythe trophy as the 1995 playoffs MVP.
* Many photos of the players in action.
Henderson's other recently released project is a collection of 12 street and transit maps of New York City. Included are a 1939 aerial view map of the World's Fair and approaches; the 1885 route map of the LIRR; an 1896 Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac map; and a 1926 transit map of New York City issued by the U.S. embassy in Germany for the use of German tourists.
Henderson has also published “Confessions of a Trolley Dodger from Brooklyn” and “The Subway.”
For ordering information, call 718-357-6707.
By the way, the Rangers played 41 seasons at the old Garden and yes, the LIRR did stop at Floral Park in 1885, along with Coney Island and several other stops in Brooklyn.
