Remember that little diddy ? It was one of those traveling songs we used to sing as little kids in the back of the car or bus, way way back. In the late '50's The Four Preps (26 Miles & Big Man) tried altering it by turning it into a teen song with out too much success. Somethings are best left alone.

The Mastic Station which was 70 + years old when the Preps were waxing modernistic would of been much better off if left alone. I think even those who campaigned for it's demise and replaced it with that bombshelter down the track to the west might agree if they saw what that place looks like today. Heck even that old songplugger, Walter T. Shirley might agree.

That the song & the station were better off left alone.

Thanks to Art Huneke for the great pics. Art runs Arrts Arrchives a Long Island Railroad Photo Website

I have a lot of good memories of this place. Meeting my grandma who often came out from Jamacia to spend a day or two with us. Watching the engineer grab the messages from the station master as he came clanging in. The potbelly stove inside. The heading for Washington DC on the 8th grade school trip in 1960. I liked the simple architecture of the place too. It connected me to a time I could only read or still hear stories about. Imagine what it was like when three boxcars were off loaded in 1882 full of material to build Buck & Kitty Dana's Moss Lots

When they first started talking about replacing it and worse yet moving it!!, Mastic ites took up arms.... I was a little too young to be caught in the fray. Mrs. Berg spearheaded the move but after all they were threating her little business The Shack by relocating the station a mile west in Shirley. The local papers were full of Save The Station / Move The Station stories

There is some kind of twisted irony though in this piece that follows that the New York Times printed during the Christmas season of 1959.