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TABLE OF CONTENTSInventory |
Guide to the Ron Ziel Photographic Collection
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Descriptive Summary | ||
| Creator | Ziel, Ron, 1939- | |
| Title | Ron Ziel Photographic Collection, | |
| Dates: | 1874-1996 | |
| Abstract: | The Ron Ziel Collection (6,435 photographs, 1874-1996) takes as its major subject the history of the Long Island Rail Road (and to a lesser extent its parent company, the Pennsylvania Railroad); however, the collection also includes many photographs documenting subways, buses, trolley lines and other forms of mass transit in Brooklyn, Queens and suburban Long Island, as well as views of boats, docks, lighthouses, residences and many other subjects relating to the history of Long Island. | |
| Extent: | 6,435 photographs, 16 cubic feet | |
| Identification: | Z-1 | |
| Location: | The material is located in the Archives at Queens Library. | |
Historical/Biographical Note
Railway historian Ron Ziel was born July 17, 1939 in Manhattan. His family moved to eastern Queens in 1942, and eventually settled in Melville in 1949. He first became interested in railroads as a small child, when his mother would take him to watch the trains at the Long Island Rail Road stations at Queens Village and Bellerose.
He attended Huntington High School, graduating in 1957, and studied advertising design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, earning a BFA in 1961. He first began photographing steam locomotives at Brooklyn’s Eastern District Terminal in the fall of 1960. According to Mr. Ziel, these were the last steam locomotives to be used in freight service in the state of New York.
While at Pratt Mr. Ziel joined the ROTC, and upon graduation received a commission as a reserve second lieutenant in the United States Army. He served in the Army Signal Corps, stationed at Fort Gordon, Georgia, from September, 1961 to January, 1962, when he was given a medical discharge because of a diabetic condition. While stationed at Fort Gordon, Mr. Ziel began photographing steam locomotives in the southern United States. Eventually these photographs were included in his first book, “Twilight of Steam”, published by Grosset and Dunlop in 1963. He has since written ten more books, including five about the Long Island Rail Road, and has also contributed articles and photographs to Railroad Magazine, Railfan and Railroad, and Trains Magazine. He also served as executive editor for Dan’s Newspapers, a chain of community newspapers serving the East End of Long Island, in addition to working as a writer and staff photographer for those publications.
In 1965, Mr. Ziel and his longtime collaborator George Foster published the book “Steel Rails to the Sunrise”. In the course of researching the book they met numerous railroad historians and photographers on Long Island (including many names represented in the Ziel Collection), an experience that led them to form a Long Island chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. The Long Island-Sunrise Trail Chapter was chartered in 1966, with Mr. Ziel serving as its first president, an office he held until 1969. Other founding members included Winfield S. Boerckel, F. Rodney Dirkes, Harold Fagerberg, Arthur J. Huneke and Robert Michel. Mr. Ziel was also the founder and first president of the Steam Locomotive 39 Preservation Fund, which was responsible for refurbishing LIRR Engine #39 and moving it from the Carriage House Museum in Stony Brook to a new location in Riverhead.
Throughout his life Mr. Ziel has traveled to over fifty countries and has, by his own estimate, taken over twenty five thousand photographs of steam locomotives in regular service. In April of 2005 Mr. Ziel moved from his long-time home in Water Mill, Long Island to Tucson, Arizona, where he currently resides.
Photographers in the Ron Ziel Collection
Ayling, George G. (1917-2001) – George G. Ayling worked for the Long Island Rail Road from the early 1900s to the 1950s as a clerk, station agent and block operator. He took most of his photographs around the Central Islip station, where he was the agent.
Boerckel, Winfield S. – Winfield S. Boerckel began his career with the Long Island Rail Road in 1936, when he was the first native Long Islander to be hired by the railroad during the Great Depression. Originally employed as a block operator, Mr. Boerckel later served as Rules Examiner, and as Supervising Operator-Maintenance of Way. In this last capacity he was responsible for running the entire railroad during the morning rush hour. Mr. Boerckel retired from the LIRR in the mid-1970s, at the age of sixty five, and died a year and a half later. He was a founding member of the Long Island-Sunrise Trail Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. Two photographs by his older brother, James A. Boerckel, are included with the Miscellaneous Photographers.
Brainard, George B. (1845-1887) – George Bradford Brainard was born in Haddam Neck, Connecticut, in 1845 and moved with his family to Brooklyn a year later. He studied at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. He served as Deputy Water Purveyor for the City of Brooklyn from 1869 to 1886, and published a book, “The Water Works of Brooklyn”, on the city’s water system. Though Brainard experimented with photography as a teenager, he did not take it up seriously until 1870, when he was twenty five. His views of the Long Island Rail Road date back to this period; his photograph of the LIRR station at Mineola (circa 1874) is among his earliest surviving images. Considered a pioneer of amateur photography, Brainard designed and patented one of the first hand-held magazine cameras, and experimented with dry plate negatives of his own design, before such plates were commercially available. He is also known for his contributions to early medical photography, having invented an apparatus for photographing the human vocal organs. During his lifetime he took approximately 2,500 photographs. He died April 13, 1887 of a stroke caused by a brain tumor. About 2,000 of his original negatives survive in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum.
Callan, Fred – Fred Callan lived in Riverhead, Long Island, and served in the Coast Guard Reserve. In the early 1950s he made several trips to the Long Island Rail Road’s Morris Park Shops to photograph trains.
Dirkes, F. Rodney (1920-1991) – A native of Lynbrook, Long Island, photographer and historian F. Rodney Dirkes began taking pictures of the Long Island Rail Road as a teenager in the mid-1930s. He spent two years as the editor of an English-language newspaper in Puerto Rico, and later worked in the accounting department of the Long Island Daily Press. A founding member of the Long Island-Sunrise Trail chapter of the NRHS in 1966, Mr. Dirkes succeeded Ron Ziel as chapter president in 1969 and served in that capacity until 1982.
Dunnet, Robert B. (1934-2007) – A long-time resident of Roslyn, Long Island, Robert B. Dunnet began taking photographs in the mid-1950s, and in the later part of that decade served as a United States Army photographer stationed at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. He worked as a yardmaster for the Long Island Rail Road from 1967 until 1993. His photographs appear in the book “Diesels of the Sunrise Trail” by John J. Scala. He died in July of 2007.
Elliot, David – A native of England, David Elliot was sent by his parents to live on Long Island during World War Two. It was during this stay that the young Mr. Elliot took the series of LIRR photographs included in the Ziel Collection.
Emery, Robert M. (1925-1995) – The son of LIRR ticket agent Theodore Emery, Robert Emery became interested in the railroad as a youth, and during World War Two traveled throughout Long Island and New Jersey to watch trains. In 1943 or 1944 he was hired as a brakeman on the LIRR, and worked in passenger and freight services until 1975. He began taking photographs of the railroad in 1941, and in the late 1950s began compiling its history. Forty albums of Mr. Emery’s notes, maps and photographs are in the collection of the library of the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Flattley, Martin (1915-1988) – Thomas Martin Flattley, Jr. was born in Philadelphia on July 17, 1915. He began taking photographs of locomotives on the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1929, and traded prints and negatives with other railroad enthusiasts from the mid-1930s onward. Beginning in 1940, he spent twenty years in logistics and transportation in the US Army, including a stint in Newfoundland, where he was in charge of an eight-mile narrow-gauge railroad. He moved to New Jersey around 1958 and to Garland, Texas around 1975. He was an early member of the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society, beginning around 1968. He contributed articles and photographs to the society’s newsletter, The Keystone, and was co-author of the book “Pennsy Power” (with Bert Pennypacker). He died in 1988.
George, Herb – Author of the book “Change at Rego Park”.
Harrison, Richard J. (1918-1996) – Born and raised in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, Richard Harrison began photographing trains as a teenager, and later worked as an engineer on the LIRR from 1939 to 1978. He is the author of the book “Long Island Rail Road Memories: The Making of a Steam Locomotive Engineer”.
Holman, Fred –Fred Holman was a Long Island Rail Road employee who worked at the Morris Park Shops in Richmond Hill, Queens.
Huneke, Arthur J. (born 1936) – A native of Brooklyn who currently resides in East Islip, Long Island, Mr. Huneke began photographing the Long Island Rail Road in the 1950s. He later worked as a trackman, signalman, lineman and tower operator during a thirty three year career with the LIRR. Mr. Huneke retired from the railroad in 1987, but continues to be active as a photographer and historian.
Kohl, Norman E. (1912-1994) – A lifelong resident of Glen Head, Long Island, Norman E. Kohl worked for the US Postal Service and pursued railroad photography in his spare time. His main interest was the New York Ontario and Western Railway, but he was also known for his many photographs of the Oyster Bay branch of the Long Island Rail Road. Along with Robert B. Dunnet, Mr. Kohl was part of an informal group that met regularly at a diner in Albertson to discuss railroading.
Krause, John (1929-1989) – A native Long Islander, Mr. Krause graduated from Baldwin High School, where he was the class photographer. He worked for his family’s electrical contracting business, Wilma Electric, in Rockville Centre, and began photographing short line railroads, including the Long Island Rail Road, in the late 1940s and 50s. Mr. Krause published several books of photographs and railway history, including “Rails Through Dixie” (with H. Reid) and “American Narrow-Gauge” (with Donald Duke). He died on April 30, 1989, at the age of 59.
May, Edward L. – A contemporary of F. Rodney Dirkes, Edward L. May lived in Jamaica, Queens and began photographing Long Island Rail Road trains as a teen-ager in the 1930s.
Minden, Edward J. (1917-1987) – Grandson of the owner of the famous Minden House saloon in Jamaica, Queens, amateur photographer Edward Minden lived in Riverhead and Patchogue, and began taking pictures in the early to mid-1930s. He later photographed buses, trains and trolley lines throughout the United States. His notes are also among the collections of the Archives at Queens Library.
Morgan, Robert B. – A resident of Riverhead, Robert B. Morgan began taking photographs as a teenager in the early 1940s. He worked for the LIRR as a freight brakeman from about 1948 to about 1952, and was later employed by the New York and New Haven Railroad. As of this writing Mr. Morgan is still alive and lives in Connecticut.
Osborne, James V. (1901-1982) – A native of Southampton, James V. Osborne worked as a towerman on the New York Central Railroad during his college years, and later was employed by the Long Island Rail Road as a signalman, block operator and station agent. In addition to serving with the LIRR for over fifty years, he also worked as a tax assessor and founded the James V. Osborne Travel Bureau in Southampton.
Slade, William D. (1909-1982) William D. Slade was a Brooklyn native whose family summered in Patchogue, Long Island. As a youth, Mr. Slade began commuting between Patchogue and Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where he attended school at the Adelphi Academy (check this). He began photographing trains in 1941 and collecting historical data during the same decade.
Sommer, Ted – Ted Sommer worked on the LIRR as a block operator from 1940-41, and lived near Oyster Bay. His brother, James P. Sommer was also a photographer. A small number of his photographs are included with the Miscellaneous Photographers.
Trede, Harry J. (1911-1990) – A professional photographer who resided in the Floral Park-New Hyde Park area. Trede’s photographs are included in the book “Apex of the Atlantics” by Pennsylvania Railroad historian Frederick Westing.
Votava, George E. (1914-1999) – George E. Votava earned a degree in engineering, but was employed as an elevator repairman. He started taking photographs in the 1930s, and spent all of his free time traveling with his wife to various locales to take railroad and trolley pictures. A member of the NRHS-LIST, Mr. Votava remained active as a photographer up until the 1980s. Near the end of his life he moved to Iowa, where he died on September 4, 1999.
Winslow, Jeffrey K. (1918-2001) – A resident of Elmont, Long Island, who photographed trolleys and the Long Island Rail Road.
Wettereau, Richard – Manhasset, Long Island native Richard B. Wettereau studied economics at Columbia University and the University of London, and served in the US Army during the Korean War. He worked for a time in the freight department of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and later spent nineteen years as an editor with the Long Island Daily Press. After the Press went out of business, Mr. Wettereau was a senior editor for the New York Post. His night photographs of LIRR stations were taken in collaboration with his high school friend Robert Viken. These pictures are featured prominently in the book “Victorian Railroad Stations of Long Island”, which Mr. Wettereau co-authored with Ron Ziel in 1988.
Zahn, Frank G. – A native of Queens, Frank G. Zahn worked as a freight brakeman and conductor on the LIRR from 1944 to 1978, and has traveled all over the United States photographing trains. In his spare time he also builds O-gauge models of steam engines. He was an original member of the Long Island Sunrise Trail Chapter of the NRHS.
At present we have no biographical information about Charles B. Chaney, George Hamcke, George Irmisch, C.V. Parkinson, or William R. Shoemaker.
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Scope and Content Note
While the Ron Ziel Collection (6,435 photographs, 1874-1996) takes as its major subject the history of the Long Island Rail Road (and to a lesser extent its parent company, the Pennsylvania Railroad), the collection also includes many photographs documenting subways, buses, trolley lines and other forms of mass transit in Brooklyn, Queens and suburban Long Island, as well as views of boats, docks, lighthouses, residences and many other subjects relating to the history of Long Island.
The collection is divided into three groups: the Ron Ziel Photographs, the Ron Ziel Image Collection and the Ron Ziel Papers.
The first group, the Ron Ziel Photographs (339 photographs processed so far, 1948-1996), contains prints and negatives that were made by Mr. Ziel himself. These consist primarily of photographs documenting the Long Island Rail Road, including stations, equipment (engines, coaches, snow plows, freight cars and other rolling stock) and other subjects of historical interest, such as old signage, abandoned right-of-way, disused or outdated track signals and so forth. Wherever possible, Mr. Ziel has identified engines and coaches by their model and type, as well as by their LIRR or PRR number. Mr. Ziel also worked for many years as a staff photographer for the Dan’s Newspapers chain, so this group also contains many other photographs documenting local news events around Suffolk County, Long Island. There are also a large number of photographs documenting Mr. Ziel’s years as a design student at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, among them pictures of classmates, instructors, the school grounds, and the surrounding neighborhood. At present only the prints have been assigned control numbers. The negatives, which comprise greatest part of the Ron Ziel Photographs, will be processed at a later date.
The second group, the Ron Ziel Image Collection (6,096 photographs, 1874-1981), contains pictures of the Long Island Rail Road taken by other photographers. Mr. Ziel printed many of these images himself, from the original negatives, and used many of the resulting photographs in his books on the history of the LIRR. This group is divided into two series. The first of these, Named Photographers (4,499 photographs, 1874-1991), contains images which have been definitely attributed to an individual photographer. The second, Unknown Photographers (1,597 photographs, 1880-1978), contains those images whose authorship cannot be determined. The series Named Photographers is further divided into thirty two sub-series. Thirty one of these contain works by one particular photographer, each of whom has been assigned an individual letter code (see the Inventory for a list of photographers and codes). The last sub-series contains images by Miscellaneous Photographers, defined as those photographers represented by fewer than twenty images in the Ziel Collection. At present we have not assigned control numbers to the series Unknown Photographers, as we are still attempting to determine authorship of some of these images.
The largest sub-series in the series Named Photographers consists of prints and negatives by the railroad historian F. Rodney Dirkes (685 images, 1933-70). Most of these are pictures of steam locomotives, many taken at the Long Island Rail Road’s Morris Park Shops, located in Richmond Hill. Another large group of Dirkes photographs, taken over a period of approximately ten months in 1938, documents a grade-crossing elimination project (including the construction of a new railroad station) at Lynbrook, Long Island.
The next largest sub-series consists of images by the railroad photographer and historian John Krause (504 images, 1945-75). These are mostly scenes of steam and diesel engines pulling passenger and freight trains, taken primarily in Nassau and Suffolk Counties. While the main focus is on the rolling stock, Krause tends to frame his subjects in such a way as to take in more of their surroundings, such as stations, grade crossings, control towers and so forth. A number of Krause photographs were taken on the grounds of Kings Park Psychiatric Hospital, and feature some views of the hospital buildings as well as of the passenger and freight trains that served them.
Another large sub-series features the work of photographer Edward J. Minden (317 images, 1948-60). This sub-series is notable because it features a large number of views of subway and trolley cars taken at the BMT Coney Island Yards, in addition to photographs of Long Island Rail Road equipment.
The sub-series of photographs by Robert B. Morgan (268 images, 1944-54), a freight brakeman on the Long Island Rail Road, includes a large number of views of LIRR operations at Riverhead, Suffolk County, as well as many portraits of Morgan’s fellow crew members.
The James V. Osborne Photographs (215 images, 1921-31, 1965) include pictures of LIRR stations in suburban Long Island and in Queens, among them views of the long-since demolished Whitestone Branch, which served the neighborhoods of Whitestone and College Point.
Among the smaller sub-series, the Viken and Wettereau Photographs (171 images, 1939, 1952-55) are notable for their night views of Long Island Rail Road stations throughout Nassau and Suffolk County. The George W. Irmisch Photographs (20 images, circa 1907) include several group portraits of employees at the Morris Park Shops, as well as scenes depicting maintenance operations at the shops. The George B. Brainard Photographs (41 images, 1874-80) contain some of the earliest photographic views of the Long Island Rail Road, including rare shots of the original stations at Westbury, Garden City and Babylon.
The third group in the collection, the Ron Ziel Papers (1 folder, 1944-1993), contains correspondence, newspaper clippings and other ephemera related to the Long Island Rail Road.
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Arrangement
The photographs are arranged in alphabetical order by the photographer’s last name. Within each series, they are arranged first by location, and then by date.
Each photographer represents a series. In addition, there are also two series representing Unknown and Miscellaneous Photographers.
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Administrative Information
Preferred Citation
Published citations should take the following form:
Creator of item, date of item (if known), identification of item, if a photograph its control number. The Ron Ziel Photographic Collection, Archives at Queens Library, Queens Borough Public Library.
Provenance
Provenance: The photographs were purchased from Ron Ziel in 2005.
Access Restrictions
Open for research without restrictions. Manuscripts are only available in the Archives at Queens Library, please call (718) 990-0770 for hours. Manuscript users will be required to complete the division's Manuscript Usage Form and deposit their photograph identification or Queens Borough Public Library card with a staff member. The identification will be returned to the user after she/he has returned the material. Manuscript users will deposit all their personal items behind the reference desk. Manuscript users must use the division's loose sheets of paper for note taking. To reiterate, no pen of any type is permitted. Paper and a pencil are available upon request. Manuscript users may be required to use special handling procedures depending on the conditions of the material.
Use Restrictions
Permission to publish materials must be obtained in writing from the:
- Archives at Queens Library
- Queens Borough Public Library
- 89-11 Merrick Boulevard
- Jamaica, NY 11432
- Phone: (718) 990-0770.
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Access Points
Subject Names:
- Ayling, George G.
- Boerckel, Winfield S.
- Brainard, George Bradford, 1845-1887
- Callan, Fred
- Chaney, Charles B.
- Dunnet, Robert B.
- Elliot, David
- Emery, Robert M., 1925-1995
- Flattley, Martin
- George, Herbert
- Hamcke, George
- Harrison, Richard J., 1918-
- Holman, Fred
- Huneke, Arthur J.
- Irmisch, George W.
- Kohl, Norman
- Krause, John
- May, Edward L.
- Minden, Ed
- Morgan, Robert B.
- Osborne, James V.
- Parkinson, C.V.
- Shoemaker, William R.
- Slade, William D.
- Sommer, Ted
- Trede, Harry J.
- Viken, Robert
- Votava, George E.
- Wettereau, Richard
- Winslow, Jeffrey
- Zahn, Frank G.
- Ziel, Ron, 1939-
Subject Organizations:
- Long Island Rail Road
- Pennsylvania Railroad
Subject Topics:
- Buses
- Railroad cars
- Railroads
- Steam engines
- Street-railroads
- Subways
Subject Places:
- Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)
- Long Island (N.Y.)
- Long Island (N.Y.)
- Nassau County (N.Y.)
- Queens (New York, N.Y.)
- Suffolk County (N.Y.)
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Inventory
[The following section contains a detailed listing of the materials in the collection.]
