This looks to be like some sort of power generating substation that may have serviced the LIRR Bay Ridge Branch, or maybe it serves the Brighton Beach subway line today.  I'm not sure for certain.



Old utility poles line the south side of the ROW.  These poles are constructed of steel, and reach high in to the air.  The electrical wires have been removed from the poles.



As we pass the Brighton Beach Subway line, we see an unusual characteristic on the south side of the ROW.....



Turning around to face west, we see remnants of a cement wall, and a lot of land on the southern portion of the ROW.  Long Island Railroad trains once connected to the Brighton Beach line, as the two companies shared a contract to allow each other to run freight operations along the line.  This area is where the juncture was for track switching between the lines.  

OldNYC.com contributor Slade Gellin adds this information pertaining to the site: "I was intrigued by the apparent connection of the Bay Ridge Line to what is now the Brighton subway.  I did some research, particularly on nycsubway.com.  In their history of the Brighton line, and, backed up by a map of Brooklyn in 1888 that they have on their site, there were switch tracks from both the east and west off the Bay Ridge Line (as evidenced by the two clearings shown in the picture) that led to the Manhattan Beach branch of the LIRR, which began at this point and ran parallel to the Brooklyn, Flatbush and Coney Island Railroad, which became the Brighton Line.  According to the map, the two lines ran next to each other (apparently there are longer bridge abutments on the east side of the present day Brighton line which serves as evidence of this) until about what is today Avenue N; the Manhattan Beach line then veered slightly east and ran along what today might be East 18th Street, until around the Sheepshead Bay/Brighton Beach area, where the lines converged around the west side of the bay; while the Brighton continued toward Coney Island, the Manhattan Beach line went south toward the ocean, and then turned east, running parallel to the shoreline."


Fallen trees and thick bushes block the route where the Brighton Beach/LIRR Bay Ridge Branch connection once existed.

Highway construction engineers could have shifted the expressway southward around this area as to try and preserve some of the large apartment buildings that run along the northern portion of the ROW.  One can see these building hovering in the background of this picture.



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