In 2009, we wrote: “The season ends today at Aqueduct, and with the finish of the ninth race should come the closure of the Queens horse track.” It’s taken 17 years, but the ninth race at Aqueduct yesterday had a post time of 5:44 p.m. and was won by Assume Nothing running the mile and an eighth in 1:51.21. It wasn’t just the final race of the day or the season; it was the last race ever, after 132 years.
Aqueduct has now closed. The horses will henceforth have their winter meets at Belmont and the huge plot of public land in South Ozone Park will have a new use and the top priority must be housing, housing, housing.
Once, decades ago, before the New York Lottery and before Off-Track Betting, Aqueduct could bring in more than 70,000 folks. That’s when the numbers racket and illegal policy games used the last three digits of the Aqueduct attendance as printed in the Daily News as the draw. Legend has it that when an unsuspecting new man on the paper’s composing desk left out the agate type one day there were lots of problems for bettors and bookies across the city.
Speaking of attendance, yesterday, there were fewer than 7,000 fans for the special farewell, with people waiting in line to get in before the doors opened at 11 a.m., which is vastly more than a typical day. On Friday, the doors opened with just a few stranglers on hand.
The property totals 210 acres and Gov. Hochul has said that 100 acres of state land is up for new uses. There are also 26 acres owned by New York City. Sitting right on the A-train, next to Kennedy Airport and highways, meeting the housing needs of New York has to be the goal.
In another part of Queens, the Creedmoor psychiatric campus will see 2,000 new housing units on about 50 acres. But Creedmoor is a transit desert. The Big A is blessed with a fast train into Brooklyn and Manhattan. There used to even be an Aqueduct special on the subway that ran on the IND from 42nd and Eight Ave. to Aqueduct, only stopping at Hoyt–Schermerhorn. The MTA ran a final commemorative Aqueduct special on Friday from Hoyt and it took just 25 minutes.
Hochul is focusing on 100 acres, which is twice as large as Creedmoor, and the full Aqueduct tract is more than 200 acres. And with such excellent transit, there can be much greater housing density. Think 5,000 new housing units, think 10,000 new units. New York desperately needs housing and Aqueduct must be a major part of the answer.
The land at Aqueduct is ready to go, no need for demolition, no need to remove and remediate dangerous industrial waste like other sites have.
There’s a lot of racing history at the Big A, which began in 1894, before Queens was even part of New York City. The greats have run there from Man o’ War to Seabiscuit to the greatest of them all, Secretariat. Big Red actually lost the 1973 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct right before taking the Triple Crown. That November, when Secretariat retired, he was at Aqueduct for a final slow ride by Ron Turcotte.
It was at Aqueduct on June 10, 1944, four days after D-Day, during the Carter Handicap, when there was the first ever triple dead heat between Brownie, Bossuet, and Wait A Bit. And the Belmont Stakes was run at Aqueduct for five years in the 1960s, with possible Triple Crowns being spoiled in 1964 and 1966.
The summer meet at Saratoga starts on Friday and racing continues year round with a newly winterized grandstand at Belmont, but no longer at the Big A. The apron and paddock will now be quiet. The past is done and the future must be housing.
