Prior to the creation of Erskine Road, which runs parallel to Bassett Avenue, Bassett Avenue used to be the main entrance into and egress from the little village of Baychester. There were a few houses and businesses on Bassett Avenue. With the development of Bruckner Expressway/New England Thruway, parts of DeReimer Avenue and Palmer Avenue were taken by the city for the creation of the exit ramp, with one leg of the ramp going to the Hutchinson River Parkway and the other leg of the ramp going into the small village of Baychester, and also a ramp going from Baychester back onto the Bruckner Expressway/New England Thruway. After the development of Erskine Road, Bassett Avenue only existed as a short stretch of street from DeReimer Avenue, ending west at the underpass of the Bruckner Expressway/New England Thruway.
The original Baychester passenger train station was at the corner of DeReimer Avenue and Bassett Avenue. The platform extended on both sides of the railroad tracks, and provided easy access to the neighborhood on one side of the tracks, and the inn, horse stables, and boat businesses on the other side of the tracks. Later, when there were no more passenger trains running on those tracks, the station on the Baychester side of the tracks became an iron works factory. The men who worked at that factory would watch the women and children who were outside on DeReimer Avenue. Eventually the iron works factory was closed down; it was demolished and became part of what is now Erskine Road.
As a kid in the 1950s-60s we used to play around the tracks, putting coins on the tracks waiting for a train to come along and flatten out the coin. When the factory closed we would play among the remnants of materials still on the site. In the winter water would accumulate underneath the Bruckner Boulevard overpass in a depression between Bassett Avenue and the tracks, freeze over, and we would ice skate there. In the nice weather, the overpass provided a beautiful wall in the underpass for playing handball. It also had great acoustics for singing and playing instruments.
Further down on Bassett Avenue past the ramp into and out of the neighborhood was a forested field where my generation would play, pick wildflowers, pick wild asparagus which we ate for dinner, and pick dandelion leaves also for dinner. We called it "PARADISE".