Sic Transit etc.
Almost any town's history shows that its "social center" changed as time passed. Consider Manhattan's Union Square. When I was a student, it was at best a rundown, sketchy neighborhood. Yet, in the 19th century it was proudly given its name because it marked the junction - the union - of Broadway and Bowery Road (now Fourth Avenue), which then were the two most prestigious avenues in Manhattan. On the site of today's Consolidated Edison offices once stood the original Academy of Music, the first successful opera house in the country. The phrase Union Square once implied elegance. Again, things do change.
Today, part of Hicksville's Triangle survives in the form of Kennedy Park - much smaller, and fatally cut in two by a swath of noisy traffic. Although well-landscaped and appealing, the place can never be the focal point for the village in the same way that the combination of Depot Square and the Triangle once was.
Although it is not surprising that the gathering place north of the tracks did not endure forever, it is notable that the old Triangle declined with such abruptness. Let's review the unstoppable forces, and one bizarre event, that accelerated its demise.
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