BRONX METRO NORTH

In the “stuff that I probably won’t see happen” file, today I decided to reprint one of two articles I wrote for Gothamist in 2019, this one co-bylined with Neil DeMause.

As part of its Penn Station Access Project. Metro-North, a division of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, and Amtrak this week have come to an agreement that will allow trains on the Metro-North, specifically its New Haven line, to enter Penn Station for the first time. The New Rochelle, Larchmont, Mamaroneck, Rye, Port Chester and Harrison lines would provide service to the west side of Manhattan, making commutes there easier for passengers entering from those stations.

Interestingly, the same plan also calls for four “new” stations for local service in the Bronx, to be located in Co-op City, Morris Park, Parkchester, and Hunts Point. However, local transit historians know that this amounts to a restoration of local service to a line that last saw local railroad service in the early 1930s.

The Metro-North is the successor to a number of commuter rail services established as early as the 1830s. All had been acquired by the New York Central Railroad in the 1960s, which then became part of the Penn Central Railroad as well as Conrail. The MTA fully took over all of the Penn Central and Conrail lines in 1983, forming the Metro-North branch known today.

The New Haven Line stations and future Bronx stations that will have access to Penn station originated as the New York and New Haven Railroad in 1849. By the early 1900s the line had expanded and was known as the New York, New Haven and Hartford; it expanded to six electrified tracks, while grade crossings were eliminated, and terminated at the second Grand Central Terminal at Park Avenue and East 42^nd Street that opened in 1913.

The proposed new service will run the New Haven Branch across the Hell Gate Bridge, which currently carries Amtrak across the East River, and then via Sunnyside Yards and the East River tunnels into Penn Station.

While it is likely that four completely new Bronx station houses with modern appointments such as handicapped access will be built from scratch, the NY & NH opened several stations in the Bronx around this time, some of which are still standing and in ruins, all of which were active from approximately 1906 through 1931; they were designed by renowned architect Cass Gilbert. The southernmost of these, the Hunts Point station (seen in 2019; it’s covered with “street art” now) , is a handsome dormered building on the north side of Hunts Point Avenue at the Bruckner Expressway. The dormers held spikes “big enough to impale an ox,” in the words of Christopher Gray, the late New York Times architecture writer.

The Westchester Avenue station is a Beaux Arts classic stretching over the tracks at Westchester and Whitlock Avenues at the Sheridan Expressway. Classical elements were often used in station ornamentation in the 19th and early 20th Centuries, and the NY, NH and H employed the winged staff of Hermes (Mercury) with its two entwined snakes. The station makes a striking appearance for those walking north in Concrete Plant Park along the Bronx River.

The former Morris Park stationhouse ruin can be seen along the north side of the railroad at Sacket and Paulding Avenues. In recent years, someone has festooned it in an American flag motif, with stars at the entrance and bars on the sides. There is one more station ruin that served City Island Road, in the woods a short distance south of the road from the Hutchinson River Parkway to the City Island circle; it served the long-gone trolley line to City Island. Other stops along the line, at Casanova Street, West Farms, Van Nest, and Baychester, have completely disappeared.

In October 2018, then-NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer proposed allowing access to commuter railroad stations in New York City with a MetroCard for the present subway/bus fare of $2.75. There are 38 such stations in Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens on the Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road. These stations would also be made fully handicapped-accessible. Stringer would like the lowered fares to be “phased in” during the ongoing East Side Access construction, which will allow LIRR trains access to Grand Central. At the time, outgoing MTA Chairman Joe Lhota criticized the plan, calling it “irresponsible” as it did not address how the MTA would source funds for the shortfall.

FNY’s page on abandoned Bronx stations, 2001

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5/6/25