Although it is the Hudson Line more often cited for its scenery, you do pass by quite a few interesting locales taking a train down the Harlem Line. From the farmlands of Dutchess county, to the reservoirs that serve the city’s need for water, there is much to see on the Harlem Line – and I hope that I’ve been able to show some of this on my weekly tour of the various stations. Although it certainly isn’t the most noteworthy, the line does also pass by quite a few cemeteries. In the case of Kensico Cemetery, the railroad probably played a part in its growth. Kensico may no longer have a station dedicated to it, but at one time the cemetery even had its own rail car to serve the more affluent of folk heading to bury their loved ones.

Resting place of Gail Borden, at the Woodlawn Cemetery

Another cemetery I haven’t yet mentioned on here, however, is the Woodlawn Cemetery. Woodlawn station itself is located in the Bronx, a bit shy of 12 miles from Grand Central. It is just north of Woodlawn that the New Haven Line diverges from the Harlem. Although the station isn’t expressly for the cemetery, as Kensico was, it is very close to it. For those interested in seeing the final resting place of quite a few historical figures, Woodlawn would definitely be an interesting place to check out. Not to mention the wide array of different styles of memorial (someone please erect a statue of me riding a liger upon my death?). Some of the memorials were designed by renowned architects, such as Cass Gilbert (who designed New Haven’s Union Station), and McKim, Mead, and White (who designed the original Pennsylvania Station). Noteworthy musicians WC Handy, Miles Davis, and Duke Ellington are all buried at Woodlawn, as well as businessmen whose names most people recognize: RH Macy, JC Penney, and Frank Woolworth. And many of us would also recognize the names of Joseph Pulitzer, Fiorello LaGuardia, Simon Guggenheim, and Augustus Juilliard, also buried in the cemetery. Of course my favorite “resident” is Gail Borden, the eccentric inventor of condensed milk, who was also a Harlem Division rider (a post about him on here is quite overdue, but will be coming soon, I swear!)

Anyways, here are some shots of the Harlem Line station at Woodlawn:
  
 
  
 
 
  

Thankfully, Metro-North’s engineers are far from turkeys… they’ll get you where you need to go, without the hassle of traffic.

Hopefully my readers out there are licking their chops in anticipation of a big turkey dinner tomorrow and not calling the Butterball Turkey Hotline to inquire as to the proper method to carve a turkey by chainsaw, or if thawing your turkey with your children in the bathtub is a no-no… If you’re not looking forward to getting stuck in the holiday traffic, there’s always the train…

Metro North’s holiday service begins today at 1PM with a early getaway trains, early service for tomorrow morning for anyone looking to get to the parade, and of course, extra service on Black Friday. All fares will be off-peak. Make sure to have your ticket in advance, no tickets will be sold on board on trains leaving Grand Central on Thanksgiving Day (and no bicycles either!).

Be sure to check out the page on Metro North’s website about Thanksgiving Holiday Service, and enjoy your holiday!

Just as Fleetwood will always remind me a bit of the incident with chicken teriyaki, Melrose station will always another incident… as such, I figured it would be best to get it over with and take a tour of Melrose today. Plus it was kind of easy to go through all the photos for Melrose – there weren’t nearly as many as the other stations. But there is something actually new and cool about these photos – they are the first batch of Tuesday Tour photos that were automatically geotagged by my new GPS logger. What exactly does that mean? Similar to the GPS devices you are most likely familiar with that determine your position on the road and give you directions, this GPS logger just tracks my location and at what time I was there, and stores it. Then when I connect it to my computer along with my camera, it looks at the photo’s timestamp and determines where I was when I took the photo. It can also plot a rough map of how I moved around:

The logger isn’t 100% accurate… nor are the google maps that the data has been plotted upon. But it does give the rough idea of me going back and forth on the platform, taking photos, then crossing over on the road to the other side of the platform and doing the same. On my end (meaning you can’t see it on the above map) it lists speed, so I can tell when I was on the train, and how fast that train was going at the time. But the coolest part is to see the photos plotted on a map of where they were taken – like this: Melrose photos on Panoramio.

Back to Melrose though – it, along with Tremont, is one of the smaller stations on the Harlem Line. The platform is only large enough to accommodate two train cars. Service to these stations is also less frequent than most on the line. Like most of the stations in the Bronx it is a nice place to train watch. With four tracks, two of which are devoted to express trains, you are bound to see something pass by quite frequently, even if it isn’t the rush hour.

Anyways, enjoy the photos of Melrose, with a gorgeous blue sky…

Many months ago I began a little project to take a panorama at every Harlem Line station. I am exceptional at beginning projects, yet terrible at completing them. However, this is one project that I will finish. I have now been to, and photographed, every Harlem Line station. After I had decided to actually do this, the first station I photographed was Tenmile River (on May 24th), and the last was Williams Bridge (on November 21st).

Keeping to the schedule of a posting a new station every Tuesday, it will still take another month or so to complete the project publicly. But today I will post the “Hall of Fame” – me in front of the name sign at every station. While I am on the subject of the stations though, I’d like to thank Eric for accompanying me to most stations south of White Plains, my mother, who has now been to every station north of Bedford Hills, and Despina who joined me at Valhalla, Mount Pleasant and Hawthorne.

Just a note, posted 11/22 – I’ve spoken to some folks at Metro-North that have apologized for the incident and will be reminding the managers of track workers that taking photos on the platform is not illegal. I’m satisfied with this resolution, and I thank everyone for their comments.

Today was the final day for me to go out and take panorama photos at the last five stations on the Harlem Line. After that, the panorama project would essentially be complete (the original goal of all Harlem Line stations complete, but I’ll still be shooting panoramas and adding them to the project and map), and I would have visited all current and active stations on the line. However, I had been warned many times about two particular stations: Melrose and Tremont. Some readers of the blog assured me I would be safe there. Many train conductors I know advised me not to go there, unless I planned on taking a gun. I did ask @MetroNorthTweet his opinion, and he responded “I just checked with our Police and they said there shouldn’t be a problem during the day.” I decided to go. The amusing thing is that at both stations there was no threat to me whatsoever – it was actually *I* that was deemed a threat.

I suppose this now means I’ve now been baptised by fire into the inner circle of transit photographers… I’ve now had the police called on me, while I was taking photos at Melrose. This weekend there was a bit of track work going on in the Bronx. I kinda figured that the extra bodies in the vicinity of the stations would make me safer. Instead, it was apparently my turn to get harassed by the track workers, or rather, one specific track worker. Trains stopping at Melrose are not as frequent as many other stops, and I was aware I was going to be stuck at the station for slightly over an hour. I spent at least a half an hour of that time taking photos of the trains going by. All the while the track workers were hanging around, doing not a thing. It was when they came up onto the platform to hang out in an idling MTA vehicle on the street (playing loud music, by the way) that they noticed me taking photos. Taking photos in the opposite direction didn’t seem to bother them, but instead in the direction where they had been working (or perhaps, not working) they got angry. One worker came out of the idling vehicle to shout at me to stop taking photos. I didn’t really think anything of it, and by the time the next train had started to roll by I had forgotten, and pulled out my camera to get a nice shot of the train as it went by.

Track worker then exited the vehicle, slammed the door, and charged down the stairs to come and yell, “I told you, don’t take no pictures. Nobody’s allowed to take pictures. MTA Police don’t allow NO photos.”
Eric, who was accompanying me on my last photo jaunt to Harlem Line stations, replied something along the lines of, “There’s no reason we can’t take pictures here.”
The track worker steps forward, threateningly replying, “Oh yeah? OH YEAH?! Well we’ll see about that. I’m callin’ the cops on you. I’M CALLIN’ THE COPS RIGHT NOW!”

Thinking back, I was wondering why this man was so angry. I came up with a couple of possibilities:
- He was picked on as a child
- He’s not getting anything from his wife in the bedroom
- He’s not very big and needs to assert his manhood in some way or another
- He thinks I now have photographic evidence that proves he and his buddies were doing nothing other than punching each other and listening to loud music in an idling Metro-North vehicle.

He got on his walkie talkie and called in, “I have a situation here at Melrose. We need the cops down here right now.” I don’t think he said anything else, and wouldn’t clarify what exactly the “situation” was, but he said there were two people that were “doing things they weren’t supposed to be doing.”

The train I was taking was set to come in around fifteen minutes, and it took the police about that long to get there. When the track worker saw I was getting my stuff together to board the train, he began to block the bridge plate (since track work was being done, people could only enter and exit the train from the small bridge). Anotherwords, the man was blocking my only way to get onto my train and to leave. But what right does a track worker have to detain a passenger on Metro-North Railroad? None whatsoever – I would consider that illegally detaining me.

The cops certainly arrived in order to take care of this “situation” – clad in their bulletproof vests. I walked right up to one of them, handed him one of my website business cards and said “Yes, I take photographs at train stations. I’ve taken photos at many stations and have had no problem before. There are people that work for the railroad that are aware I am out here taking photos…” (not exactly a stretch. I’ve gotten messages from an array of people, from ticket collectors to engineers) the police officer interrupted me, demanding my identification. I really didn’t think he had any right to see it, but I wanted the whole damn thing to be over with, and to be able to board my train that the police were now preventing from leaving. And so I gave him my ID, which he photographed. He asked me where I was going (did he really have any right to know?), and I told him the Botanical Garden. He asked if I would be taking photos there as well, and I said yes. He told me not to go to any places I didn’t belong as I boarded the train. That makes me wonder, did track worker lie and say we were in unauthorized areas? Conveniently, I was wearing my GPS tracker – which allows me to geotag my photos. It can also plot on a map every single step I took today – and prove I was not in any unauthorized areas.

Anyways, here I am now, wondering what exactly is going to the photo that a police officer now has on his phone of my ID. I also came up with a couple of possibilities:
- The MTA police will now have a file on me, as I am a potential “threat to safety”
- Nothing whatosever
- [redacted, I admit, this was an inappropriate comment]
- The police will be actively pursuing me as a threat. In this instance I figured I’d help them out, since I am a designer and all, I created my own wanted poster:

In a post 9/11 age of paranoia and suspicion, public photography is increasingly seen as threatening, or mistaken as criminal…Amateur photographers are the documentarians of real life. We capture our world to help us understand it. We are not a threat

-JPG Magazine

There is really nothing else for me to say, other than what I’ve said already. I will still love Metro-North, and I will still love photography. And nothing is going to change that… even if it makes me a supposed “terrorist.”

Hi, my name is Emily, and I have a problem. An addiction, really. And no, I am not referring to my frequent use of hats with ears. I have an addiction to eBay, and buying crazy things there. I’m not quite to the stage where one ought to worry that I am going to end up on that TV show Hoarders. Nor am I to the point where I’ve collected a hundred cats and you can change my nickname from Cat Girl to Cat Lady. But I am somewhat interested in acquiring old things. Like train timetables from 1883, or postcards from the early 1900′s. I began scanning some of the postcards I’ve managed to get… I hope that one day I’ll have one for every station, but I know that is quite a lofty goal. Someday, perhaps…

Did I ever mention that sometimes I wonder if I picked the wrong profession? I enjoy graphic design but advertisements? For things like Christmas? Bah humbug, I hate Christmas. Well, no, actually I hate being told that I am required to purchase extravagant gifts for a particular person. Honestly, I’d much rather give someone a for no reason other than this reminded me of you present. But yet, here I am, working on last minute ads for Black Friday…

Just this once though, just for my lovely readers, I will pretend that I enjoy the holidays, and fill you in on all the train and holiday related good stuff on the Harlem Line and in the city.

Discounts to see the Christmas Spectacular or Wintuk

In case you missed last week’s Mileposts, those interested in seeing the Rockettes in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, or Cirque du Soleil’s Wintuk can get a discounted ticket thanks to Metro-North. In addition to the discount, you also receive a free roundtrip train ticket to go see the show! When purchasing tickets for these events, use the promo code METRO in order to apply this promotion. For more information, details, restrictions and the like, check out these pages:
Tickets for the Radio City Christmas Spectacular
Tickets for Wintuk

Discounts on the Nutcracker in White Plains

Another holiday event with discounts is at the Westchester County Center in White Plains. The Nutcracker, performed by the Westchester Ballet Company, will have shows on the 17th, 18th and 19th of December. Coupons are available on Westchester County’s website (after completing a short survey).
For information on purchasing tickets, click here.

Grand Central Holiday Fair

Every Christmas season Vanderbilt Hall is filled with various vendors selling their wares, and this year is no exception. The fair will run until December 24th, and is closed on Thanksgiving. For more information about hours, and a vendor map, check out this event page.

Holiday Train Show in Grand Central

The Transit Museum will again be hosting their Holiday Train show in their annex in Grand Central Terminal. Hours are as follows:
Monday – Friday 8:00 AM to 8 :00 PM
Saturday & Sunday 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM.
The show will run until January 17th.

Video from last year’s Holiday Train Show

Holiday Train Show at the Botanical Garden

The Botanical Garden will be having its annual Holiday Train Show, which starts this Saturday. The garden is easily accessible via the Harlem Line, very close to, you guessed it, Botanical Garden station. The show will run until January 9th. Train and holiday related events will be happening throughout that run – from gingerbread houses to Thomas the Tank Engine visits – so be sure to check the schedule.

Lionel Pop-Up Train Stores

For anybody interested in purchasing some Lionel trains for themselves or friends, Lionel has a few pop up stores in the area. Supposedly these stores will have limited edition products not sold anywhere else. You can find the stores in Manhattan and White Plains:

Lionel New York
1095 Avenue of the Americas (41st St), New York, NY [map]

Lionel at the Westchester Mall
125 Westchester Ave., White Plains, NY [map]

Holiday Events at the Westchester Italian Cultural Center

The presepio is the most popular traditional Christmas decoration in Italy, and the Westchester Italian Cultural Center, not far from Tuckahoe station, will have theirs on display for the season. Events start on November 30th with Christmas Through the Ages, and the opening of the presepio exhibit. The exhibit will continue until January 1st. For more information click here.

Mount Kisco: Tree Lighting

Not far from Mount Kisco’s train station the town will host its tree lighting ceremony, on Friday December 3rd at 6PM. Cookies and cocoa will be served, and for the young ones there will be visits with Santa Claus afterward.
104 Main Street, Mount Kisco: [map]

Brewster: Tree Lighting & Putnam Chorale Holiday Concert

Christmas events in Brewster will commence at 4:30 on December 4th at the Southeast Museum, down the street from the train station. A holiday ornament-making workshop will be held for children, followed by caroling and the village’s tree lighting.
For more information about that click here.

Afterward, the Putnam Chorale and Brass Quintet will be performing a holiday concert, which is a free event. The show will be held at the United Methodist Church, which again is not far from Brewster station. The concert starts at 7:30 PM.
For more information, go here.

Great Westchester Toy & Train Show

In time for Christmas gift-giving is the largest toy/train show in the northeast – and within easy walking distance from White Plains station. The show will be held on December 12th at the Westchester County Center, from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM.
For more information and a coupon for a dollar off admission, click here.

Annual IRideTheHarlemLine.com Holiday Card

Did I mention I hate cards too? They’re so impersonal sometimes, just grabbing something at Hallmark and running off. I’d much rather somebody draw me a picture, even if it is shitty. And every holiday that is exactly what I do, though I do hope you don’t think my drawing is shitty. Be sure to find me on the train and I’ll be happy to give you one of this year’s card (which is much better than last years). If I don’t see you or you don’t live in the area, you are welcome to email me your mailing address and I will send you one through the mail. (It will even have a Conductor Dog stamp on it!)

Of all the places I’ve been on this little tour of the Harlem Line, it is funny that I have not yet featured the one station I spend the majority of my time at. As of the first of this month, I have been living in and commuting from Goldens Bridge for two years (I’ve been commuting regularly on the Harlem Line slightly longer, though from Brewster station). Besides some of my crazy neighbors, it is a fairly nice area, albeit a little quiet.

Goldens Bridge station in the 1920′s

Over the years that the railroad has been servicing the area, much has changed in Goldens Bridge, and it was probably not as quiet as it now feels. In the early 1900′s the Muscoot Reservoir was created, flooding areas in the town that people had formerly lived. Some of these people had their entire houses moved to other locations. The construction of Interstate 684 in the late 1960′s also changed the landscape of the hamlet significantly, and the two dangerous grade crossings that were in the town have been removed. The station building that was in Goldens Bridge was on the east side of the track, roughly located where the southbound entrance to the Interstate now is.

A train at Goldens Bridge

The busy station of yesteryear is a stark contrast to what the station is now. It was from Goldens Bridge that the Mahopac branch diverged from the main line, a once-popular service which was discontinued in 1959. The station had a turntable as well as a water tower -northbound steam trains would take on water here and be set until they reached Millerton. By 1902 the New York Central had two tracks all the way up to Goldens Bridge until 1909 when the line was two-tracked up to Brewster.

For all the changes the area has gone through over the years, it does slightly amuse me that the current station is sandwiched between the concrete and asphalt of the highway on the east side, and a little bit of wilderness surrounding the reservoir to the west (if you’re interested about visiting that little bit of wilderness, I’ve posted about it before). But it is that Interstate that brings many people to the station, the parking lot is always filled with commuters from New York and Connecticut… and plenty of folks for me to people-watch…

Despite my professed love for the Harlem Line, I do in fact visit quite a few other locations and post photos… and today’s collection is no exception. Unfortunately for my dear Harlem, this time I cheated on him with his little brother, the Hudson. If you’ve ever been on the upper portion of Metro North’s Hudson Line you may have noticed a castle on an island in the Hudson. In fact you may have seen the collapse of the castle on your train ride past the island… Metro-North workers were the first to report the collapse of the castle last December to the trust that is attempting to restore the castle.

Although most people today know the island simply as Bannerman’s Island, the true name is Pollepel Island. Scottish immigrant and New York businessman Francis Bannerman purchased the island in 1900. By 1901 a castle for his business and residence had been built on the island for his family.

Francis Bannerman VI, better known as Frank, began collecting scrap at the harbor to sell as a young boy. As he got older, and after the Civil War, he began purchasing military surplus from government auctions and amassed quite the collection of ammunition – which he formed into a business called “Bannerman’s” in 1865. As having so much ammunition in the heart of Brooklyn began to be a safety issue, the island was a perfect location for his business.

Today, the island is a part of the Hudson Highlands State Park. Unfortunately, it is not quite the jewel it once was. Besides the two collapses in the past year, the castle was ravaged by fire in 1969. Many portions of the castle became covered in vines over time, which amusingly might be helping to hold the structure together. The Bannerman Castle Trust is attempting to preserve and restore the castle, but are desperately in need of funding. As we wait the castle will continue to crumble, and perhaps be lost forever: with little money to spend they’ve chosen to attempt to restore the residence first, since it is in better condition than the castle itself.

If you’re interested in learning more about the castle, taking a tour, or donating to the Bannerman Castle Trust, be sure to check out their website here: bannermancastle.org.

When I first began riding Metro-North to the city I was fairly young… and at the time I had always assumed that Brewster North was the end of the Harlem Line. It was my train’s last stop, after all. It is around this time of year that there is an influx of young riders, off to see the city’s Christmas decorations, the tree that will soon be in Rockefeller Center, and perhaps a visit to see the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City (for which I was riding the train). You can always tell who these children are – they come back and board the trains with obnoxious little gizmos that spin around and light up, items that probably cost mere cents to produce in China but get peddled to small children for a significant markup of around twenty dollars. Not only was I the obnoxious child that insisted on having that toy – for God’s sake it actually lit up – but I was that obnoxious child on your train.

It certainly has been a lot of years since then… I’m hopefully less obnoxious on the train, and I know that beyond Southeast – what Brewster North is now called – there still is more to the Harlem Line. The first stop north of Southeast – beyond the electrified tracks, located 60 miles north of Grand Central – is the last stop in Putnam County: Patterson. There is one track here, as well as a platform that will accommodate four train cars. It is a small station, but it does have the amenities we have come to know: automated ticket machines, and a shelter for waiting in the cold (great for days like yesterday).

If the quiet nature of Patterson station is not quite your thing, and you are looking for a bit of adventure, I’d suggest visiting Texas Taco. It is also in Patterson and not far from the station. Adjectives that come to mind when describing the place are colorful, slightly creepy, and “holy crap that lady has purple hair.” But that isn’t a bad thing, is it? Before I had cat hats, I used to have blue hair – but that too was a long time ago…