Tuesday Tour of the New Haven Line: Rye 
When I first started out doing a little bit of research on the railroad station in Rye, I was rather disappointed. I was coming up dry in a lot of areas – I couldn’t really find anything tremendously noteworthy about the station to write about. Apparently, I hadn’t looked hard enough, as the information I eventually found turned out to be an absolute gem. In fact, it is downright crazy, and I’m warning you in advance. This may have been the most amusing research investigation I have, or will ever go on.
Enter artist Matt Mullican. Mullican is the artist behind the recently installed Arts for Transit mosaic in the Rye station. I’ve already gone on record with my opinion of art being installed in frequently closed train stations, so I wont get into that again. Thankfully, there are plenty of windows in the Rye station, and I was able to get a few shots of the work inside through them. Apparently the mosaic is based upon the works of designer and architect Marcel Breuer. If you’ve ever been to IKEA in New Haven, you probably remember some odd looking building right next to it – it is the last remaining portion of the Breuer designed Pirelli Tire Building. Breuer also designed pieces of furniture that look like they could be sold in an IKEA, and he almost gave us this abomination:
So why exactly did Mullican pay homage to Breuer in his mosaic? Apparently Breuer was the architect for the (original) Rye train station. Arts for Transit has used the talents of countless artists, many of which have a rather diverse body of work. I’d be willing to go out on a limb here and say that Mullican definitely deserves a spot on the list of most interesting artists the program has employed. In his artist statement regarding the piece, it is said that “Mullican is concerned with the relationship between perception and reality.” And although not completely relevant to this post, the following YouTube video was too good for me to not post.
How does one perceive reality while under hypnosis? Oh my, what is he doing to the floor?
Back on the subject of railroads, Rye is one of the handful of New Haven Line stations in New York state. It is 24 miles from Grand Central, and during off-peak hours takes about 50 minutes to get to the city. However, during peak hours some trains make the journey in as little as 35 minutes. During the summer months many take the train to Rye station, enroute to the Playland amusement park. Besides that, Rye is pretty much a station like any other. Below you’ll find some old video clips I found on YouTube, and of course, the photos I took on my recent exploration of Rye.
Old footage I found on YouTube of Rye and other New Haven Line stations.
Tags: arts for transit, grand central, metro north, new haven line, panorama, photos, platform, rye, station, train
October 25th, 2011 at 3:09 pm
Emily, not sure how much you looked around. I’m pretty sure the Rye station is not the original; like Harrison and Mamaroneck, the Rye station also hosted the long-gone NYW&B Port Chester extension (http://nywbry.com/ Otto’s web-page for it), which ran alongside the NH from Pine Brook in New Rochelle to Port Chester. If you went down to Purchase St., you’d see the old abutments which carried this two-track railroad over the street. I’m not sure what effect this may have had on any pre-existing station at that location (in Mamaroneck, the station was moved from track level down to street level). The reverse may have happened in Harrison (Otto would know). It also shares a similarity with the long gone NH line Larchmont station in that it ultimately did not survive due to the construction of the New England Thruway (I95).
Still looking forward to the Mamaroneck write-up!
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Emily Reply:
October 26th, 2011 at 1:36 pm
You’re right, I didn’t think that it was the original station. It was a fairly unremarkable building, and as the original had supposedly been done by a famous designer (though I find little information regarding this, beyond the writeup for Arts for Transit) I figured it would be a little more interesting.
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October 26th, 2011 at 4:37 am
I always thought the Rye station house was not only ugly, but useless. Instead of removing the canopy, the MTA simply built the high-level platforms to the east of the station house (that’s the old low-level platform crumbling next to the station house and under the platforms) and pretty far away from station house and the underpass. It is probably the only station with two overpasses as well as one underpass. But try waiting in the station house for a New York-bound train, and see if you make it.
Rye was also Amtrak’s Westchester County stop from the 1970s to the late 80s/early 90s, until they moved to the newly renovated New Rochelle station.
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Emily Reply:
October 26th, 2011 at 1:39 pm
I think most station houses along Metro-North lines are for the most part just leftovers from an older time. (Unless you’re talking about a large station like Stamford, White Plains, etc.) You can’t buy tickets in them, they’re locked most of the time, and when they are actually open you can’t really wait in them because you’d miss your train. I suppose they are nice to see, but as you said, they are for the most part useless.
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November 7th, 2011 at 12:05 am
I found your blog about two months ago and I was wondering when your travels would take you to Rye (my home station)…thanks for the post!
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