Quite a while ago I started up a minor project, what I called the Historical Archives. My goal was to collect as much old paper history of the Harlem Line and assemble a museum of sorts – timetables, maps, tickets, photos, and news articles – digitize it, and put it online for everyone to view, completely for free. (There are folks in the city that have better collections than I, such as the Transit Museum and the NYPL, but these are kept under lock and key, and you can’t have them unless you shell out the dollars.) Anyways, the more I added to the archives, the clunkier the directory page that listed all the entries got. I wanted to arrange it in a better way – especially the timetables. I’ve been working on just that for the past week or so, putting all the timetables in a special catalog that you can view with a short description and thumbnails. If you see something you like, you can click on it and go to the main entry for that item with a larger image. I think this is much easier.

In honor of the new catalog I thought it would be fun to show some of the earliest timetables that I have in the collection. The first is from 1871, when Cornelius Vanderbilt was still president of what was known as the New York and Harlem Railroad, with his son William Henry as vice president.

Note the first station is 26th Street, the first Grand Central Depot was only opened later in the year. At the time of publication Hartsdale was still known as Hart’s Corners, Hawthorne as Unionville, and Craryville as Bain’s. Bedford did not have the “Hills” added yet, and Purdey’s was the spelling used, as opposed to today’s Purdy’s.

The timetables below are from 1890, 1909 and 1914. The center timetable, from 1909, is important historically because at this time Grand Central Terminal was being constructed, as the older Depot was being demolished. Despite that, train service still needed to go on interrupted, and a temporary platform at Lexington Avenue was used. The timetable makes note of this on the front, directing riders to the temporary terminal.

Name evolution: After the New York and Harlem Railroad was leased to the New York Central, it was listed as the Harlem Division of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad. Later the name was shortened to just the New York Central.

The timetables above are from 1922, 1931 and 1940 and list service to Lake Mahopac, a branch of the Harlem that diverged at Golden’s Bridge. Below are timetables from 1958 and 1964. Service on the Mahopac branch was discontinued in 1959, and so the timetable from 1958 is one of the last to list that service.

Not long after that 1964 timetable the New York Central merged with the Pennsylvania Railroad to form the Penn Central. Although the service was not the best, in my opinion the Penn Central had some of the nicer timetables in the collection. But that is a post for another Friday. Enjoy the day, and the weekend everyone!

As an additional note, I thank the Danbury Railway Museum’s library for giving me access to their collection of timetables to digitize. If anyone out there has some timetables that I don’t have listed, I would love it if you could contact me and send me a scan so I can add it into the catalog.

When it comes to beautiful stations located on the Harlem Line, Hartsdale is definitely high on my list. Scarsdale’s station was built in 1902, and designed by Reed and Stem, in a neo-Tudor style. When Hartsdale’s station was built in 1912, architecture firm Warren & Wetmore modeled the style previously used in Scarsdale. Both station buildings still exist, and in the case of Hartsdale no longer has a ticket window. Instead, Hartsdale’s station building houses a Starbucks. Warren & Wetmore are most noted for their work on Grand Central, though they designed several other stations and buildings for the New York Central, including Yonkers, Mount Vernon West, and the New York Central building (now called the Helmsley Building). The small station formerly had a waiting and ticket room, a baggage room, and restrooms. Above the main door is a balcony with intricately carved wood, though it is fake- there is no way to access this balcony.

Just as Hartsdale and Scarsdale are a pair in architectural style, the Arts for Transit pieces that are at both stations are also a pair. Philadelphia-born artist Tom Nussbaum designed the figures at both stations, made of Cor-Ten steel and installed in 1991. Although the photo of the plaque I snapped at the station lists the name as Untitled, the Arts for Transit website refers to the piece Workers. There are twenty-one life size figures in between the station’s two tracks.

A few of the old station buildings on the Harlem have been converted to Starbucks, and I must admit I felt like a dork taking pictures of people attempting to drink their coffee. I did happen to dig up some nice pictures of the building in the eighties- pre-Starbucks, and when the ticket booth still existed.

If you really want to argue it, you could say that Harlem-125th Street really isn’t a Harlem Line station. Sure, almost every Harlem Line train stops here, but the same goes for Hudson and New Haven Line trains. Thus it is technically a stop on each of those lines. Because of that Harlem-125th is a great train watching locale. Approximately ten minutes from Grand Central, you can watch every Metro-North train heading into and out of the city.

The first station at this site was built in 1874, but was later replaced by a new station elevated on a viaduct in 1897. The station was designed by Morgan O’Brien, architect for the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad. Throughout the years the station deteriorated from leaking water and heavy use. In 1993 renovations began, and were finally completed in 1999, six years later.

Although I photographed one of the Arts for Transit pieces, there are actually two at Harlem-125th Street. Visible from the street is a piece by Terry Adkins, titled Harlem Encore. More visible from the platforms is a work by Alison Saar, titled Hear the Lone Whistle Moan. Saar is a California-based artist and has done public art in various cities, including New York, Sacramento and Chicago. The piece consists of three separate figures, each made of bronze. On the southbound platform is a young woman, heading to the city for work, and on the northbound platform is an older man, leaving the city and heading back to his hometown. Near the stairs there is also a smaller bronze figure of a train conductor. The artist describes the title of the piece as follows:

The title, Hear the Lone Whistle Moan, is from a spiritual that uses the train as a metaphor for the passage to heaven. Trains have often been associated by African Americans with escape and the Underground Railroad in particular.

As I’ve said before, I don’t really know what to expect when heading out to a lot of these stations. My enjoyment is to explore and photograph, and Harlem-125th Street was really great in that respect. With all the trains going by there are great pictures to be had, and I really enjoyed Saar’s artwork. Now having seen all the Arts for Transit works on the Harlem Line, Wassaic, Pleasantville and Harlem-125th are my top favorites. I’ll admit I was a little bit afraid going to the station though, as every time I’ve ever gone by on the train I’ve seen many police on the platform. Usually train photography and lots of cops doesn’t turn out too well, but thankfully I wasn’t approached by any of the police. Someday I’ll have to go back to get some photos of the other Arts for Transit piece, but those will be photos for another day…

Perhaps you have a pair of shoes you’ve never worn collecting dust in your closet. Or a pair that you’ve worn only once, but don’t really like anymore. Or maybe you’d just like to purchase a pair of shoes for a good cause… Either way, be sure to bring a pair of shoes to Grand Central this Tuesday! There will be a collection of shoes in Grand Central on Tuesday in Vanderbilt Hall to benefit Soles4Souls. Soles4Souls is a charity based in Tennessee, and distributes shoes to the needy. The charity has donated more than ten million pairs of shoes to people in more than 125 different countries. So if you have an extra pair of unwanted shoes, take them with you to Grand Central Tuesday – the collection will run from 7am to 5pm. The first 500 people to donate will also get a gift bag, sponsored by various Grand Central retailers. If you’re a fan of Dancing With the Stars, you may enjoy this event even more – professional dancer and two time champion of the show Cheryl Burke will be making appearances throughout the day.

If you can’t make it to the event, you can still donate shoes at other locations. Check out the Soles4Souls website for more information.

It isn’t hard to take a guess as to which train station in the Metro-North system is the most used. Although Grand Central receives the most traffic, White Plains is the second most used station – for the Harlem Line and Metro-North as a whole. It is the station to which I head every morning and evening. It is almost a microcosm of commuter culture. Large enough to have a steady stream of unknown faces, but small enough for there to be “regulars” – the folks you see every day. And there certainly are some crazy ones. But there are nice ones too. Falling into that category is Gary Waxman, who operates the news stand in the station. Although he has a few people help him out, Gary is at the new stand almost every day and night, certainly a fixture in the local culture. People from all over converge at this location, whether it be for the trains, or the buses across the street. Westchester’s Bee-Line, CT Transit’s I-Bus, as well as Greyhound all stop there.

White Plains may not be the prettiest station – it has no Arts for Transit pieces, the bathrooms are absolutely horrible, and there are pigeons everywhere – but it feels a little bit like my other home. For those descending south from the upper Harlem Line, it is your first taste of the city, and of the big buildings to come. Alliance Bernstein has a large building that overlooks the station, and is visible from the platform. But as my friend would put it, everything north of here is “the bush”. Gradually turning more rural the further north you go, the land opens up into into large farms and rolling green hillsides, the Harlem Valley (Named for the railroad, of course).

White Plains is an important transportation hub of the Harlem Line. Almost all trains stop at here – every local, and even most expresses make the stop. It is a common place to have to change trains, switching from express to local, though most people don’t have to. Along with North White Plains, the station forms a dividing line between the local trains that service the Bronx and lower Westchester, and the locals that serve upper Westchester and Putnam counties.

Unlike most stations that I take a short visit to, I spend a lot of time at White Plains. Although most times I don’t really feel like taking photos, I do have a lot more than the other stations. And definitely more panoramas. I picked a bunch that I liked best. I must admit that my new favorite vantage point is the upper walkway over the track that leads to the parking garage. Except for the fact that there are security cameras everywhere. I am expecting that one day I’m going to get apprehended by cops for being a photo taking terrorist. In reality I am just a dork that is going to every station on the Harlem Line.

After coming back from Japan I posted a bunch of pictures of some of Japan’s decorated trains. Although they seem far more common there, we do get some decorated trains here in New York City every once and a while. One of my recent favorites is the adorably cute Bronx Zoo themed train. I caught up with the train several weeks ago in Grand Central, it was running as the shuttle between there and Times Square.

If you happen to take a ride on one of these trains, be sure to look up at the ceiling. It just might make you smile. I nearly missed it myself, guess I wasn’t too observant that night. But look up, a giraffe will be staring back at you. After seeing this train I totally want to go to the zoo!

In other news, I am totally getting my act together with the rest of my pictures from Japan, and the more recent ones from Toronto. I got in trouble taking pictures in Toronto’s Union Station, but also had the opportunity to visit the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre, which was great fun (well, not the part with the cops, or as my brother called them, Canadian Bacon). I liked the trains, my brother liked the beer. The old railway roundhouse now serves as a beer brewery, and of course they have samples for visitors. It helps if I tell you that my brother is only twenty – not quite drinking age in the US, but old enough to drink in Canada.

Growing up, I probably passed throuigh Grand Central at least a hundred times. Each of those times were through either the Lexington Avenue portal, or the one on Vanderbilt Avenue. Unfortunately, that means I missed the grand front façade of the building on 42nd Street. About a year ago, I figured I would change that. Looking up at the sculpture high on the building, I was amazed. But from my low vantage point on the street, it was pretty hard to imagine quite how large it was.

As a building, Grand Central was heavily influenced by the French. The architect Whitney Warren trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in France. Paul Helleu, who designed the night sky on the ceiling of the main concourse, was a French artist. The two sculptors who worked on the project, Jules Alexis Coutan and Sylvain Salieres, were also French. Salieres sculpted the things inside the station, like the oak leaves and acorns which Cornelius Vanderbilt had decided upon as a crest for the family. The sculpture on the 42nd Street façade was designed by sculptor Jules Alexis Coutan, and is called Transportation. Standing tall in the center of the group is the Roman god Mercury. With his winged cap, he represents speed, which for a railroad is a pretty good trait to aspire to. Seated to his left is Hercules, a character with many are familiar with, who is representative of strength. At the right of the group is Minerva, representative of wisdom. Along with these mythological Roman gods is an eagle, representative of the United States.

The meaning behind the sculpture was described by architect Whitney Warren as follows:

…the glory of commerce, as typified by Mercury, supported by moral and mental energy – Hercules and Minerva. All to attest that this great enterprise has grown and exists not merely from the wealth expended, nor by the revenue derived, but by the brain and brawn constantly concentrated upon its development for nearly a century.

Coutan was born in Paris on September 22, 1848. References to him and his work at Grand Central are common, but real biographical information is few and far between. Most books about Grand Central refer to him as Jules Alexis, but other art sources use the name Jules Felix. It is known that he studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and was a student of Jules Cavelier. As a student, he was awarded the Prix de Rome, a prestigious award given to a promising art student after completing a difficult elimination contest. It was awarded from 1663 all the way until 1968 – Coutan won it in 1872. Later in life he returned to the school as a Professor, and mentored artists including Louis Leygue and Hippolyte Lefebvre.

Photo credit: 1, 2.

Some of his other work includes decorations on the Pont Alexandre II, the ornate bridge over the river Seine in Paris, and decorations on the Paris Opera house. He is known in Argentina for designing the mausoleum for diplomat and journalist Jose Clemente Paz, who is buried in La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires. But in the United States, he will always be known for his work on Grand Central. Although it was his design, Coutan didn’t actually carve the final piece himself. In fact Wikipedia claims that he had never even been to the United States, though I can’t seem to verify this little factoid in any other source.

Using the quarter-size model done by Coutan, the full-size final sculpture was constructed by Donnelly and Ricci, and William Bradley and Sons. It was constructed in pieces, which were later assembled on top of Grand Central. In the center is a clock made of Tiffany glass, which measures 13 feet around. In totality, the sculpture is sixty feet wide, fifty feet high, and weighs 1500 tons, and is made of Bedford limestone from Indiana. Visualizing those numbers is just as difficult as perceiving exactly how large that sculpture is on top of the building when looking up from the street. I have a small collection of photographs from 1914 that really give you an idea of the size of the piece. Note the person in each picture, and how small they look compared to the sculpture. It is massive. When completed, it was the largest sculptural group in the world.

Tomorrow I’ll be leaving for Toronto… unfortunately I didn’t have the time to write anything for next Friday, so after going for 17 weeks straight Friday’s history will take a little break. I do promise some good stuff will be coming though!

A few weeks ago when I posted some photos of New Haven’s Union Station a reader commented about how nice the station was, compared to some of MTA’s other stations. The example given was Penn Station. Not only did the comment remind me of some old photos I saw of Penn Station, but a post that I had started writing back in March and had never posted. And that post was about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

In comparison with other stations, Penn Station today isn’t too noteworthy in an architectural sense. Of course when I talk about Pennsylvania station, I am referring to the station in New York City. The name had been used by the Pennsylvania Railroad at several of their other stations, including one in Newark, which occasionally causes confusion. But considering that the station is the most used in the country, you’d think it would look nicer. And of course it would have, had the original not been demolished to make room for the new Madison Square Garden.

The original station was completed in 1910 and was designed by McKim, Mead and White. By the 1950′s the railroad industry was hurting, and in a move to attempt to make some money, they proposed the demolition of the station in order to use the “air rights” and build something over it. The station would be located under street level, and Madison Square Garden and some office buildings would be above it. Despite some protests, the glorious station was demolished in 1963. What exactly does all of this have to do with Jackie Kennedy? The loss of Penn Station eventually led to the formation of a Landmarks Preservation Commission, and the New York City Landmarks Law. It was the Commission that protested when the New York Central decided that they too wanted to demolish Grand Central and build above it. And one of the most prominent members fighting for Grand Central was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

The fight to save Grand Central went all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1968 two designs submitted to replace the station were rejected by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The Supreme Court upheld the decision in 1978. Grand Central would not be demolished. In 1998 after an overhaul Grand Central was rededicated, and for her endeavors to save the station a plaque honoring Jackie Kennedy was placed in Vanderbilt Hall. The last time I was in Grand Central I found the plaque and took a picture. It reads:

In an age when few people sought to preserve the architectural wonders that are a daily reminder of our rich and glorious past, a brave woman rose in protest to save this terminal from demolition. Because of her tireless and valiant efforts, it stands today as a monument to those who came before us and built the greatest city known to mankind. Preserving this great landmark is one of her many enduring legacies. The people of New York are forever grateful.

I’m going to leave off with a few quotes, a rededication newspaper article, and a random thought. If as a child I had never felt the awe of stepping into the gorgeous Grand Central, a particularly fond memory, would this site even be here? The station utterly captivated my thoughts, and despite all these years, I can’t help but smile every time I step into that main concourse. So thanks, Jackie, thank you very much.

Is it not cruel to let our city die by degrees, stripped of all her proud monuments, until there will be nothing left of all her history and beauty to inspire our children? If they are not inspired by the past of our city, where will they find the strength to fight for her future? Americans care about their past, but for short term gain they ignore it and tear down everything that matters.

If we don’t care about our past, we cannot hope for our future.

I’ve had a little obsession as of recently. It seems to be a common thing with me. The obsessions, they come and go, they fade with time. A book, a place, a subject… this site has turned the Harlem Line, and its history, into one of those obsessions. And through that came another minor obsession, that of collecting postcards. Specifically older postcards of Grand Central. They’re not too difficult to find. For a dollar or two you can pick them up on eBay.

At first I was looking for postcards in good condition. Old, yet preserved. Not tarnished by passing from hand to hand and through the mail system. I suppose the most recent auction I wasn’t paying too much attention. I liked the front of the card so much, I bought it, without a glance at the condition. But instead of being discouraged by the card’s lack of clean perfection, I am fascinated by it.

The scene in the postcard looks a little bit different from the scene today… and I don’t just mean the little things like the cars. As to be expected, the city’s skyline has changed. Buildings have changed hands, and changed names. Behind Grand Central’s facade stands the New York Central Buiilding, once the headquarters for the railroad. Opened in 1929, the building was designed by the architecture firm of Warren & Wetmore, who also worked on Grand Central itself. After changing hands several times, the building is now known as the Helmsley Building.

But today if you were to stand in front of Grand Central’s facade, it would not be the Helmsley Building that you see. For another addition to the skyline came in in 1963. The PanAm Building, today known as the Met Life Building towers over Grand Central, the thirteenth tallest building in the city. Its 59 floors block any visibility of the old New York Central building’s 35 floors.

The mystery of the postcard is hardly the front. It is the back of the postcard that captured my interest. The postcard bears a mail date of August 24th, 1936, and the stamp cost a mere cent. The sender, whose name is never established, happened to be staying in a hotel close to Grand Central. She (I’ve imagined the scrawl as belonging to a female) has used Grand Central as a landmark for orientation in the city, as so many before and since have done, and will continue to do. I wonder if the receiver of the postcard, Gracie, is still alive. And if she is, does she remember receiving it, or has the card been long forgotten? The address to which the postcard was sent, if it was ever residential, is no longer. A doctor of radiology makes his office there now, in a small, historic neighborhood of Boston. Within an hours drive of the location resides a woman, Grace Robinson, aged 98. I wonder if she was the original recipient. Perhaps I will never know. That is unless I send her a postcard of my own…

A list of sources used by this blog for various posts, by topic:

Harlem Line History
The Coming of the New York & Harlem Railroad, Louis V. Grogan
The definitive guide for everything about the Harlem Line. Available for purchase at the Danbury Railway Museum.

Cornelius Vanderbilt
Commodore: The Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, Edward Renehan
Note: although a post was written about this book, an alternate biographer of Vanderbilt claims that much of the ideas put forward in this book are false. An Amazon review explains in detail:

Stiles compellingly demonstrates that two diaries Renehan claimed to use to support his most sensational claim, that the Commodore suffered from syphilitic dementia for the last decade of his life and was no more than a puppet run by his son William, are imaginary. Renehan’s tale is contradicted by everything we know about syphilis; he refuses to let anyone examine his copies of the “diaries;” he refuses to name the present owners of the diaries; and, oh yes, he is currently doing time in New York for having stolen and sold letters by Washington, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt belonging to the Theodore Roosevelt Association, of which he had been acting director.

Railroad Art
Travel by Train: The American Railroad Poster, 1870-1950
Michael E. Zega, John E. Gruber

Grand Central
Grand Central Terminal: Railroads, Engineering, and Architecture in New York City
Kurt C. Schlichting

Grand Central: Gateway to a Million Lives
John Belle, Maxinne R. Leighton

Solari di Udine
Monocle Magazine, #13 volume 02 – May 2008
Perfect Company: Solari di Udine
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