It has been my opinion for quite a while that my house ought to be a reality TV show. Not far from Goldens Bridge train station, we roommates met via Craigslist. We currently have three people in the house, but in the past have had four. And one dog. Her name is Kaylee, and she weighs almost as much as me. Correction, she weighs nearly what I weighed before I got a job that provided me enough money for my junk food and Coca-cola addiction. The fourth roommate, and there have been two, has always been the smelly one – whether it be from not washing, or from smoking a million packs a day. The first two formed a band that frequently makes noise in our basement, which if you follow me on twitter, you’ve probably heard about. They are also dating off and on. If I had a dollar for every time they broke up and she moved out, only for her to move back in not soon after, I’d be rich. They are currently together, but by the time the next train arrives in Goldens Bridge, who knows…

In a strange coincidence during one of those breakups, the two got into a fight outside. He threw a CD at her, but was off the mark and it flew into the neighbor’s yard. And they forgot about it. Several days later the neighbor shows up, CD in hand, returning what they must have “lost”. In the chatter that followed during this encounter, my roommate discovered that the neighbor once worked for the railroad, back when they still used steam on the Harlem Line. When my roommate told me about it, I knew I had to speak to this man. And so, one afternoon while walking the dog, I spotted him outside on the porch and said hello.

The man on the left is my neighbor, John

My neighbor certainly has an intresting viewpoint in regards to the history of the Harlem line. He witnessed the final years of steam on the line, and the trains that replaced them. He was a Fireman, while that position still existed, anyway. He told me he’d put water in the boiler in the engine in Goldens Bridge that would run to Mahopac, and then on break, would walk to his house, have a sandwich and tend to the plants in his garden. It was one of the many jobs he had over the years, including working in Chatham, Dover Plains, Brewster and Goldens Bridge. Occasional winters were spent working on the Maybrook Line in Danbury and Hopewell Junction. Besides seeing the end of steam, he witnessed the transition from the New York Central to Penn Central, Conrail, and Metro North, until finally retiring in 1991.

The above photos of his are of the Empire State Express no. 999, taken in Chatham in 1952

We always thought we’d lose the passengers. We never thought we’d lose the freight…

John motions to his wife, telling me how she hates how he always says this. It is hard for him to understand the state of matters today, shipping everything by truck. Trains were so much more efficient, he says. Watching the news every morning, the traffic reports show cameras of the traffic on every bridge going into the city, with traffic backed up for miles… and plenty of box trucks in wait. He muses about how everything has changed. Everything today is technology based…

“It was boring…” he said of being an engineer today. He turns to look at me with his weathered face, but his light blue eyes are still bright. He tells me that having good eyes was essential for working on the railroad. When starting out he had to undergo various vision tests, to have the vision to see a signal light from a mile away. To see in fog, and to see through your peripheral vision. It baffled him to see people working for Metro North, people that wore glasses. Because now, you didn’t need to see signals outside, everything was in the cab. Having perfect vision isn’t a necessity as it once was. Although hiring a more diverse workforce, in both gender and color, was a new thing, seeing the people wearing glasses seemed like it was harder to get used to for him.

He refers to himself as an “old timer” and says that most of the people he worked with weren’t really interested in his stories. I think he finds it amusing that someone is so interested in them, especially a young female. But that is hardly the first time I’ve heard that before. Some of the things he told me were not stories in their entirety, but quick smatterings of thoughts and memories. Comparing distractions of cell phones today, to people he recalled watching baseball games on portable televisions long ago. People that would throw rocks and bottles at the train, and how he once got a “face full of glass” – an event he didn’t care much to elaborate on. Stories he heard from the “old timers” of his day, of bootleggers during prohibition, and people that smuggled out Canadian ale on the trains. And when I asked about uniforms, he told me of others on cleaner trains that wore suits to work, suits with inner pockets where flasks could be hidden.

More photos from my neighbor’s collection

For 43 years my neighbor worked for the railroad, though he mentioned another family member that had a record, close to 50 years of service to the rail. His daughter and son both work for Metro North, in North White Plains, and over on the Hudson Line. Despite living next door, I don’t see the man much. He spends part of his time at a house upstate, and when he happens to be in Goldens Bridge, he often sits outside, on the porch hidden by bushes. But every time I walk by, mostly on the way to or from the train station, I look over to see if he is hidden behind those plants. Because even though our conversations have been few, they’ve always been most interesting.

This week Wakefield has the honor of being the first Harlem Line station south of White Plains I’ve featured. Before starting the Harlem Line Panorama Project, I had never ventured to any of these stations. After this weekend though, I’ve been to most of them. On the current schedule of a station a week, the tour will finally be over at the end of January. And once that is over I think I’ll do a full tour guide for whoever might be interested in seeing the Harlem Line as well… I’m planning to include info about good food, history, art (including Arts For Transit works) and nature along the way, and which stations aren’t to be missed. Anyways, back to the tour…

Traveling south, Wakefield is the first Metro-North station in the Bronx, and is the northernmost neighborhood of the city. It borders Westchester county, specifically the city of Mount Vernon. The two are both linked to the first president of the United States: George Washington. Wakefield was the name of the place where he was born, and Mount Vernon the name of the place he died. The two stations of Wakefield and Mount Vernon West are in fact very close – so close that you can see the station from the platform of the other.

At Wakefield you can make a connection to the subway, Wakefield – 241st Street is located six blocks from the station. The platform is rather small, and can only accommodate four cars. Just south of the station the New Haven Line diverges, and from the station you can see the M2s going by on the other side of the tree line. Historically Wakefield had been a place where passengers changed trains. Electric trains served south into the city, and riders going north transferred to steam trains.

Several months ago I was amused when I saw a blog linking to my own, and they referred to me as a “closeted rail fan.” Despite “coming out” and accepting the title I still wonder if it is really an appropriate term to call me. I certainly like riding on trains, but I know very little about the physical machine that is a train. I think my primary interest is the history, and most specifically, how technology affected places and people. And I think it is undeniable that the railroads played a big part in how New York evolved. Back when Cornelius Vanderbilt bought the land for the original Grand Central Depot, the location was considered “the boonies,” as City Hall was thought of as the northern end of the city. And what would Westchester County be like without the rail? The rail encouraged the people of the area to move north and spread out, turning the rural areas into the suburbs we know today.

I think another thing that interests me about the rail is the abandonment. I really don’t know why, but I have a fascination with abandoned places – and the rail has plenty of them. The railroad was once the primary way mail and freight was delivered, and how people got around. But cars became increasingly more popular, and with the advent of the interstate system, cars took the place of trains in getting around. And so stations were closed, rail lines cut, and railroad companies went bankrupt. I do mention it frequently on here, but the Harlem Line is no stranger to abandonment. In 1972 passenger service north of Dover Plains ceased, and around 50 miles worth of track, all the way to Chatham, was abandoned.

Old photos and postcards of Chatham, NY

In the grand scheme of things, Chatham was luckier than most. It was once a thriving area for transportation: the Harlem Division, Rutland Railway, and the Boston and Albany all made stops. Though the Harlem and Rutland’s track has been ripped out, CSX and Amtrak still use the Boston and Albany track, running through the quiet village without stopping. Quite a few of the former stations on the Harlem Division have really nothing to see… station buildings long gone and mostly forgotten. But as I said before, Chatham was luckier than most, the historical Union Station still stands, restored and used as a bank. And in 1974 it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Henry Hobson Richardson was an influential architect in the 19th century, popularizing a style of architecture that was named for him: Richardsonian Romanesque. The revival style incorporated 11th and 12th century European Romaneque traits. Although Trinity Church in Boston was his most notable work, he designed several railroad stations for the Boston and Albany. Several architects trained with Richardson, including Charles McKim and Stanford White, who designed the original Pennsylvania Station, though in the Beaux-Arts style. Following Richardson’s style, however, were two others that worked for him: George Shepley and Charles Coolidge. Their firm Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, based in Boston, completed Richardson’s partially completed and pending projects, one of which was Chatham’s Union Station. In total, the firm completed 23 of B&A’s stations, including Boston’s South Station, still in use by the MBTA.

Chatham’s Union Station opened on August 31, 1887. The ticket office in the station was closed in 1960, and pieces of the inside, including the waiting benches, were sold off. Passengers used the station up until it’s final closure in March of 1972, ending the many years it served as the terminus of the Harlem Division. The station has been restored, and reopened in 1999. It is now the office for the Chatham branch of the Bank of Kinderhook. And it is still quite beautiful… one of the few remaining vestiges of the Upper Harlem Line that I can actually see.

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
Download article

Whether you knew the name or not, if you’ve ever been to Grand Central or Penn Station, you are familiar with a Solari departure board. Since the 1950′s Solari boards have been installed in airports and train stations worldwide. Although most people refer to the original flap style boards as Solaris, the company also produces more modern LCD and LED display boards, such as the one that is now in Grand Central. On Monday I showed some photos from Union Station in New Haven, the last Metro-North location to have one of the Solari flap-style displays. Most unfortunately, that sign is going to be replaced. In honor of that board, and of Solari’s functional yet elegant contribution to rail and public transport, I thought I’d feature the history of the company this Friday.

Solari split-flap clocks. Silkscreened flaps. Massimo Paniccia, president of the Solari company.

Solari is based in Italy, and has roots back to the 1700′s, where they produced timepieces and later on, clocks for bell towers. The current incarnation of the name is from brothers Remigio and Fermo Solari, who broke from the original family business and established their own business also under the name Solari. Remigio was a self-taught engineer, and it was he who invented the iconic flap display which many are familiar with. The idea was used in both large and small scale: from large departure displays used by railroads and airports, to small clocks for the home.

Flap-style displays

The flap display was introduced in 1956, and was installed in airports and rail stations across the world. The design used various metal (and later, plastic) flaps with silkscreened information, all which were mounted on a wheel. Each wheel could hold up to 40 flaps. When the information on the board had to change, the wheel was rotated until the proper flap was displayed. With each flip, the board made a particular clack, which is so memorable to passengers that when Boston replaced their Solari flap display with an LED display in 2004, they kept the noise. It plays over a loudspeaker to alert passengers that the information has changed (Though I’ve heard from a commenter that it doesn’t do a very good job at imitating it).

Solari flap-style board in Grand Central

As a young girl I remember my first train ride on Amtrak: I was travelling with my grandmother from Penn Station to Jacksonville, Florida. I remember seeing that flap display in Penn Station, and being mesmerized. Today, that flap display is gone: it was replaced in 2000. Long Island Rail Road’s flap display, also in Penn Station, was replaced in 2003. During the New York Central days, Grand Central also had a Solari display, perhaps one of the most famous. I’ve tried digging up information about that board, but I had some difficulty. From what I can gather, that Solari display was later replaced by another split-flap display, though not made by Solari. This other board, called the Omega Board, was used by Metro-North until it was replaced during the station renovations in 1998. The current departure board in Grand Central was made by the Solari company, though it is one of the more modern LED-style boards.

Grand Central today, Solari LCD departure board visible on the left

The Solari display in New Haven’s Union Station, which will be removed shortly.

The next time you find yourself on a Metro-North train going past Valhalla Station, be sure to take a look out your window, facing eastward. You’ll be able to catch a quick glimpse of the Kensico Dam as the train goes by. The dam holds back the waters of the Kensico Reservoir, the primary source of water for the city of New York. The 98-acre grounds around the dam are a county park called the Kensico Dam Plaza. While the weather was warm last week, I took the opportunity to have lunch at the park, and of course I took lots of pictures. Kensico Dam Plaza is one of the many interesting places to visit in the area within walking distance of Harlem Line stations (In this case, Valhalla). In addition to the dam, the grounds also contains a September 11th Memorial, called The Rising, designed by architect Frederic Schwartz. The memorial lists the names of all one hundred and eleven Westchester County residents that died in the attacks.

The original Kensico Dam was built in 1885 and created a small lake with water from the Bronx River, as a source of water for New York City. As the city expanded, the dam could not fulfill the city’s need for water, and was eventually expanded. This expansion required the land from the village of Kensico, and so the property of the entire town was purchased to make room for the new dam. The former town now rests underwater, covered by the now larger Kensico Reservoir. This larger reservoir receives water from other reservoirs in the Catskill Mountains, through the ninety-two mile Catskill Aqueduct.

Old diagrams of the Kensico Dam and grounds, the plan of the grounds does not appear to match with what is there now. The plans were modified, or the grounds were changed later on.

Construction photo of the dam

Construction for the new Kensico Dam began in 1909, and the project employed more than 1500 workers. Workers earned an average of one dollar and twenty-five cents per day. Railroad tracks were built for the purpose of removing earth from the site, as well as moving building materials. The main building material used in the dam is concrete mixed with large stones, called Cyclopean concrete. The dam face is made of large granite stones from a quarry in nearby Cranberry Lake. Kensico Dam measures 300 feet high, and 1830 feet long. There is a road that runs over the top of the dam, though it has been closed since the September 11th attacks. The grounds that form the Dam Plaza and county park total 98 acres, and are used for picnicking, running and walking, bicycling and more. The ice cream man also makes frequent visits during the summer months, and if you’re lucky you’ll get both the Good Humor man, and the Mr. Softee man. And who doesn’t like ice cream?

Here’s a confession: I have difficulty in my perception of the passage of time. Always in History class things felt like they were so far distant. And then when I think about it more, I say to myself, “but there are people still living today that went through those events…” so it isn’t possible that they happened as long ago as my mind thinks. When going through all the stuff I put in the Historical Archive, I decided that I wanted to make a timeline. Timelines are really good, but they generally are limited in scope. They usually deal with a particular subject. I could have easily made a “Harlem Line Timeline.” Would it have made total sense to me though? Probably not. I needed something that sort of puts these events in perspective with other things going on at the time. Knowing Cornelius Vanderbilt was born in 1794 is all dandy. But a timeline gives me more an idea of what is going on when it tells me that the man who had the original Grand Central built was alive when George Washington was alive. Washington is like this massive, legendary figure, that for some reason I imagine lived forever and a day ago. So pretty much, I thought it would be cool to do a comparison timeline, the Harlem Line, and US History. Considering that the Harlem Line was started as a part of one of the older railroads in the country, it sort of makes sense.

And if I was absolutely awesome, I would have that timeline for you right now. But because I’m not quite that awesome, I don’t have it completed. If this was in fact History class I would use this excuse… I don’t frequently talk about my roommates on the blog, but if you think I run into crazy people on the train, you should hear some of the stories of what goes on at my house. Last night I had a headache and my roommates were making a lot of noise. You see, they play in a band. This band practices in the basement. I don’t know what the name of the band is, but at one point in time they have referred to themselves as Vaginal Discharge. I kid you not. To my friends, the lead singer is known as “Stripper Girl,” due to the fact that she once worked at Flashdancers. You know, that Gentleman’s Club that frequently advertises on taxis in the city? Yeah. So with all that noise, I had some difficulties in concentrating, and I figured that my lovely readers would understand.

I figured that I’d give a little preview of what I’m working on though. I promise I’ll finish it soon, along with the historical map I’ve also been working on. Please harass me. I am awesome at starting projects, but terrible at finishing them.

Early history. It will be cooler when finished.

Only 24 states when the New York & Harlem Rail Road was chartered. “That’s like, less than half!” says my roommate. And no, I don’t have pictures of her.

Two weeks ago I mentioned the wreck in the Park Avenue Tunnel in 1902, and how it led to electric service on the rails. Another thing the accident achieved was the replacement of the old Grand Central Depot. The old Depot at the time was serving a lot more trains than it could really handle. Trains often had to wait in order to enter the train shed. The one train involved in the wreck was waiting in the tunnel, when the train behind missed several signals and ended up crashing into it. The new Grand Central Terminal, with its two levels, was able to accommodate a lot more trains than its predecessor.

Construction on the Terminal was finished in 1913. And what does one want to do after spending $180,000,000 on a gorgeous new train station? Show it off to the world, of course! Recently I’ve had a lot of enjoyment looking at old newspapers. Although photography existed at the time, many newspapers still used engraved illustrations. And I really do love looking at these old illustrations of Grand Central.

All of those come from full advertisements shown in newspapers, like the one below:

One thing I thought amusing about the new Grand Central, was that when it opened, it had a private “Women’s Room.” And I don’t mean a bathroom. For twenty-five cents a woman could use a private dressing room, staffed by maids, to change her “costume” for a “social function.” They would even deliver her trunk straight to the dressing room! How grand! And let’s not forget that there were also hair and manicuring parlors, as well as a shoe polishing room. You know what I wonder though, was the line for that “Women’s room” out the door and around the corner like the lines today? Sometimes they really make you want to shoot yourself…

If you’re interested in seeing more old drawings and advertisements of Grand Central’s opening, click here to take a look through the Historical Archives.