I Ride The Harlem Line

The railroad prints of Joseph Pennell

Every now and again I think back to my time in art school and some of the more interesting classes I attended while there. All students were required to take classes in disciplines like drawing, photography, painting, printmaking, design, and sculpture, but we were also able to choose more advanced classes in those areas as well. Sometimes I would pick things that just sounded cool, like metal casting (who wouldn’t want to start the forges, dress up in shiny silver colored heat protective suits and work with molten aluminum?). As fun as it was, I recall a review session where...

History

Building the Harlem Railroad’s first suburb and branch: New Village and the Morrisania Branch Railroad

The earliest days of the New York and Harlem Railroad were ones fraught with hardship. As one of the earliest railroads in the United States, it was a guinea pig of sorts, a case study in the feasibility of roads of rails to be laid for the carrying passengers and goods. There was a technological learning curve to determine what worked, and what didn’t—from the type of rails (granite and wood were both early attempts), all the way to the techniques used to build it—including how to bore a tunnel before the invention of dynamite. This “figure it out as...

History / SmartCat Sundays

Rules of the road: the Harlem Line in 1878

In my previous story about the Jerome Park Branch, I mentioned that the next few articles would focus on the changes in the Bronx in the late 1800s. Not only is the time period full of intriguing stories, for the Harlem these years served as a transitionary period from the early history of the line into a history we’re a little bit more familiar with. From a modern lens, it is a bit hard to fathom a time when the Harlem had more trains operated by horse power than locomotives, or that the trains of what is now the Hudson...

History / Train Stories

Dark horse: The forgotten branch of the Harlem that everyone loved to hate.

The last three decades of the 1800s were an interesting time for railroads running through the Bronx. With the Hudson River Railroad making moves to finally enter the east side of Manhattan, along with the rerouting of the Spuyten Duyvil and Port Morris to make it happen, things were beginning to align more closely with what we’re familiar with today. Also almost completely within this timeframe, a little rail line called the Jerome Park Railway was born and died. Although privately owned, much of the service was contracted out to the New York and Harlem Railroad, thus making it a...

History

The “Death Note” of Chauncey Depew

When someone brings up the topic of illuminated manuscripts, I tend to mentally picture an old monk sequestered in a monastery creating elaborate illustrations and fancy letters in a hand printed version of the bible. Yet in reality, the term “illuminated” simply refers to the incorporation of gold or silver leaf, or pigments, into the images and lettering. Plenty of different types of documents can be considered “illuminated”—and in the more modern era these are often ceremonial or formal documents, like diplomas. In New York City, the firm of Ames & Rollinson was noted for their work in the field....

Photos

Visual Vibe: Grand Central Madison

Today marked the (very) long awaited public opening of “Grand Central Madison” to the world. Construction to bring the Long Island Railroad to the east side of Manhattan first started in the late ’60s, but was eventually cancelled due to lack of funds. It wasn’t until the ’90s that the plan was revived, with the intention of bringing trains into Grand Central Terminal. The wait may have been long, but it is nice to get a chance to see the beloved Terminal, in essence, reinvent itself yet again. Things may be changing, but at their core they really do stay...