The New York & Harlem Railroad in the 1860’s – Tryon Row

Early photograph of a New York and Harlem Railroad horsecar. New York & Harlem transfer tokens from the American Numismatic Society. I’m not sure how many of you frequent twitter, but I think it seems to be a running joke that every day there is some sort of “national holiday” that is trending. I’m not exactly sure how things like “National Fried Chicken Day” (July 6th) or “Walk on Stilts Day” (July 27) get declared, but people on twitter totally love this crap. Manhattan, not wanting to miss out on the action of remarkably stupid “holidays,” even declared a “Justin...

Tuesday Tour of the Harlem Line: Bedford Hills

Old postcard view of Bedford Station, as it was known at the time Back in the 1800’s when the New York and Harlem Railroad was steadily marching northward through Westchester County, today’s Bedford Hills station was known merely as Bedford. Later the hamlet where the depot resided was referred to as Bedford Station (but still a part of the town of Bedford). It was only in the early 1900’s that the place was renamed Bedford Hills. Located about 39 miles north of Grand Central, the small station retains much of its old charm. The old depot still stands, and it...

Early Harlem Line Timetables, and new timetable catalog

Early Harlem Line Timetables, and new timetable catalog

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...