state hospital

June 10, 2013

Musings on Station Names

You would think that the naming of a train station would be a rather simple and straightforward process… alas this seems to be far from true. If history has shown us anything, station namings (and even renamings) can turn out to be a political or even touchy subject – just ask all the Connecticut commuters that voted for their new Metro-North station to be called Black Rock instead of Fairfield Metro, and were denied (and less than thrilled). But the more interesting thing, to me at least, is how history plays a significant part in many of these names –...

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March 23, 2013

Remembering the Upper Harlem Division, Part 2

In Wednesday’s post regarding the Upper Harlem, we took a look at some of the first abandoned stations on the route, and remembered the Harlem Valley Transportation Association that worked diligently to prevent the abandonment of the Upper Harlem. When passenger service was eliminated north of Dover Plains, the HVTA did not roll over and die – they instead pushed for a restoration of passenger service. Although difficult, they had to reevaluate their goals – retaining passenger service all the way to Chatham was becoming less and less realistic. By the late ’70s, the HVTA’s goal was to at least...

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October 21, 2011

An interesting Harlem Division promotion…

Over the many years the New York Central was in existence they published countless advertisements and promotions to attract business and passengers. Some of them were fairly interesting – like the private women’s room in Grand Central, which catered to the high-end ladies of the day. After all, you wouldn’t want your dress to get dirty on a long steam train journey, would you? The New York Central even promoted venues that weren’t at all possible to visit by train – like China! A 1904 advertisement suggested all Americans should become familiar with the Chinese Empire: Comparatively few people are...

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July 6, 2010

Tuesday Tour of the Harlem Line: Harlem Valley-Wingdale

Another Tuesday, and another visit to a Harlem Line station… this time I’ve got photos from Harlem Valley-Wingdale. Remember how I said Mount Pleasant was a bit of a creepy station? It is, after all, in the middle of a bunch of cemeteries. Lots of buried dead people. Harlem Valley-Wingdale is a little creepy too… the platform is shadowed a large building, part of the former Harlem Valley State Hospital. According to my coworker (yep, the one that says crazy stuff I always tweet about), the building closest to the platform handled all the laundry for the hospital. This delightful...