West Side Line

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Not to be confused with
IRT West Side Line
.

The West Side Line in Midtown Manhattan, seen in 2013. This opening was permanently covered by residential construction later that year.
West Side Line
Legend
NY-9A.svgHenry Hudson Pkwy Shield free.svg NY 9A / Henry Hudson Parkway
Hudson Line (Empire Corridor)
 Riverdale
Hudson Line
Spuyten Duyvil
Spuyten Duyvil Bridge (Spuyten Duyvil Creek)
Inwood
I-95.svgUS 1-9.svg
US 1-9
George Washington Bridge
Fort Washington
152nd Street
Manhattanville
 125th Street
(proposed)
Freedom Tunnel
 62nd Street
(proposed)
NY-9A.svg
Joe DiMaggio Highway
↓ Electrification (Third rail and Overhead line)
Northern end of High Line
LIRR West Side Yard
Penn Station
Southern end of High Line
 St. John's Freight Terminal
(demolished 1927)
 West Side Line, in use
West Side Line, abandoned
Other railroad lines
rail trail (the High Line)

The West Side Line, also called the West Side Freight Line, is a

Gansevoort Street
to 20th Street opened in 2009 and the second section up to 30th Street opened in 2011, while the final section to 34th Street opened in 2014.

History

New York City Railroads c. 1900

Hudson River Railroad

Hudson River R.R. St. John's Depot c. 1890

The West Side Line was built by the

dummy engine. While passing through the city the train of cars was preceded by a man on horseback known as a "West Side cowboy" or "Tenth Avenue cowboy" who gave notice of its approach by blowing a horn.[1][2]

At 34th Street, the right-of-way curved into

60th Street, the track was at street level. The first cut was at Fort Washington Point. The railroad crossed Spuyten Duyvil Creek on a drawbridge; a fatal wreck occurred there on January 13, 1882, when the Atlantic Express, stopped on the line, was rear-ended by a local train, telescoping the last two palace cars, where the stoves and lamps were upset and ignited the woodwork and upholstery.[3]

In 1867, the

Grand Central Depot via that line along the northeast bank of the Harlem River and the New York and Harlem Railroad (Harlem Line), also part of the New York Central system. The old line south of Spuyten Duyvil remained for freight to the docks along Manhattan's west side and minimal passenger service to the West Side station on Chambers Street
(used until 1916).

Grade separation

View from under Henry Hudson Parkway toward maintenance gate to tracks on 82nd Street in Riverside Park

As the city grew, congestion worsened on the west side. Eventually, plans were drawn up for a grade-separated line. The

35th Street. The elevated line was built through the second or third floors of several buildings along the route; others were served directly by elevated sidings.[5][6]

In 1937, the tracks along Eleventh Avenue were bypassed by a below-grade line, passing under the 35th Street intersection and running north just west of Tenth Avenue before slowly curving northwest, passing under Eleventh Avenue at

49th Street. The one at 37th Street was covered over in the mid-2010s, but the openings at 45th and 49th Streets remain to this day.[5][6]

Spuyten Duyvil Bridge, Bronx end, when the swing is open

Around the same time, New York City Parks Commissioner

Harlem Ship Canal (Spuyten Duyvil Creek), before merging with the Hudson Line just north of the bridge.[6]

In addition to serving the industrial and dock areas of the

James Farley Post Office and private freight services.[7]

Donald Trump and Riverside South

Looking north in Riverside Park South. Trump Place and West Side Highway are on the right and 69th Street float transfer bridge on the left.

The

Penn Central in 1968. In 1976, the combined Penn Central, following a bankruptcy and then a merger, became the largest part of Conrail
. Conrail continued to operate freight along the West Side Line until 1980.

Donald Trump optioned the 60th Street Yard in 1974.[8] Riverside South, the development project he ultimately began there, was then the city's biggest private residential development; it faced opposition from many people living on the Upper West Side.[9] To obtain approval of his project, Trump agreed to substantially reduce the size of his ambitions,[10] build Riverside Park South on 23 acres (9.3 ha) of the yard,[11] and donate the park and the right-of-way for a relocated highway to the city.[12]

The line north of 31st Street was acquired by Amtrak. The southernmost part of the

CSX, which acquired it after the 1999 breakup of Conrail.[16]

Current usage

Empire Connection

North end of the Empire Connection (right), joining Metro-North's Hudson Line (left)

The Empire Connection (or West Side Connection

taxicab, subway or on foot.[18] This was a legacy of the fact that the Empire Service lines had previously been part of the New York Central Railroad, which built and owned Grand Central, while Penn Station was owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad. The two stations had never been connected, even after the PRR and New York Central merged as Penn Central
in 1968 and after Amtrak took over intercity passenger rail service in 1971.

When the

49th Street. The Empire Connection was double-tracked north of 39th Street to south of the Spuyten Duyvil Bridge
in the mid-1990s.

On April 7, 1991, all of Amtrak's trains departing for or arriving from Albany and points north began using the Empire Connection into Penn Station, ending Amtrak service to Grand Central.[20] Transportation planners had long envisioned consolidating all intercity service to New York at Penn Station, but those efforts did not go beyond the planning stages until the 1980s. Besides being more convenient for passengers, many of whom had balked at taking the train to New York City due to the difficulty of transferring between stations, this saved Amtrak the expense of operating two stations in New York City. Additionally, Amtrak had to pay $600,000 per year to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, operator of Grand Central, to use that station's tracks.[21][22]

Under the Penn Station Access project, Metro-North Railroad is studying ways it could also serve Penn Station. One alternative being studied would run some Hudson Line commuter trains into Penn Station via the Empire Connection, possibly with new station stops at West 125th and 62nd Streets.

High Line park

17th Street
Main article: High Line

By the late 1970s, freight traffic on the southern portion of the line had become nearly non-existent. In the early 1980s, the tracks were closed for a significant period of time as the line was reconfigured to accommodate the expansion of the Javits Center. Even after the line reopened, freight traffic never returned, and the elevated viaducts in Manhattan stood abandoned for over thirty years.

The elevated viaducts were transformed into a 1.45-mile-long (2.33 km) elevated linear park and greenway called the High Line starting in 2006 and opening in phases during 2009, 2011, 2014, and 2019. Since opening in June 2009, the High Line has become an icon of American contemporary landscape architecture. The park became a tourist attraction and spurred real estate development in adjacent neighborhoods, increasing real-estate values and prices along the route.

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ Hudson River and the Hudson River Rail-Road. Boston: Bradbury & Guild. 1851. p. 12. Retrieved September 18, 2015.
  2. ^ "High Line Photo of the Week: West Side Cowboy Twofer". High Line Blog. March 12, 2008. Archived from the original on August 20, 2008.
  3. Frank Leslie's Weekly
    . January 21, 1882. Retrieved April 10, 2010.
  4. ^ Joint Report of the New York, New Jersey Port and Harbor development Commission, 1917
  5. ^ a b Robbins, L.H. (June 3, 1934). "Transforming the West Side: A Huge Project Marches On". The New York Times.
  6. ^ a b c "NYC West Side Improvement". railroad.net. Archived from the original on March 1, 2000. Retrieved May 17, 2016.
  7. ^ "New York Central's 1934 West Side Improvement". railroad.net. Archived from the original on April 1, 2016.
  8. ^ Bagli, Charles V. (June 1, 2005). "Trump Group Selling West Side Parcel for $1.8 Billion". The New York Times. Retrieved May 17, 2016.
  9. ^ Weber, Bruce (July 22, 1992). "Debate on Trump's West Side Proposal". The New York Times.
  10. ^ Purdum, Todd S. (March 6, 1991). "Trump Revises Project Plan for West Side". The New York Times.
  11. ^ Vitullo-Martin, Julia (January 19, 2004). "The West Side Rethinks Donald Trump's Riverside South". home.jps.net. Archived from the original on June 4, 2016. Retrieved May 17, 2016.
  12. ^ Finder, Alan (October 22, 1992). "Trump Yields to Demands on Housing". The New York Times.
  13. ^ "The High Line". NYC Architecture.
  14. ^ Amateau, Albert (May 6, 2008). "Newspaper was there at High Line's birth and now its rebirth". The Villager. Vol. 77, no. 48. Archived from the original on April 6, 2012. Retrieved August 12, 2011.
  15. ISSN 0041-0934
    . Retrieved July 10, 2018.
  16. ^ Doyle, Chesney; Spann, Susan (2014). "Elevated Thinking: The High Line in New York City". Great Museums.
  17. ^ "Digging into the Archives: The West Side Connection — Amtrak: History of America's Railroad". history.amtrak.com. Retrieved November 19, 2023.
  18. ^ Penn Station could be reached from the Empire Corridor, but only via an impractical route from the Bronx, via the New Haven Line, that then backtracked several miles to the north, to Pelham Manor, to the Northeast Corridor line.
  19. ^ Voboril, Mary (March 26, 2005). "The Air Above Rail Yards Still Free". Newsday. New York.
  20. ^ "Travel Advisory; Grand Central Trains Rerouted To Penn Station". The New York Times. April 7, 1991. Retrieved February 7, 2010.
  21. ^ Johnson, Kirk (July 7, 1988). "Amtrak Trains To Stop Using Grand Central". The New York Times. Retrieved November 10, 2015.
  22. ^ Barron, James (April 8, 1991). "Riding the Past From Grand Central". The New York Times. Retrieved December 11, 2018.

Sources

  • Scull, Theodore W. (August 1991). "Change at Penn Station: an opportunity". Trains.
  • Johnston, Bob (June 1995). "New Amtrak cuts signal a long siege". Trains.

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