Park Hill

Gail Averill just sent me some more information on Park Hill’s former railroad connection:

Yonkers Rapid Transit Railway was incorporated March 18, 1879 as a three mile spur of the New York City & Northern Railroad connecting New York City (155th St) to Getty Square through the Park Hill, Lowerre & Caryl sections of Yonkers. In 1894 it became part of the New York Central Railroad - Putnam Branch. In 1942 the NYCentral filed for abandonment of the Yonkers branch, citing annual losses of $71,000. Despite opposition from Yonkers the ICC approved the petition. The fight went to the Supreme Court which refused the stay of cessation of service but did stop the scrapping of the line. However, on Dec. 12, 1944, the court denied a rehearing and nine days later the New York Central began scrapping the Yonkers Rapid Transit Railway for the WWII effort.

Remnants of the infrastructure remain visible. The stone abutments of the bridge that carried the tracks over McLean Ave. is visible on the North side of McLean opposite the parking lot of the Parkside Diner. The line passed from there into what is now the lower part of Sutherland Park, between Undercliff & South Broadway, to the Park Hill Station which stood on the current site of 254-260 Broadway. Walking along this route through the woods you can still see some evidence of concrete ‘curbing’ along the old rail bed.

Behind the Park Hill station was a stairway of cut stone steps to Undercliff Street and the lower elevator house. Part of the wall is still there, just below the triangle where Park Hill Terrace turns of Undercliff.

The Park Hill Elevator was built for the American Real Estate Company by Otis Elevator in 1895 - a water powered cable car that ran from the lower house behind the station to Alta Ave at the top of the hill. The upper house on Alta Ave. is basically intact and is now a private home. The structure of the elevator platform is still visible in the rear. The lower house was essentially destroyed by a fire in the early 1990s but was rebuilt, not as an exact copy but in an appropriate style, as a 3 family apartment. After the American Real Estate Company was dissolved, the elevator was owned by a group of Park Hill residents who formed Park Hill Properties, Inc. A ride on the elevator cost 5 cents but the elevator lost money (it seems that the cost of water ($900 annually) was a large factor in this loss. There was dispute with the City over bills for water which supplied pressure to power the elevator but was not actually “used” and was then piped to buildings on South Broadway and re-billed) In 1931 the City agreed to buy the elevator for $21,000 but title never closed because of political wrangling. Park Hill Properties closed the elevator in October, 1934. Despite various private and neighborhood efforts the elevator passed on a mortgage to the First National Bank & Trust Co which became defunct in 1935. It was among properties scheduled for the Auction of the bank assets but did not find a buyer.

So, let’s lobby the MTA to bring it back - it’ll cut down on my wife’s commute, that’s for certain.

An “Anonymous” reader posted an answer to a question about the old Park Hill railroad station I’d posed in this post:

The tracks were the Getty Square Branch of the Putnam Division of the New York Central Railroad. They started at Putnam junction in Van Cortlandt Park and terminated at Getty Square. The post card shows the lower elevator house as it looked before it was rebuilt after suffering a fire sometime in the 1980s. If you walk down Undercliff, you will see the two stone columns that are in the foreground of the post card. They are at the top stairs that lead down to what is now the parking lot of an apartment building on South Broadway. That parking lot sits partially on the former right of way. If you want to see the rails, just look at the supports for the guard rail.

Another reader wrote to me that he knows where the right of way is and would be perhaps willing to field an archaeologist for a day excursion for me. Perhaps he could be talked into doing it for more folks?

Park Hill residents Barrymore Scherer and Michelle Jacobs-Scherer will present an illustrated talk, Park Hill, an Idyll on the Hudson as part of Park Hill Day at the Yonkers Riverfront Library in Larkin Plaza, opposite the Yonkers Railway Station, Saturday, March 12. The official opening ceremony is at 11:00 a.m. Mr. Scherer will begin his half-hour lecture at 11.30 a.m. Deborah Holcomb is putting together a video loop of then-and-now shots of Park Hill houses and streetscapes, which will be played on a video monitor throughout the day.

There will be refreshments, so those who intend to come ought to RSVP by email before March 6 to: RSVP @ ParkHillYonkers . org or leave a message at 914-610-5255.

Here’s a little snippet from the program:

Park Hill was one of the first planned suburban communities in the United States, and this talk begins with with the coming of the New York and Northern Railroad in the 1880s, which made the development of Park Hill possible by opening direct commuting service with Manhattan long before the building of the subway. We’ll investigate the early years, the architecture of the houses and the overriding concern create a gracious, bucolic community that capitalized on Park Hill’s unique natural surroundings. We’ll discuss some of the celebrities who lived and visited Park Hill over the years, and compare examples of Park Hill scenery a century ago and now.

About your hosts:

Barrymore Laurence Scherer writes and lectures extensively on opera, classical music and the fine arts. A music critic for The Wall Street Journal and American correspondent to the British Gramophone magazine, he is a contributing editor of Art & Auction, and his work has also appeared in The New York Times, Art & Antiques, Town & Country, and other publications.

As lecturer he has given numerous presentations for the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the National Gallery, Hudson River Museum, The Caramoor International Music Festival, the Metropolitan Opera Guild, New York Philharmonic, and Lincoln Center and other venues around the country.

On radio, he has been a commentator for NPR’s Performance Today, and on the nationally syndicated program, First Hearing.

He is author and illustrator of the critically acclaimed Bravo! A Guide to Opera for the Perplexed (Dutton-Plume) and author of the forthcoming Naxos History of American Classical Music (Naxos Records). In addition he contributed to The Philadelphia Orchestra: a Century of Music, edited by John Ardoin (Temple University Press), and wrote the historical essay and notes for the 12-cd set, The Philadelphia Orchestra Centennial Collection.

Michelle Jacobs-Scherer’s photography has been published in The New York Times, Town & Country, The San Francisco Examiner, The International Herald Tribune, England’s Gramophone magazine, France’s Diapason and in a variety of corporate publications. As a producer of corporate video documentaries, she has received several Telly Awards from the American Center for Creativity.

I’ve heard Barrymore lecture about Park Hill before, and he is an enthusiastic and engaging speaker. I’d recommend this even to long time residents and especially to anyone considering moving to the neighborhood.

Most people living in Park Hill know that at one time there was a train stop here and some kind of wacky elevator to take folks up and down the hill to the train station. This site has some more info and a few drawings of this most convenient and missed part of our past.

I wonder where the old tracks are….

Story from the NYTimes here (requires soul-sucking registration, which one bypasses by using this very fine website or their Firefox extension. You are using Firefox, aren’t you?)

Although the Cross County Mall would be, strictly speaking, outside the self-imposed purview of this blog, since I’m the editor and sole contributor, I’ve decided to plug the story. Mainly because I need content.

Anyway, the point is that our closest mall is getting a makeover, and let’s face it: it sure as heck needs it. From the article -

The physical problems besieging Cross County are readily apparent to any visitor: The entire place sags. The parking lot, which was built on a marsh, now has the rolling contours of a golf course fairway. Fissures snake through the walkways. Many of the stores’ facades are remnants of the mid-20th century. And where newer shopping centers have integrated enhancements from the natural world, like landscaping and foliage, much of Cross County remains a giant slab of unadulterated concrete. It is aggressively un-hip.

However, help may be on the way. Read on -

The Cross County renovation plans call for adding 200,000 square feet of retail space to the existing 900,000 square feet and for refurbishing existing buildings. The owners also intend to rebuild intersections to make access easier and unsnarl traffic, construct a parking tower and redesign and beautify the streetscapes.

If the governmental review process goes smoothly, Mr. Sanzari said, the investors hope to break ground in the spring of 2006 and complete construction by the end of 2008

Until then, the Stop and Shop there has the best selection of organic produce within a 10 minute driving radius.