The 155th Street station was an elevated railway station in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, that operated from 1870 until 1958. It served as the north terminal of the

IRT Ninth Avenue Line The IRT Ninth Avenue Line, often called the Ninth Avenue Elevated or Ninth Avenue El, was the first elevated railway in New York City. It opened on July 3, 1868 as the West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway, as an experimental single-track cabl ...

from its opening until 1918 and then as the southern terminal of a surviving stub portion from 1940 until its closure in 1958. It had two tracks and one island platform.

History

When the Ninth Avenue El was extended to Harlem in 1879 it terminated at 155th Street as a matter of geographic necessity (the hills of Washington Heights and Highbridge would have made an northward expansion difficult) and demand (northern Manhattan and the Bronx were still sparsely populated). Development came to the area with the

New York City and Northern Railroad The New York and Putnam Railroad, nicknamed the Old Put, was a railroad line that operated between the Bronx and Brewster in New York State. It was in close proximity to the Hudson River Railroad and New York and Harlem Railroad. All three cam ...

(later known as the

Putnam Division The New York and Putnam Railroad, nicknamed the Old Put, was a railroad line that operated between the Bronx and Brewster in New York State. It was in close proximity to the Hudson River Railroad and New York and Harlem Railroad. All three cam ...

) building its terminal at 155th Street in 1881 and the

Polo Grounds The Polo Grounds was the name of three stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used mainly for professional baseball and American football from 1880 through 1963. The original Polo Grounds, opened in 1876 and demolished in 1889, was built fo ...

relocating to a site just west of the station in 1889. The line expanded into The Bronx on June 1, 1918, when the

Putnam Bridge Putnam Bridge may refer to: Bridges: * William H. Putnam Memorial Bridge, a highway bridge in Connecticut, United States * Putnam Street Bridge, a historical crossing in Marietta, Ohio, United States * A bridge of the New York and Putnam Railroad ...

, which had been built in 1881 to carry the Putnam Division across the

Harlem River The Harlem River is an tidal strait in New York, United States, flowing between the Hudson River and the East River and separating the island of Manhattan from the Bronx on the New York mainland. The northern stretch, also called the Spuyt ...

, was leased by the IRT and connected to the 9th Avenue line, allowing it to join the

IRT Jerome Avenue Line The IRT Jerome Avenue Line, also unofficially known as IRT Woodlawn Line and IRT Burnside Avenue Line is an A Division New York City Subway line mostly along Jerome Avenue in the Bronx. Originally an Interborough Rapid Transit Company-operated r ...

and add intermediate stops at

Sedgwick Avenue Sedgwick Avenue is a major street in the Bronx, New York City. It runs roughly parallel to Jerome Avenue, the Major Deegan Expressway, and University Avenue. Sedgwick Avenue is one of the longest streets in the western part of the Bronx, run ...

and Anderson–Jerome Avenues. With the building of the Eighth Avenue Line and Concourse Line by the city-owned

Independent Subway System The Independent Subway System (IND or ISS), formerly known as the Independent City-Owned Subway System (ICOSS) or the Independent City-Owned Rapid Transit Railroad (ICORTR), was a rapid transit rail system in New York City that is now part of th ...

in the 1930s, the Ninth Avenue El was rendered redundant. On June 12, 1940, the el was closed entirely except for the portion from this station north to provide a connection from the Jerome Avenue Line to the Polo Grounds. The retained service, known as the Polo Grounds Shuttle, ran from 155th Street to the 167th Street on the Jerome Avenue Line. Though still moderately successful at its outset, the Polo Grounds Shuttle eventually suffered at the hands of the Concourse line and declining ridership of the

New York Central The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Mid ...

, the successor to New York and Northern. The need for the shuttle decreased when the Polo Grounds went vacant in 1957 after the baseball Giants moved to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

and football Giants moved across the river to

Yankee Stadium Yankee Stadium is a baseball stadium located in the Bronx, New York City. It is the home field of the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball, and New York City FC of Major League Soccer. Opened in April 2009, the stadium replaced the orig ...

. On May 29, 1958, the New York Central ceased operations on the Putnam Division, which rendered the shuttle unnecessary. Three months later, at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, August 31, the shuttle was shut down and the elevated portion of the line demolished. The two underground stations were abandoned, but remain intact.

References

External links

nycsubway.org — The 9th Avenue Elevated

Polo Grounds Shuttle
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:155th Street (Irt Ninth Avenue Line) IRT Ninth Avenue Line stations Railway stations in the United States opened in 1879 1879 establishments in New York (state) Railway stations closed in 1958 1958 disestablishments in New York (state) Former elevated and subway stations in Manhattan Defunct New York City Subway stations located aboveground New York City Subway stations located aboveground