The Harlem–125th Street station is a

commuter rail Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting commuters to a central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter rail systems are con ...

stop serving the

Metro-North Railroad Metro-North Railroad , trading as MTA Metro-North Railroad, is a suburban commuter rail service run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), a New York State public benefit corporations, public authority of the U.S. state of New Yor ...

Hudson Hudson may refer to: People * Hudson (given name) * Hudson (surname) * Henry Hudson, English explorer * Hudson (footballer, born 1986), Hudson Fernando Tobias de Carvalho, Brazilian football right-back * Hudson (footballer, born 1988), Hudso ...

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...

, and

New Haven Line The Metro-North Railroad New Haven Line is a commuter rail line running from New Haven, Connecticut to New York City. It joins the Harlem Line at Mount Vernon, New York and continues south to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. The New Haven ...

s. It is located at East 125th Street and

Park Avenue Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Avenu ...

East Harlem East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem or and historically known as Italian Harlem, is a neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City, roughly encompassing the area north of the Upper East Side and bounded by 96th Street to the south, F ...

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 ...

. The station also serves as an important transfer point between the Metro-North trains and the

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October 2 ...

IRT Lexington Avenue Line The IRT Lexington Avenue Line (also known as the IRT East Side Line and the IRT Lexington–Fourth Avenue Line) is one of the lines of the A Division of the New York City Subway, stretching from Lower Manhattan north to 125th Street in East H ...

() for access to the

Upper East Side The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...

of Manhattan. It is the only station besides

Grand Central Terminal Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to as Grand Central Station or simply as Grand Central) is a commuter rail terminal located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Grand Central is the southern terminus ...

that serves all three lines east of the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

. Trains leave for Grand Central Terminal, as well as to

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

and the northern suburbs, regularly.

History

The current station was built in 1896–97 and designed by Morgan O'Brien,

New York Central and Hudson River Railroad 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 Midw ...

principal architect. It replaced an earlier one that was built in 1874 when 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 Midw ...

and the

New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad , commonly known as The Consolidated, or simply as the New Haven, was a railroad that operated in the New England region of the United States from 1872 to December 31, 1968. Founded by the merger of ...

, the ancestors of today's Metro-North, moved the tracks from an

open cut Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow. This form of mining ...

to the present-day elevated

viaduct A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide v ...

. The original station on the site was built in 1844, when the trains ran at grade-level on what is now

. That station was demolished to make way for the open cut. In 1888, the

United States Department of War The United States Department of War, also called the War Department (and occasionally War Office in the early years), was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army, a ...

began work on 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 Spuyte ...

to allow for unrestricted shipping activity between the Hudson River and the East River and through the new Harlem River Ship Canal at 225th Street. To remedy the situation, the Central opted to raise the bridge to above the water for $300,000. Due to political pressure, it had to raise the grade of its line north of 115th Street on a viaduct, raising the project's cost significantly. The Park Avenue Line's grade had to be raised to reach the higher bridge, and as a result, a new four-track steel viaduct was built between 132nd Street and 106th Street. Between 110th Street and 106th Street, the steel viaduct was to be placed atop the preexisting masonry retaining walls and fill. Between 115th Street and 130th Street, the viaduct was set to replace the open cut structure completed in 1875. Since the line was to be raised on a viaduct, the stone viaducts and the bridges crossing it could be removed. The 110th Street, 125th Street and Mott Haven stations were to be elevated as part of the project. The railroad had threatened to eliminate the 125th Street stop after neighboring property owners threatened to sue and successfully delayed construction. On October 15, 1897, a spacious new station in Harlem was opened at 125th Street, replacing a small station in the old Park Avenue open cut located between 125th Street and 126th Street. The new station was built atop the old open cut and directly under the new Park Avenue Viaduct. The station was higher than the old one. The platforms, which were built on the viaduct, were built to be long. Unlike the old station, which was a local stop, the new station was constructed with two island platforms to allow express trains to stop, with the local tracks curving outwards to make room for them. The station was designed by architect Morgan O'Brien, and consisted of three levels: the basement containing a section of the old cut not filled in, a waiting room at street level, and the elevated platforms. The original station platforms were discovered in the basement level in 1988 as the station was set to be renovated. As with many NYCRR stations in New York City, the station became a

Penn Central The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American Railroad classes, class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania Railroad ...

station once the NYC &

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

s merged in 1968. The New Haven Line and its branches would be acquired by Penn Central a year later, thus making it a full Penn Central station. Penn Central's continuous financial despair throughout the 1970s forced them to turn over their commuter service to the

Metropolitan Transportation Authority The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is a public benefit corporation responsible for public transportation in the New York City metropolitan area of the U.S. state of New York. The MTA is the largest public transit authority in th ...

. After the 138th Street in the

Mott Haven Mott Haven is an American primarily residential neighborhood in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of the Bronx. Its boundaries, starting from the north and moving clockwise, are East 149th Street to the north, the Bruckner E ...

section of the

South Bronx The South Bronx is an area of the New York City Borough (New York City), borough of the Bronx. The area comprises neighborhoods in the southern part of the Bronx, such as Concourse, Bronx, Concourse, Mott Haven, Bronx, Mott Haven, Melrose, B ...

was closed by Penn Central in 1972, 125th Street Station was the northernmost station to be shared by the Hudson and Harlem Lines. The station and the railroad were turned over to

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busin ...

in 1976, and eventually became part of the

(MTA)'s Metro-North Railroad in 1983. On April 14, 1986, Metro-North awarded a $500,000 contract to URS Inc. to design a renovation of the station. At the time, it was expected that the renovation would repair the station's leaky roof, install new windows, lighting, and doors, and replace its dilapidated platforms. URS was expected to issue a preliminary report on the condition of the wooden station structure and the steel viaduct, and on short- and long-term plans to rehabilitate the station. At the time, weekday ridership at the station was 420 on the Hudson Line, 500 on the Harlem Line, and 670 on the New Haven Line. A six-year-long renovation of the 1897 structure was completed in 1999 and cleared out a century's worth of neglect and deterioration. The entire Park Avenue viaduct was replaced piece-by-piece without disturbing Metro-North service for the duration of the renovation. This reconstruction included the removal of the Nick Tower just south of the station. The Nick Tower was a control tower mounted over the tracks spanning the entire right-of-way. The renovation is considered a replication, rather than renovation, of the original 1930s version of the station being that none of the original structure is visible to the public. Under the 2015–2019 MTA Capital Plan, the station, along with four other Metro-North Railroad stations, would receive enhancements as part of the

Enhanced Station Initiative Since the late 20th century, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has started several projects to maintain and improve the New York City Subway. Some of these projects, such as subway line automation, proposed platform screen doors, the FA ...

. Updates would include cellular service, Wi-Fi, USB charging stations, interactive service advisories, and maps.

Service

The station is used for travel to and from suburbs north of New York City and the Bronx rather than travel to and from

. All off peak and reverse peak trains to or from Grand Central Terminal stop at Harlem. It is in the same fare zone as Grand Central Terminal, so customers pay the same fare whether traveling to Harlem or Grand Central, and may use either station. Except for local Harlem and Hudson Line trains, northbound trains stop at the station only to receive passengers. Westbound New Haven Line trains and most inbound AM peak Harlem and Hudson Line trains stop only to discharge passengers. Other southbound Harlem and Hudson Line trains may leave five minutes early.

Station layout

There are two 10-car long high-level island platforms, each serving two tracks. All of the tracks passing through the Harlem–125th Street station are reversible and can serve trains going in either direction. During rush hours, three tracks are typically assigned to the peak direction, with the remaining track serving the reverse direction.

Future development

The south side of 125th Street below the station viaduct houses a long-abandoned former comfort station (restroom facility) and the block has long been a vacant lot attracting garbage. The New York City Economic Development Corporation announced in 2013 that they would work with a mix of public agencies and private developers to improve the area surrounding the station, long considered a blight on East 125th Street. In 2015, a nonprofit organization consisting of local small businesses, property owners and stakeholders called NHEMA (now Uptown Grand Central) adopted this space as a NYC Department of Transportation community plaza, and ever since has programmed the space with activities including a year-round farmers market, pop-up shop featuring local small businesses, concerts, a mobile library and free exercise classes for the community. Ridership at Harlem–125th Street station rose 55% between 2002 and 2013, much of which included

reverse commute A reverse commute is a round trip, regularly taken, from an urban area to a suburban one in the morning, and returning in the evening. It is almost universally applied to trips to work in the suburbs from homes in the city. This is in opposition to ...

rs—city residents accessing jobs in the suburbs. Phase II of the

Second Avenue Subway The Second Avenue Subway (internally referred to as the IND Second Avenue Line by the MTA and abbreviated to SAS) is a New York City Subway line that runs under Second Avenue on the East Side of Manhattan. The first phase of this new line, ...

is currently slated to end below the Metro-North station, with the subway tracks continuing west below 125th Street. The line is being built deep to clear the double height Lexington Avenue Line.

References

External links

* *Upcoming northbound train departure times and track assignments from MTA
->

125th Street entrance from Google Maps Street View

Station House on 125th Street from Google Maps Street View

Platforms from Google Maps Street View
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harlem-125th Street (Metro-North station) 1897 establishments in New York City Metro-North Railroad stations in New York City Former New York Central Railroad stations Railway stations in the United States opened in 1897 Railway stations in Manhattan East Harlem *