Hawthorne station is a

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

stop on the Metro-North Railroad's

Harlem Line The Metro-North Railroad Harlem Line, originally chartered as the New York and Harlem Railroad, is an commuter rail line running north from New York City to Wassaic, in eastern Dutchess County. The lower from Grand Central Terminal to Sou ...

, located in

Mount Pleasant, New York Mount Pleasant is a town in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 44,436. The hamlets of Valhalla, Hawthorne, Pocantico Hills, and Thornwood, and the vill ...

. Trains leave or arrive approximately every 20 minutes during peak periods, hourly otherwise. It is 28.2 miles (45 km) from Grand Central Terminal and the average travel time to Grand Central is 44 minutes. The station is located in the Zone 5 Metro-North fare zone.

History

Rail service in Hawthorne can be traced as far back as 1847, when the New York and Harlem Railroad built a line and a railroad station with the name "Unionville", the former name of Hawthorne itself. The railroad and the station became part of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad in 1864 and was eventually taken over by the

New York Central 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 Mid ...

. By the early 20th century, when

Rose Hawthorne Lathrop Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, also known as Mother Mary Alphonsa, (May 20, 1851 – July 9, 1926) was an American writer and religious leader. She was a Catholic religious sister, social worker, and foundress of the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne. ...

established a home for victims of incurable cancer, the community and the station were renamed "Hawthorne". A grade crossing existed just north of the station for Broadway at Elwood Avenue until 1951, when the

New York State Department of Public Works The office of Superintendent of Public Works was created by an 1876 amendment to the New York State Constitution. It abolished the canal commissioners and established that the Department of Public Works execute all laws relating to canal maintenan ...

realigned

New York State Route 141 New York State Route 141 (NY 141) is a north–south state highway in Westchester County, New York, in the United States. It extends for from an interchange with NY 9A in the hamlet of Hawthorne to an intersection with NY ...

onto a bridge over the tracks south of the station leading to a wye at Elwood Road. Sometime during the late-1950s the former

Richardson Romanesque Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesq ...

depot was replaced with a simple brick structure. As with most of the Harlem Line, the merger of New York Central with Pennsylvania Railroad in 1968 transformed the station into a

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

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 ...

, which made it part of Metro-North in 1983. At some point, the station was remodeled and moved about from its original location.

Station layout

The station has one eight-car-long high-level

island platform An island platform (also center platform, centre platform) is a station layout arrangement where a single platform is positioned between two tracks within a railway station, tram stop or transitway interchange. Island platforms are popular on ...

serving trains in both directions.

References

External links

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Station from Google Maps Street View
Metro-North Railroad stations in New York (state) Railway stations in Westchester County, New York Former New York Central Railroad stations Transportation in Westchester County, New York {{NewYork-railstation-stub