Actually, add one more job to that list—fundraiser extraordinaire! If you love Turbo, why not donate to one of his favorite cars to inspect? The Restoration of New Haven Locomotive 529 is an ongoing project to restore a locomotive very dear to the museum. Designed and built by the American Locomotive Company (Alco), 529 was delivered to the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad in August of 1950. Operating throughout Connecticut and beyond under the ownership of the New Haven and later Penn Central and Amtrak, the Railroad Museum of New England purchased the locomotive in 1985. 529 pulled the very first RMNE passenger train from Waterbury to Thomaston in 1996, and operated in regular scheduled excursion train service for 14 years until it was removed from service due to condemned wheels. With your help, you could see this wonderful locomotive operating again, restored to what it looked like in 1950!

Anyway, just figured I’d make a quick update to say hello. As I travel around, I’m frequently asked if I still write for this site. The answer is yes, sort of. Clearly, I do not write as frequently as I did many years ago, but I still endeavor to write quality, historically related content about the Harlem Railroad. Life, of course, gets in the way sometimes (can someone with a time machine please go back and remind me how much work owning a house from the 1920s is? kthx). Work also keeps me busy…

For the record, I am thoroughly amused by how many of you have messaged me about my 2014 April Fool’s Day joke about Metro-North’s heritage program actually came true. The only thing I must (rather cryptically) say in response is wait until summer! I hope you will be very pleasantly surprised with an associated project that is very dear to me, and has taken up so much of my time.

Connecting the main city of Cusco and the town of Urubamba to the inaccessible-by-car Machu Picchu Pueblo (formerly known as Aguas Calientes) the rail line serves as the primary gateway for access to Machu Picchu citadel. Ever since Hiram Bingham’s rediscovery of this 15th-century “Lost City of the Incas” in 1911, tourists have flocked to the site, and today it is Peru’s most visited tourist attraction. Construction of the rail line began around 1914, but was slow to develop—with the most mountainous portion between Cusco and Pachar taking nine years to build, with another six to reach Machu Picchu. Today, most of the trains are targeted to tourists, however a handful of heavily-subsidized local trains for Peruvian citizens operate daily, providing an important link between some very remote mountainside villages and the outside world.

Alas, during my visit “operational issues” have truncated all rail operations (with the exception of the five-times-per-week luxury Hiram Bingham train from Poroy) in favor of a bi-modal service: buses from Cusco to the road-accessible Ollantaytambo, then trains to the jungles beyond and Machu Picchu Pueblo. During normal times, service extends from the historic San Pedro station in Cusco (elevation 3410m) and slowly traverses an array of switchbacks and horseshoe curves to ascend nearly 280 meters before a slight descent into the Poroy station on the outskirts of the city (elevation 2487m). From there the line continues to descend into the Sacred Valley of the Incas.

The Urubamba branch, which extends from the Tambo del Inka hotel in Urubamba (elevation 2851m, and yes, of course I stayed at the hotel that had its very own train station!), joins up with the line at Pachar (elevation 2813m), a stone’s throw from the main midpoint station of Ollantaytambo (elevation 2804m). Then mirroring the path of the Urubamba River, the line traverses a series of tunnels before reaching Machu Picchu Pueblo (elevation 2080m). Most service terminates here, although a few trains daily carry passengers further to the end of the line at Hidroeléctrica (elevation 1794m, historically the line continued northward to Quillabamba, but was abandoned due to landslides).

Contrary to what one would assume, Cusco—surrounded by an array of peaks, including the snow-capped Vilcabamba range—is situated at a higher elevation than Machu Picchu. Thus the railroad’s only notable elevation changes occur early on in the trip, with an average 4.9% grade to the first switchback and ultimately topping out around 3686 meters, as the train snakes its way out of Cusco and into Poroy. Both this ascent and skirting the middle ground between higher mountains has dictated the route, resulting in a rather frenetic-looking line on a map. Eventually, this wild line evens out, and the remainder of the route is relatively straightforward as it hugs the banks of the Urubamba River.

“Do people intentionally leave their animals near the tracks so they get hit?”  

Through a combination of observations and chatting with Daniel using my limited Spanish, his limited English, and Google translate, a picture begins to emerge of this narrow-gauge train operation through the Andes. 

Daniel chuckles when I ask about the animals. I tell him that this would surely be some sort of scam that someone would run at home, before getting lawyers involved in the hopes of a payout. But he assures me that the people are just looking to graze their animals, and due to Peruvian laws if an animal were to be hit, they wouldn’t be getting anything from the railroad. Nonetheless, the sight of so many animals tied down close to the tracks is jarring for me—notably the cow whose tether appeared to be fastened directly to one of the running rails.

Daniel describes in rough terms how the railroad operates, drawing a single track line and a few passing sidings across the back of one of his papers. I haven’t seen a single signal along the route, nor have I seen any lights, bells, gates, or other warning devices at any of the grade crossings we’ve passed. For that, they have a real live human guard to herd people away, at least in Machu Picchu Pueblo. But for the former, trains are instead given authorization via radio and recorded by form to access the territory. 

To be a railroader is to expect the unexpected, but here one must really take the adage to heart. Whether it be the tough environment—there’s an “in case of minor landslides” shovel next to the cab—or the near-constant darting of people and pets across the tracks in front of our moving train—one must always be on their toes.

One crazy dog zigs and zags in front of us, eventually disappearing into my blind spot. Just when I was certain he was a goner, he reappears to the right of the tracks, running off to safety. Alas, I later spot a doghouse topped with a cross right next to the tracks near Pachar, and I can only imagine that it marks the spot where someone’s beloved friend was not so lucky.

Stationary objects also become hazards, as people leave all sorts of things close to the tracks. Even though the maximum speed of the line is only 45-kilometers-per-hour, dusk shrouds an errant motorcycle and we’re unable to fully stop in time before sideswiping it at low speed. Someone’s going to have some explaining to do…

Meanwhile, Daniel is constantly getting on and off the equipment to hand throw the switches along the route. As we near our final destination of Urubamba, he gets off yet again—this time to yell at a driver whose car is fouling the tracks. I watch the unfolding drama onboard, along with a gaggle of onlookers that have gathered around the tracks. Apparently the car cannot be moved because the keys have been locked inside. We all watch as the driver and his friends attempt to snag the inner door handle with a lasso of rope through the partially-open window. Even Daniel steps in to help, and before long the car is gone and we’re free to continue on our merry way. Our conductor has saved the day, and we all got a little taste of the unexpected along these rails.

Each of the steel silhouettes, suspended in mid-activity, stand as sentinels of the ever-changing landscape that surrounds them. From day to night, and season to season, their steadfast visage never fails to pique my curiosity. Who are these people, with their elongated heads and old-timey hats? What are they doing, and where would they be going with their packs, wagons, and walking sticks, if they were not frozen to time?

As the weather grows colder and the leaves transform into flecks of gold, the figures take on a larger-than-life, almost magical quality. Perhaps if you listen closely when the wind blows, you’ll hear them tell their story, a legend of a long-forgotten past amidst the rustle of the trees.

For the past 33 years, MTA Arts & Design (formerly Arts for Transit) has brought art installations to more than thirteen stations along the the Harlem Line. Although Workers and Travelers are two of the earlier works in the series, they clearly have stood the test of time, still bringing a little whimsy to the commute all these decades later.

Like public art in transit? Watch my presentation about public art in Stockholm’s Tunnelbana as part of Virtual Conversations 2022 by the Center for Railroad Photography & Art.

I was equally terrible at printmaking, yet found the process enjoyable, and could often be found in the print shop dropping acid—that is metal plates into acid baths to etch them for printing on an old timey press. Despite my lack of abilities, I think learning the process gave me a special appreciation for the craft. There is just something exceptionally lovely about the emotion that a print can convey, especially in the realm of railroading. From the light that filters through a massive train station window to the belches of smoke erupting from a locomotive, the subject matter provides a veritable playground for the skilled printmaker.

Enter Joseph Pennell. More than just skilled in the arts of printmaking, he was a master of the craft. Although his work illustrating articles for Harper’s and The Century Magazine took him around the world, his prints of railroading subjects in Pennsylvania (his home) and New York (the city that inspired him and eventually became his home) are especially memorable. Working mainly in the techniques of intaglio, aquatint, and lithography, his body of work captures notable moments in American railroading history—from the construction of New York’s Pennsylvania Station and Hell Gate Bridge, to lovely views of Grand Central Terminal, and Philadelphia’s long-gone Broad Street Station.

So what exactly goes into a print? For intaglio [above left], the process consists of coating a metal plate with a waxy substance, and then etching lines (backward, as the print is a reverse of the plate) with sharp tools into that wax. From there, the plate is placed in an acid bath, where the exposed lines are “bitten” into the plate. The wax is later removed, and the plate can be coated with ink and printed through a press to yield a version on paper. Aquatint works similarly, but allows for gradations in tone on the metal plate beyond the linework of intaglio. Lithography [above right] is a departure from the previous processes in that the artist uses a waxy crayon to draw an image onto a stone plate. Acid is likewise used, but here it creates a surface on the stone through a chemical reaction which will either hold or repel ink from which a print can be produced. While the acid process of intaglio requires drawings made of thin lines and points, lithographs are not constrained by this, and each technique can be used to evoke a completely different mood in the final print.

Pennell’s early printmaking work was predominantly in the technique of intaglio, but he later came to prefer the process of lithography. No matter which technique he used, Pennell had an incredible talent of conveying textures and emotions through his artful linework. He zealously attended to detail and was quite the perfectionist—trusting no one but himself to pull prints from his plates, and subsequently destroying his own plates after 50 printings to prevent the possibility of anyone finding them and attempting to print degraded images from them later.

Although Pennell’s work holds both artistic and historic merit, from today’s lens the man himself held many ethically problematic opinions. In fact, were he alive and working today, it is quite possible that he would have been rightfully “cancelled” for his racism. Yet in the time period in which he were alive, Pennell’s opinions were likely commonplace. As such, I think it is important to view his work in historical context. He was one of a long line of men who felt that art institutions should solely be the space of white males, and in his autobiography, The Adventures of an Illustrator, describes the admittance of Henry Ossawa Tanner to his “white [art] school” as “the coming of the n—–.” After detachedly recounting the time when Tanner was dragged out onto Broad Street and mock crucified to his easel (which Pennell may have been an active participant in), Pennell opines, “curiously, there never has been a great Negro or a great Jew artist in the history of the world.” Apart from the noteworthy moments he captures in his prints, Pennell’s work also encapsulates a sentiment of a world that we continue to strive to move beyond.

Creator: Pennell, Joseph (creator)

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.50571

If you enjoyed this article, consider making a donation to the Friends of the Tanner House, the organization looking to restore Henry Ossawa Tanner’s house in Philadelphia.

Beyond such high construction costs, the railroad’s stock was also prone to manipulation, and one of its presidents even went on to defraud investors with phony stock, absconding to France after being caught. It got bad enough that the Harlem’s stock certificates were seen as bearing little value beyond than the paper they were printed on. Add on the dangers of the road—safety too was one of those “figure it out as you go along” things—and you end up with a company with an absolutely abysmal reputation with the public. Thus when Cornelius Vanderbilt commenced his takeover, it was generally well perceived, with the Commodore’s shrewd business reputation restoring credibility to the beleaguered Harlem. Though Vanderbilt gets much of the credit for the early success of these rails, there was another man in the background who deserves some credit in how the Harlem truly came to be, and even how the rails are aligned to this day—Gouverneur Morris, Jr.

Gouverneur Morris, Jr.

Born in Morrisania in 1813 into the influential Morris family, Gouverneur’s uncle was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and his father was one of the authors of the Constitution. The family owned much of what is today the Bronx, then the Manor of Morrisania in Westchester County. Only a toddler when his father passed, young Gouverneur was sole heir to nearly half of the original manor’s landholdings. It was under his ownership that the land would transition from sparsely populated farmland to a town of thousands. Morris envisioned a center of heavy industry, and with access to deep water, a vast network of shipping by sea and by land.

Morris was convinced that a railroad was integral to these dreams. He was an early backer of the New York and Albany Railroad, the road that the New York and Harlem was supposed to join up with at the banks of the Harlem River. But when the New York and Albany failed to materialize, Morris threw his support behind the New York and Harlem, which was eventually granted the charter to expand northward where the other had failed. Wielding significant power due to his family’s ownership of an existing bridge over the Harlem River, Morris facilitated the rights for the Harlem to use it to cross into what was then Westchester, and he, along with several of his family members, made deals with the Harlem for land to build ever northward.

The Harlem reached Williamsbridge in 1842, and shortly thereafter Morris opened a private rail line across his estate, connecting to the newly arrived Harlem near what is now Melrose. He referred to this line as the Morrisania Branch Railroad, and the first commodity it carried was milk from the dairies on his farmland to the city. During the swill milk crisis, Morris and several other nearby dairymen including Thompson Decker (whose business would eventually become a part of Sheffield Farms through merger) were proponents of “pure milk” and lobbied the Harlem and other railroads for additional milk trains through upper Westchester and beyond. For decades milk remained an important commodity of the Harlem, with the famed Rutland Milk, or “Rut Milk” train, and shipments to Sheffield Farms’s expansive gravity milk plant near Melrose Junction.

Land agreements between Morris family members and the New York and Harlem Railroad.

Founding Morrisania

By 1848 New York City was continuing to grow, and many men dreamed of escaping tenements and landlords, for a land they owned themselves. The Harlem’s expansion opened a new opportunity for such men—the ability to remain at their city jobs, but to likewise own their own homes in the “country.” A committee of families sharing such sentiment was formed at Military Hall in the Bowery, and led by Jordan Mott (who had previously purchased land from the Morrises to build his foundry in the area now named for him, Mott Haven), secured the purchase of 200 acres from Gouverneur Morris. After planning a grid of streets and reserving a piece of land for a rail depot, school, and public square, those 200 acres yielded 167 plots of land. At a subsequent committee meeting cards with each of the numbers 1 to 167 were placed in a box. The men each drew a card, and the number shown indicated their order in picking from the array of lots. These men in their New Village, eventually to be named Morrisania, were the Harlem Railroad’s first suburban commuters. Their new train stop saw fifteen trains a day, and the yearly price of commutation was $37.50 to ride any train, or at a discounted $30 a year to be restricted to ride one specifically designated commutation train in the morning and evening. Within several years a depot proper was constructed, and George Tremper was appointed the first Station Agent.

Gouverneur Morris would continue to sell off portions of his estate, and the town of Morrisania, and the villages like Melrose, Port Morris, and Claremont within would all continue to grow. Within the first year 68 homes would rise, and within two decades of Morris’s first sale to the committee in the Bowery there were 2,356 homes. Many heavy industries did pop up in the vicinity of Port Morris—beyond the coal and lumber yards German immigrants established a handful of breweries, and by the turn of the century pianos were rolling along the rails from an array of factories—but the dream of being New York City’s primary deep water port never materialized. Noteworthy ships such as the steamer Great Eastern did approach its waters, and the Morrisania Branch provided excursion passenger service for those curious to catch a glimpse of it.

In his History of Morrisania, resident and local historian Myron Finch’s colorful recollections of living adjacent to the Harlem mention a yard of six switches and a turntable at Melrose Junction, with four passenger trains a day over the branch to Port Morris with a connection to the ferry to Rikers Island, although this service was likely short lived. Meanwhile, the Harlem proper, although an integral part of their commuter village, was simultaneously seen as a “slaughter ground” by residents due to the derailments, collisions, and death it brought. Mishaps were unnervingly frequent, from trains colliding into the rear of another while they discharged passengers, to near misses of almost careening off the open drawbridge on the Harlem River. While aboard one train that derailed in the Yorkville Tunnel, Finch recalled:

Cars [were] thrown across both tracks in a zig-zag direction, from under which we were compelled to crawl out as best we could, in pursuit of daylight! It was an exciting scene in the darkness of that tunnel and one well calculated to make us feel how providentially we had been preserved from a horrid death.

These accidents led to new rules regulating speed, signaling, and the offloading of passengers—an early example of the old adage that every railroad rule is written in blood.

Morrisania Branch to Port Morris Branch

The Morrisania Branch Railroad quickly grew beyond shipments of milk and began carrying freight from the industries popping up around Port Morris. Marble, plaster, wood, and coal were all commodities moving across the branch, heading to locations along the New York and Harlem and beyond. A large grain elevator would eventually be constructed near Melrose, and the line would add two more yards to handle all of the traffic. Specially designed cars with oak frames and hinged trap doors on the bottom were ordered to carry coal. Even the foundry that produced the grand iron dome for the United States Capitol building could be found along the branch. According to lore, the iron for the dome was loaded onto railcars at the Janes & Kirtland Foundry’s industry track, taking a short jaunt down to the port to be loaded onto a ship for the longer journey to Washington DC.

Morris sold the his branch to the Harlem Railroad in 1853 for $118,000, where it subsequently became known as the Port Morris Branch. The original routing to Port Morris was at surface level along the perimeter of the Mary’s Park estate (the future St. Mary’s Park), but was upgraded during the railroad’s massive electrification project around 1905. At that time all remaining grade crossings were eliminated by sinking the track below the streets, and a tunnel was constructed to take the line underneath St. Mary’s Park. A massive power house was constructed by the waterside at Port Morris, twin to the one that still stands at Glenwood. This plant provided the power for the newly electrified Harlem Division. At its height, the branch had three yards—one at each end in Melrose and Port Morris, and another smaller yard at the approximate center along Westchester Avenue.

Ultimately, the branch’s unwieldy zig zag orientation as trains switched from the Harlem to the Hudson at Mott Haven, coupled with drainage issues and low height restrictions as a result of the 1905 track sinking would lead to its demise. The last trains would operate over the line in the late 90s, with the Oak Point Link superseding it upon opening in 1998. The derailment of a 125 car freight bound for Port Morris just a month before the Link opened highlighted the problematic nature of the branch—snarling traffic near Mott Haven blocked all three lines of Metro-North from accessing Manhattan. Simply antiquated, the branch unable to meet the needs of the modern era, and as-is was detrimental to the area’s burgeoning passenger traffic. The Port Morris Branch was officially abandoned in 2003, a final end to over 150 years of freight service.

These days, freight of any sort is a rarity on the Harlem. The final customer in the Bronx receives a shipment of a single carload around every three months, serviced by CSX.

Vanderbilt’s Ruse

Gouverneur Morris Jr. served as a Vice President of the New York and Harlem Railroad for several years, and was a partner in the firm Morris, Miller, and Schuyler, which built the Harlem’s “Albany Extension” from Dover Plains to Chatham (while Morris and Miller both had rail stops named for them, Schuyler was the aforementioned crooked president who sold phony stock, and thus missed out). Nearly two decades after selling his Morrisania Branch, Morris played an integral part in Cornelius Vanderbilt’s plans to link the Harlem with the Hudson River Railroad by chartering the Spuyten Duyvil and Port Morris Railroad (contrary to popular belief, the Port Morris Branch was never a part of the SD&PM). The move was designed to raise little suspicion, as Vanderbilt had not yet taken over the Hudson River Railroad, and if the Commodore himself had made moves to preemptively connect it to the Harlem, it would have gotten people talking! Thus Gouverneur Morris played an important role in bringing the Hudson into Grand Central through Mott Haven, an orientation that continues to this day.

Throughout his life, railroads remained one of Morris’s primary endeavors, and he served on the boards of several roads, as well as holding the presidency of the Vermont Valley Railroad. Although proud of the workingman’s village he helped create, Morris never saw himself as a city dweller, and was reportedly disappointed when Morrisania was annexed by New York City in 1874. He retired to Bartow-on-the-Sound, which was then a part of Pelham, now known as City Island (it too was annexed, albeit after Morris’s passing). Despite his accomplishments to railroading, Morris’s New York Times obituary consisted of 168 words about himself and his offspring, with a further 214 words devoted to his more famous father. Yet without Gouverneur Morris Jr., the New York and Harlem Railroad may never have crossed the banks of the Harlem River, nor reached Columbia County. Thus more than a century later, his indispensable contributions to the Harlem, and to the Bronx, are duly noted upon this page.

I hope you’re enjoying our recent series of posts covering the history of the Bronx. I had intended for this article to be published quite a while ago, but managed to get an appointment to view Gouverneur Morris Jr.’s papers at the New York Historical Society. His meticulous records provide some of the interesting tidbits found in today’s post, including the data on the types of freight carried and where they were delivered.

The Port Morris Branch has been a topic of interest for me for quite a while, likely because there seems to be so little written about it. I’ll be continuing with the theme of the history of the Bronx, and focusing on the Port Morris Branch, along with the real story of the Spuyten Duyvil and Port Morris Railroad, in the next few posts—so stay tuned!

As a nice primer to the era, today I present a Harlem Line employee timetable from 1878, covering the area from Grand Central to Mott Haven. By this time the Harlem’s street-running trains (many still pulled by horses) in lower Manhattan had become a separate and distinct service, and the Hudson and New Haven had been united with the Harlem in the first Grand Central. You’ll see references to the Spuyten Duyvil and Port Morris Junction, or what we’re more familiar with as Mott Haven Junction today. The story of the SD&PM will figure prominently in our upcoming articles, but the short explanation is that it provided the integral link that brought the Hudson River Railroad into Grand Central Depot, beginning the process of launching that road into prominence, and relegating the Harlem on its own tracks (case in point, when the electric division was established, Grand Central to Mott Haven became part of the Hudson, with the Harlem “starting” beyond that point).

While seeing the times of trains is certainly fascinating, the gold is really in the rules of the road. From Hudson being identified by the color yellow, and the Harlem by green, to the antiquated signaling rules, there’s plenty of delightful little tidbits to find throughout. Roger had not made his big debut yet, it was okay to acknowledge with simply an “all right.” And detonating signals, or torpedoes, served a real purpose beyond sticking them on the rail to celebrate an old timer’s retirement (this yougin’ may have just dated herself…).

Take a read, and let us know in the comments which rules of the road you find most interesting!

Today’s Botanical Garden station has the honor of having the most name changes of any station along the Harlem. Although there are a few stations that have had two different names, Botanical Garden has had four within its 150 or so years of existence. Initially starting off with the name of Jerome Park, the station served the race course of the same name, which opened September 25, 1866. The course was a popular venue, hosting the first Belmont Stakes in 1867, and the first outdoor polo match in the United States in 1876. Upon opening the closest station for rail access was Fordham, but the Jerome Park station was established shortly thereafter, providing at least a walkable trip to the course.

Nonetheless, the walk from Jerome Park was still uphill and about a mile in length, so the establishment of alternate methods of access were considered for several years. An initial attempt to build a railway connecting the Harlem to the racetrack failed in 1876 due to litigation regarding the chosen route. A second attempt was made in 1880, this time successful, and the 1.67 mile road was constructed in a total of 34 days, opening on May 29th. President Leonard Jerome took fifty well-to-do invitees on a special opening excursion on the road that morning, departing Grand Central at 11 AM, and arriving in time for a fancy lunch at the course’s clubhouse.

The new partially elevated tracks ran to a small depot that had not yet been completed behind the track’s grandstand, with a wooden bridge connecting the two structures. For the opening of the line, a simple platform greeted the esteemed guests. After a lunch filled with toasts to good health and the celebration of the new line, the guests returned to their train for a 2 PM departure. All-in-all, it seemed to be a rather chaste celebration in comparison to the boozy excursion that marked the opening of the line to White Plains.

Map of the route of the Jerome Park Railway, highlighted in purple, extending from the Harlem just beyond the current Botanical Garden station.

Race day through trains were operated from Grand Central Depot with a fare of 60 cents round trip (20 cents more than a round trip to Jerome Park on the Harlem proper). Decoration Day (referred to as Memorial Day today) was an extremely popular day for the races, and over ten thousand people crammed Grand Central Depot to board trains, with two-thirds of them going either to Jerome Park, or to pay their respects at the Woodlawn Cemetery. The crowd at the depot was so large that extra police were summoned, at one point barring further patrons from entering. The two main ticket offices had lines that were so long, a third impromptu office was set up to sell tickets, but even that was not enough to accommodate the throng. Over 4,500 tickets were sold for the 1:45, 2:10, and 2:30 through trains to the raceway, and many other tickets were sold to Fordham for those who could not get onboard one of the specials.

This first day of opening to the public essentially set the tone for the just over one decade of existence of this branch. It was extremely popular, yet generally reviled due to the massive crowds and the inability of the infrastructure to accommodate them. 4,500 tickets were sold on those first specials, yet across the three trains there were only 2,160 seats. A less-than-happy rider recalled that on one trip “[people were] packed into the cars until they were so uncomfortably crowded that ladies and even strong, robust men almost had the life crushed out of them.” People would get extremely irate, write angry letters to both the editor and to the Commodore, yet would forget about these troubles in the off-season and be back to ride the trains again in the spring. All this despite lines extending from ticket booths all the way out the depot, onto the sidewalk, and around the corner, massive throngs of people, and late trains that sometimes even missed part of the races. As one letter writer concluded, “Commodore Vanderbilt does not care in the least what anybody says about his management while he is comfortable in the certainty that they can do nothing.”

Although some of the blame realistically could be placed on the Harlem for their operation of the trains, especially in regard to on time performance, there was much outside their control. Initial plans for the Jerome Park Railway called for a double tracked line, though it was never constructed this way. A second track only existed at the end of the line near the depot for the racetrack. Without additional tracks to run on, it was largely impossible for the Harlem to increase the amount of service and end the overcrowding problem that plagued the line from its inception. Complaints were plentiful enough that an announcement was made in 1887 that work would soon begin to double track the line and create more sidings near the track to allow for additional service, but these plans never came to fruition. As time ticked on, it became increasingly obvious that the Jerome Park Racetrack would not be around much longer.

The beginning of the end for the Jerome Park Railway was the closure of the raceway as the new site for a new reservoir for the city. The site had been identified as the best place for the reservoir around 1886, yet was subject to negotiations for the acquisition of the property. The race track finally closed after the 1894 season, and became property of the city on January 1, 1895. The railway branch was eventually leased to John B. McDonald, a contractor that had worked on the building of the IRT subway, and was hired to work on the excavation of the area around the reservoir. McDonald used the line, along with an extra four miles of temporary trackage that he constructed extending over the Harlem’s tracks out the area near Parkchester, to fill in the marshlands for development.

Back of an old photo

Back of an old photo

Back of an old photo

Images from the excavation for the Jerome Park Reservoir, utilizing the tracks of the Jerome Park Railway.

Highlighted in red, part of the temporary line that John B. McDonald constructed for the dumping of excavated material. This line extended four miles through Bronx Park and following along the Pelham Parkway to the marshlands.

Lying disused for several years, Bronx Borough President Louis Haffen ordered the remainder of the branch’s tracks to be torn up across Webster Avenue on May 6th, 1906, and expected the section between Willow Avenue and Bronx Park to be removed the day afterward. Haffen had accused some “mystery opposition” of stopping previous plans to remove the tracks, and fully expected the Harlem to object to the removal… yet no further objection ever came. Just 26 years after its construction, the Jerome Park Railway was officially dead.

As for the station along the Harlem proper, around 1887 Jerome Park was renamed Bedford Park after the neighborhood it was located, likely due to confusion with the branch itself. Just a few years later it was again renamed to Bronx Park, reflecting the recently opened park alongside it, where the Botanical Garden was established. Timetables often included a notation that Bronx Park was the location of the Botanical Garden, and eventually it just became easier to outright rename the station yet again to its current iteration—Botanical Garden.

In New York City, the firm of Ames & Rollinson was noted for their work in the field. Around the 1930s, hand illuminated diplomas were their bread and butter—twenty-five artisans churned out over 10,000 diplomas each year, most of which were printed on traditional calfskin vellum. The company also produced many other unique and special documents, including the $25,000 prize check given to Charles Lindbergh from Raymond Orteig’s New York to France non-stop flight challenge, award certificates given to American Telephone & Telegraph Company employees that showed devotion by sticking to their posts during fires, floods, or gun battles, and an array of bound folders commemorating business executives upon their deaths.

In lieu of any established name for said documents, I began referring to them in my mind as “death notes.” Typically, when an executive, president, or board member of a prominent company passed away, the board of said company recognized their efforts and achievements in the minutes of their next meeting. The transcript for that portion of the meeting was then sent to the artisans over at Ames & Rollinson, who produced an illuminated and bound copy to be presented to the next of kin. No expense was spared for these commemorative folders—they were bound in the traditional Moroccan style with a gilt tooled and dyed goatskin cover, a watered silk doublure, sheep or calfskin pages, and illuminated with either Italian gold or French platinum leaf. The resulting book would then be signed by a representative of the company before being sent off to usually the deceased executive’s wife.

Ames & Rollinson created documents like these for a wide array of notable names, including Henry Morton Stanley, J. Pierpont Morgan, William Tecumseh Sherman, Walter P. Chrysler, George Pullman, and Chauncey Depew… whose original “death note” recently came into my possession. Commissioned by the New York Central Railroad Company, the Michigan Central Railroad Company, and the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis Railway Company, the ten page document provides a brief biography of Depew, along with a heartfelt tribute, and a listing of all of the board members for each of the railroad companies. Along with the folder is the original letter written by railroad secretary Edward Stephenson to Depew’s widow May Eugenie Palmer when the book was mailed to her.

Born in Peekskill on April 3, 1824, Depew was a graduate of Peekskill Military Academy and Yale University. Admitted to the New York State bar in 1858, Depew operated a law practice in Peekskill. Around the time that Cornelius Vanderbilt came calling to offer him the position as attorney for the New York & Harlem Railroad, Depew had already been offered the position of US Minister to Japan. According to lore, when Depew told Vanderbilt about how the resident minister position offered better compensation, the brusque Vanderbilt retorted, “Railroads are the career for a young man; there is nothing in politics. Don’t be a damned fool.” And that is how Robert B. Van Valkenburgh became the US Minister to Japan, and Chauncey Depew became a railroad man.

When Depew started at the Harlem in 1866, Vanderbilt’s railroad holdings consisted of only around two hundred and fifty miles of territory. Ultimately, Depew would end up overseeing a massive railroad system of over twenty thousand miles as President and Chairman of the Board of the New York Central Lines. Depew’s legacy has been commemorated in the village of Depew in Erie County (where today you’ll find Amtrak’s station for Buffalo), several streets including Depew Place outside Grand Central and Depew Street along the Harlem in Pleasantville, and in a unique old manuscript, which I share with you today.

The new concourse is quite beautiful, and I was rather impressed with the subtle usage of art, color and light as visual cues for wayfinding. If you tuned in to my presentation in November about Sweden’s Tunnelbana, you’ll recall that one of the arguments for including art in transit is that it can be a functional mechanism for wayfinding and visual orientation. Grand Central Madison makes use of the technique with individual mosaics at each cross street. Corresponding wall tiles also change color depending where you’re located, along with colored LEDs lighting the platforms to further indicate direction. Teal shines the way for 48th Street, purple to 47th, blue to 46th, and green to 45th.

I’ll let the photos speak for themselves… enjoy the visual vibes from the new Grand Central…

Angel created a nearly 60,000 image strong visual time capsule of New York City—his photos of the old Pennsylvania Station, of Mott Haven yard, and of the dismantling of the elevated structures carrying subways over Manhattan show how things used to be. I am intrigued by the little details of streetscapes and of people waiting for trains, and wonder how he reached some of his lofty vantage points—he must surely have managed the cupola of the New York Central Building to capture the top of Grand Central before the Pan Am building was constructed, and scaled public housing projects in Marble Hill to photograph the old station there.

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.70564

Angel also seemed captivated by humans in unsuspecting or even vulnerable positions, and there were times that I, as the viewer, was slightly distraught in gazing upon the voyeuristic images, moments that perhaps should never have been captured at all. From men gazing through peepholes at live nude shows, passed out individuals being unceremoniously hefted into paddywagons, or women tearfully attempting to hide from the world, Angel captures an underbelly of New York that I am unaccustomed to seeing.

A contact sheet of photographs from September 1959. Photos include the 59th Street subway and Pennsylvania Station.

That dark line of thought becomes even murkier when one learns more about the man himself. It is hard to deny that Anthony Angel, although clearly an intelligent and talented individual, suffered from mental illness. Institutionalized for a suicide attempt and later discharged from the army for medical reasons, Angel was found by both to suffer from delusions (“dementia praecox, paranoid type” may have been diagnosed today as schizophrenia). He was ritualistic—only venturing out from his apartment at 2 PM every day to capture his photos, later returning to process film and haphazardly generate contact sheets. Despite his obsession with chronological organization, the finer details—removing the dust and hair from the negatives, or even making sure they were not backwards or upside down, were lacking. When he wasn’t out photographing, Angel was creating patent applications for commercially useless inventions, or writing hateful, often antisemitic, letters to governors, senators, supreme court judges, and even the FBI. He believed that the communists, perverts, corrupt judges, or whatever demon du jour was out to get him—paranoid delusions fully on display.

Although photography may have been an outlet for these delusions, Angel’s work reflected his often neurotic mindset. His surreptitious captures of women and of people from afar mark him as an awkward outsider, a recluse unwilling or simply unable to genuinely interact with others, yet inserting himself into their sometimes private moments. His comic-strip-style printed sheets of image sequences seem more cinematic than photographic, with Angel playing the scene director, completely detached from the mayhem of the street fight in front of him. Even his array of self portraits, often captured at the end of each roll of film, reflect the inner turmoil of his psyche—alternating between goofy to serious to pained and even enraged.

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.70815

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.70820

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.70826

Self portraits of Angelo Rizzuto, aka Anthony Angel

Despite the problematic nature of the individual, Angel’s captures are undeniably valuable for those wanting a glimpse of New York nearly seventy years ago, especially the railroading infrastructure that appeared in so many photos. But what exactly was it that drew him to these places? Were his visits to Grand Central and wanderings along Park Avenue simply a byproduct of living in close proximity? Was it only fortuity that Angel’s paranoid letter writing spree coincided with the final years of Pennsylvania Station, which he stopped to photograph while on the way to his post box across the street? Or was there some genuine interest in the subject matter—a recollection of his youth where his father served as a construction contractor for the Union Pacific railroad? Beyond his stated intentions to publish a modern day sequel to Stokes’ Iconography of Manhattan Island, any further insight into his motivations or artistic intention were taken to his grave.

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.70683

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.70682

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/70400.70441

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.69837

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/70300.70309

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/70400.70443

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/70400.70455

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/70400.70420

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.69881

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.69944

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/69900.69946

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/70400.70426

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/70300.70384

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/70400.70431

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/69900.69945

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/70400.70492

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.70692

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/70400.70449

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/70400.70450

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/70400.70442

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/70400.70446

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/70100.70174

A small fraction of Angel’s work has been digitized by the Library of Congress and can be previewed online. Much of the credit for this work coming to light belongs to Michael Lesy, who encountered the images at the LOC decades ago and compiled the majority of the information we know today about Angelo Rizzuto.

Special thanks to Barbara Orbach Natanson and Jan Grenci at LOC’s Prints and Photographs Division, who were kind enough to share some of the contact sheets from the collection as I hunted from railroad images not yet digitized.