Area Around Pelham Bay Park Today

  In the ARCGIS map attached, I brought in some railroad shape files and some other files dealing with subway routes, bus routes from 2008 and  an elevation contour file.  You can see the approximate location where the Bartow Station on the New Haven Railroad was located.  Much land fill and development took place over the last 100 years, including the development of Co-Op City.  The area between the New England Thruway and the Hutchinson River Parkway used to be "Freedomland", many decades ago.   "Freedomland" was an amusement area and I saw someplace, and I cannot prove it, there were plans to bring a trolley with overhead wires to the area.  Of course, nothing came of this plan.  Other parts of the area was used as a New York City Sanitation Department landfill which produced a small "hill".  You can also see the "Dyre Avenue Line" that tookover  the right of way of an interesting past railroad operation.

Some Trolley Transfer Tickets from New York City and Westchester

Source: "Third Avenue Railway System Transfer Forms", by Melvin Rosenberg, in New York Division Bulletin, Electric Railroaders' Association, Vol. 34, Number 1, January, 1991."

  A brief introduction to this topic will follow in a few days.  Although this topic does not deal with maps or analysis, railway transfer tickets may be the only information that a person may have of certain street railway information from about 100 years ago.  In the New York region, these artifacts provide a great deal of information that otherwise would be lost regarding routes, route numbers, transfer rules and even ticket and printing technology.  More to follow on this topic.
Tramway Null(0).  This topic comes from an historical article written by Melvin Rosenberg many years ago.

Third Avenue El - North of 161st Street - 1934-1973

Source:  B. Linder, NY Division ERA Bulletin, Vol. 36, No. 3, Page 2, March, 1993

Narrative to follow in future.

3rd Avenue Elevated Line Harlem River Branch

By May 17, 1886, the 3rd Avenue Elevated line, then steam operated, was extended to 129th Street in Manhattan to 133rd Street in the Bronx by crossing the Harlem River.  In November of the same year, the Harlem River Branch from 129th Street  to Willis Avenue in the Bronx opened for service.  This branch ran to a new station near 132nd Street and Willis Avenue and was off the main line and may have been extended for a short distance by the NYNH&H railway to their station on the surface.  It seems that the NYNH&H trains operated to the redesigned 129th Street station in Manhattan.  This service was discontinued by May 11, 1905 according to the New York Division Bulletin article by Bernard Linder.
A few years before on October, 1891, the new Morris Park Race track was open.  This race track was located near Pelham Parkway in the northern Bronx a few miles away from the Willis Avenue Station.  Second Avenue Elevated trains, not shown on my map, may have operated from downtown Manhattan to the Willis Avenue station where passengers transferred to the NYNH&H railroad for special race track trains.  By 1905, race tracks in New York State were put out of business by a change of legislation and this race track, along with the Sheepshead Bay Race Track and the Gravesend Race Track had their business seriously cut.  According to Bernard Linder, even though business fell off in 1905, the IRT elevated trains ran to Willis Avenue until April 15, 1924.  This would mean that this branch was electrified since the last steam train operated to August 16, 1902.
    On the following map, you can see the branch of the 3rd Avenue Elevated branching east to the railroad yard area shown in the 1924 Aerial Photograph overlay.  You can also see the 129th Street Yard and station taking up an entire block between 2nd and 3rd Avenues in Manhattan.  In a very interesting hand written message on the line drawn map, in the insert, it was stated that steam engines were stored in the 132nd Street Yard awaiting sale from 1902 to 1943.  Does the writer refer to the yard at Willis Avenue or the 132nd Street Yard?  From the 1924 aerial photograph, I cannot see the Willis Avenue branchoff from the 3rd Avenue El after the line leaves the bridge and enters the Bronx land area.

More to follow.

Upper Portion of 3rd Avenue Railway 1893-1903 Harlem River and Bronx Sections

Source: B.Linder: NewYork Division ERA Bulletin, February 1993, Vol. 36, No. 2. Drawing by H.T. Raudenbush, P. 6.  We will hopefully talk about this later.  Sorry for the poor quality picture.

Tramway Null(0)