Friday, December 31, 2021 – LET’S TAKE A TRIP TO THE BRONX
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2021
The 560th Edition
The #4 Line – More than
Yankee Stadium
Andy Sparberg
The #4 Jerome Avenue line is one of a trio of Bronx IRT subway routes built between 1917 and 1920 under the Dual Contracts, a history-making set of subway projects that saw new routes built between Manhattan and The Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens. The idea was to reduce Manhattan’s overcrowded population by providing mass transit access to areas with vacant land for new residential construction. In 1910 Manhattan housed 2,332,000 people, 49% of the entire five boroughs, on only 8% of the total city land area. By contrast, The Bronx population in 1910 was 431,000, 9% of the city’s total, on 14% of its land area. The need to disperse the population was obvious.
For The Bronx, a new four track trunk link along Lexington Avenue, north of 42nd Street, was constructed that allowed three Bronx branches direct access to Manhattan’s business districts. Going west to east, these branches were the Jerome Avenue, White Plains Road, and Pelham Bay Lines. The Jerome has two underground stops at 138th and 149th Streets, and then follows an elevated line from 161st Street to Woodlawn. Four elevated stations have atypical entrance buildings compared to most NYC elevated routes. The Jerome Line route also presented some unique challenges because of the topography and street layout. In one case an older elevated line, since abandoned, was connected with the Jerome Line, and unmistakable evidence of this still exists today. A generation later, In the 1950s and 1960s, when new expressways were built in The Bronx, the Jerome Line presented a major challenge to the highway builders.
We will begin at 161st Street, the first station after the train emerges from its underground tunnel, familiar to many people because it serves Yankee Stadium. When it opened in 1917, Yankee Stadium was not yet built or even a thought. The station building was clad in concrete (below) to announce the line’s entrance into The Bronx (photo from www.nycsubway.org). The first Yankee Stadium, opened in 1923, was located to the right of the photo; since 2009 it’s been to the left.
Walking to the left of the first photo, alongside the current stadium, you will encounter an unused track connection below the active Jerome Line tracks (see photo below). This connection led to Manhattan’s 9th Avenue elevated, a 19th century route, was extended north and east for about two miles to connect with the #4 in 1917. The connection provided direct service between Manhattan’s west side and the Jerome Avenue route. The 9th Avenue El closed in 1940 south of 155th Street, made redundant by the new IND subways along the Grand Concourse and 6th and 8th Avenues. The 9th Avenue Line’s connection to Jerome Avenue remained in use until 1958, known as the Polo Grounds Shuttle, operating between 155th Street (Manhattan) and 167th Street on the #4 line. The connection went along 162nd St., through today’s Yankee Stadium site. A tunnel that carried it under the Highbridge neighborhood and across the Putnam Bridge into Manhattan, ending at the old Polo Grounds ballpark at 155th Street. (photo from www.nycsubway.org).
In 1940, the same day the 9th Ave. El closed south of 155th St, a free paper transfer was established between the Jerome Avenue and IND Concourse lines at 161st St.-Yankee Stadium. Passengers obtained a small paper ticket from dispensers at the turnstile exits, which were accepted at the other station. In October 1961, a new escalator connection opened between the two stations, eliminating paper transfers.
Now let’s proceed uptown. The 161st and 167th Street stations are astride River Avenue. The #4 Line’s namesake avenue, Jerome, does not join us until just north of 167th; that location is obvious when the train does a slight jog prior to 170th Street Station. Jerome Avenue is named for Leonard W. Jerome (1817-1891), a wealthy businessman who built a horse racing track near today’s Bedford Park Blvd. station. Jerome’s daughter, Jennie (1854-1921), married a wealthy British Lord, Randolph Churchill; their son Winston (1874-1965) became Great Britain ‘s famous prime minister during World War II. In other words, Leonard Jerome was Winston Churchill’s maternal grandfather. So, the rather working-class Jerome Avenue is a direct link to British aristocracy and the man who led the United Kingdom through its dark days in World War II.
We will proceed to Mount Eden Avenue , which illustrates the infrastructure challenges that subway and highway builders encountered at this location. The land is hilly and rocky. Jerome Avenue follows a valley between two ridges, which creates many “step streets” perpendicular to it. The ridge east of Jerome is the route of the Grand Concourse, a roadway conceived in the 1890s and opened in 1909. For many years, its large apartment houses were a prestigious address. Many of the cross streets go under (or in one instance, over) the Concourse, an innovative design when the boulevard opened. The highway in the photo is, of course, the Cross-Bronx Expressway, which disrupted much of The Bronx when it was constructed in the 1950s and early 1960s. The IRT elevated had to be supported carefully during the construction because service could not be interrupted in this transit-dependent neighborhood.
Top photo (Andy Sparberg collection) is looking east; the bottom photo (NY Transit Museum collection) is looking west towards Manhattan.
Two contemporary views of this location are shown above. Re-boarding the #4 going uptown, our next stop is Bedford Park Blvd. Here, Jerome Avenue jogs east and then west, which caused the elevated structure to remain on its own, straight alignment for about two blocks atop a right-of-way instead of being over Jerome Avenue itself. Thus, the Bedford Park station building is just west of Jerome Avenue, on private right of way, an unusual layout in New York but quite common on Chicago’s elevated lines. Photo of the station entrance is below (Andy Sparberg collection).
The last two stations on the #4 Line, Mosholu Parkway and Woodlawn, each feature a station house with concrete cladding because each is located adjacent to a large park or cemetery. Mosholu is on the first one below, taken when new, and Woodlawn is on the next page. Both photos are from www.nycsubway.org. Mosholu features an arch bridge over the Parkway’s traffic lanes.
In 1930, after the Dual Contacts lines were built, The Bronx population reached 1,265,000, or a nearly threefold increase over its 431,000 residents 20 years earlier – proof that the new subway routes such as the Jerome Line did as they were intended. In 2019 The Bronx housed 1,418,000 people, or 17% of the total NYC five-borough population.
FRIDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
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THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
Breyers Ice Creams sign on former plant on Queens Blvd.
Ed Litcher got it right!!! But the story continues since Alexis Villafane and Laura Hussey said it was Philadelphia.
Apparently there were Breyers plants n Queens, Philadelphia and Newark. This photo is Newark. Above is Philadelphia and below is Queens!!!
Just to add interest the building started as a Pierce Arrow service center!!
Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
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Historical Society unless otherwise indicated:
Sources
Andy Sparberg
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