Westchester Avenue

Westchester Avenue is a former railroad station located in the borough of the Bronx in New York City, partially suspended over Amtrak's busy Northeast Corridor line. It was built in 1908 with rich terra cotta detailing to a design by Cass Gilbert, who would later employ similar terra cotta detailing in his 1910 design for the Woolworth Building. Train service to the station ceased in 1937, and as of 2014 the station was a ruin in poor condition.The Westchester Avenue station is located just to the southeast of the intersection of Westchester Avenue and the Sheridan Expressway, in the Morrisania section of the South Bronx. The Bronx River is a short distance to the east. The structure consists of a taller entry hall portion that stands on solid ground immediately to the west of the tracks, and a shorter waiting room section that is suspended over the tracks on metal beams. Formerly, this section had staircases that led down to low platforms at track level, but these were removed long ago. The entry hall portion has colorful glazed architectural terra cotta ornamentation, including a caduceus near the eaves, topped with the letters NYH. Though this seems to refer to the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, the original builder of the station, the caduceus was also the symbol of the New York, Westchester and Boston Railroad, a local commuter railroad that also served the station.