Harlem-125th Street (Metro-North)

The Harlem-125th Street Metro-North Railroad station serves residents of the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York and commuters who work in Harlem via the Hudson Line, Harlem Line and New Haven Line. It is the only station besides Grand Central Terminal that serves all three lines east of the Hudson River. Trains leave for Grand Central Terminal, the Bronx and the northern suburbs regularly. Harlem-125th Street is seldom used for travel to and from Grand Central. However, it remains possible to do so. On a related note, the station is within the boundaries of the CityTicket program. It is 4.19 miles (6.7 km) from Grand Central, and travel time is approximately ten minutes. One block to the east is 125th Street on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line of the New York City Subway. From Harlem, riders can also take the M60 bus to LaGuardia Airport.

History
The current Harlem-125th Street Station was built in 1896-97 and was designed by Morgan O'Brien, New York Central and Hudson River Railroad principal architect. It replaced an earlier one that was built in 1874, when the New York Central and the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, the ancestors of today's Metro-North, moved the tracks from an open cut, to the present-day elevated viaduct. The original station on the site was built in 1844, when the trains ran at grade-level on what is now Park Avenue. That station was demolished to make way for the open cut.

A six-year long renovation of the 1897 structure was completed in 1999 and cleared out a century's worth of neglect and deterioration. The entire Park Avenue viaduct was replaced piece by piece without disturbing Metro-North service for the duration of the renovation. The renovation is considered a replication, rather than renovation, of the original 1930s version of the station being that none of the original structure is visible to the public.

Use
Travel between East Harlem and Midtown Manhattan is more frequent and less expensive via the nearby and parallel trains of the Lexington Avenue Subway at 125th Street station. Therefore, this station is used primarily for travel to and from the New York City's northern suburbs and the Bronx (rather than travel to and from Grand Central Terminal). Most northbound trains stop at the station only to receive passengers, and most southbound trains stop only to discharge passengers. However, most local trains on the Harlem and Hudson lines do permit passengers to exit a northbound train or enter a southbound train.

Platform and track configuration
There are two high-level island platforms, each serving two tracks. During middays, evenings, and weekends, there is generally one platform assigned for northbound trains and one for southbound trains. Passengers wait on the eastern platform for trains departing from Tracks 1 and 3, and exit on the western platform from trains arriving at Tracks 2 and 4. This configuration is not in place during rush hours, when there are typically three tracks assigned to the peak direction (southbound in the morning, northbound in the evening).

Appearances in film and on TV
Harlem-125th Street Station has often been used as a setting for film and TV, where it usually stands in for an elevated MTA or similar rapid transit station.


 * U.S. Marshals, 1998
 * Carlito's Way, 1993