15. Cass Gilbert’s Westchester Avenue Station
The Westchester Avenue Station along Concrete Plant Park in the Bronx, which is just off the Whitlock Avenue stop on the 6 train, has now become overgrown with plants and vines. In its heyday, however, the Westchester Avenue Station was a transportation hub for those traveling on the New Haven Railroad, known as the NYW&B. Unfortunately, the NYW&B went bankrupt in 1937, stopping travel through this area.
The station, designed by Cass Gilbert, was an important work of Gothic architecture. Gilbert, also the designer of Lower Manhattan’s US Custom House and the Woolworth Building, was commissioned to build 13 stations, including Westchester Avenue, for the railroad in 1908. This station is among four from this commission that remain, along with Hunts Point Avenue, City Island and Morris Park, though all had fallen into disrepair by 2009. Local nonprofit groups are pushing to redevelop the station as a community space and entrance to a city park. In 2020, architecture firm SLO released renderings of what a renovated station may look like.
