Mt. Pleasant is a cemetery stop on the Harlem Line. Trains stop at the station to allow mourners to visit the dead once per day in each direction (allowing same-day visits only from New York City direction) during weekdays, with three stops per day in each direction (allowing same-day visits for passengers from both directions) on weekends. Trains all stop in the middle of day during daylight hours year-round.
The station consists of two tiny concrete high-level platforms, long enough for one-door on the first or last car of stopping electric trains (these have no traps to allow low-level platform access) to be keyed open by the conductor. Each platform has a single Mt. Pleasant sign, a silver railing, and 8 concrete steps off of it down to ground-level. The platforms were built in the 1980s during the electrification project of the Upper Harlem Line to allow service to the cemetery to continue.
The two platforms are off-set from each other, the Southeast-bound platform is accessed from a short sidewalk along the grade-crossing of Stevens Avenue, just east of it’s at-grade intersection with the Taconic State Parkway. This entrance sidewalk passes between the train tracks and Cemetery Monuments and lettering with gravestones lining the sidewalk.
The Grand Central-bound platform is a bit south of the Stevens Avenue grade-crossing. It is only accessible by passing through the electronic gates into the Gate of Heaven Cemetery (under an entrance arch), and walking along the driveway and parking area for the St. Francis of Assisi Mausoleum to the sidewalk up to the platform, this sidewalk heads the other direction to the cemetary office, but does not connect with the northbound platform.
All Photos: 6 October, 2018
Valhalla 