Gun Hill Road
Gun Hill Road is an extremely high above the ground subway station and the only express stop on the upper White Plains Road elevated. The stop is extremely high above the ground because of its now abandoned and removed lower level that were used by the Third Avenue Elevated’s Bronx Branch (called the 8 on subway maps when all subway lines received letters/numbers in 1967 but the trains themselves were simply signed Shuttle) that remained in operation until April 28, 1973.
Within the station itself there is no evidence of the former line but the width of the tracks and skeletal remains of two former tracks rising-up between the three existing tracks can be clearly distinguished when walking north of the station up Westchester Avenue. The station was completely rebuilt between 2004 and 2006 and the two island platforms are canopied in their midsections and exposed at their ends. Most of the still intact remains inside the station of the Third Avenue el were removed at this time. The canopy is the standard green color and there are green and cream decent sized mini-windscreens at various locations for waiting riders to receive some protection from the elements. The sides of some of these windscreens (that run the full length between two columns holding up the canopy roof include mesh)
Fare control is in a modern headhouse with brown brick and green trim (similar to the headhouses at Myrtle-Wycoff Avenues, and the 74 Steet-Broadway/Roosevelt Avenue complexes that were built at the same time, clearly all designed by the same architect). The station house is at street level deep beneath the tracks in a brief section of White Plains Road when traffic splits into two different streets and the subway runs over a plaza between them.
Access is from the north sidewalk of Gun Hill Road and two other sides in the wide median of White Plains Road to sidewalks. Each entrance into the entrance house are up a few steps. Only the western entrance has a one switchback ramp. Entering the station, the station house has lots of light due to the cathedral vaulted ceiling (maybe thirty feet high) with lots of glass windows. Passengers first pass a newsstand when entering through the station doors before reaching the token booth and its turnstiles.
Immediately after the turnstiles are two separate elevators that run directly up to each platform. These elevator cars have two doors on two perpendicular sides of the cars. Passengers than reach an escalator/stairwell that is the almost the width of the entire building (actual walls enclose it, due to non-public rooms beyond in the station house that extends even further back behind the stairs. This access structure has two escalators in the middle and staircases to either side of them and rises maybe thirty feet to a narrow upper mezzanine that does have a bench for waiting passengers now one story beneath the platforms. From here two staircases lead up to each of platforms.
Photos 1-6: April 4, 2004; 7-9: December 18, 2004; 10-18: February 27, 2005; 19 & 20: December 28, 2006; 21-51: January 13, 2012; 52-54: January 13, 2012;
Arts For Transit at Gun Hill Road
My Sun (Mi Sol), My Planet (Mi Planeta) and My City (Mi Ciudad), 2006,
Faceted Glass
By Andrea Arroyo
