Simpson Street
Simpson Street is a local stop on the White Plains Road Line that has been recently renovated. The stop opened on November 26, 1904 making it one of the oldest IRT elevated lines still in service (used only by the second Avenue el until 1905 when the IRT Broadway Express Line was extended into the Bronx). This makes the elevated much closer to the street than those built starting ten to fifteen years later. This means that the station has two different station houses, directly along each of the two side platforms for the three track elevated line. There is no free crossover or under.
Just railroad north (west really) of the station the line curves off Westchester Avenue and onto Southern Blvd. The tops of the 6 Line's Bridge over the Bronx River (it follows Westchester Avenue north of this station and is considered both the Westchester Avenue Line and Pelham Line - calling it the Pelham Line is more common) is easily visible and is very walkable from this station with Hunts Point Avenue just a seven minute walk away, and Whitlock Avenue a 9 minute walk away.
The station was renovated in the middle of the 2000s, and has the cream and green windscreens along with stained glass windows in the windscreens. Only the center of the platforms are canopied and windscreened the ends left to be exposed to the elements with historic looking and repainted low walls to the platforms that still have their ornamentation along with the station houses. The stop is fully ADA compliant with elevators added sometime in the 1990s giving their shafts the glass square design with bare aluminum siding (from the first generation of elevators built by the MTA).
For access on the Manhattan-bound platform two staircases lead down to the NE and NW corners of Westchester Avenue and Simpson Street. The elevator is on the NE corner. These lead up and into separate entrances into the small station house where turnstiles lead out to the platform. The station house has lots of windows out to the street and the outside's decorative features have been restored.
On the Dyre Avenue/Wakefield-241 Street-bound platform two separate street stairs on the SE and SW corners of Westchester Avenue and Simpson Street lead up to the outside of the station house, along with the elevator from the SE corner. Both staircases lead up to High Exit Turnstiles. To enter the system passengers must enter the station house and use the bank of 3 turnstiles, there was also a now permanently closed (on April 4, 2010) Customer Assistant Booth that was removed shortly after that time. There is a tiny area beyond fare control to wait for trains inside before the doors out to the platform.
1 & 2: February 27, 2005; 3-12: March 24, 2007; 13-35: January 3, 2011;
