page_title: West Side Line
section_title: Grade separation
hierarchical_section_title: West Side Line / Grade separation
caption_attribution_description: English: Single track railroad swing bridge across Harlem River connects West Side Line of Manhattan to The Bronx so Amtrak trains can go up the Hudson to Albany, Montreal, etc. Picture of the stationary north side, from a Circle Line boat passing between it and the swing part on a chilly afternoon.
context_page_description: The West Side Line, also called the West Side Freight Line, is a railroad line on the west side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. North of Penn Station, from 34th Street, the line is used by Amtrak passenger service heading north via Albany to Toronto; Montreal; Niagara Falls and Buffalo, New York; Rutland, Vermont; and Chicago. South of Penn Station, a 1.45-mile elevated section of the line abandoned since 1980 has been transformed into an elevated park called the High Line. The south section of the park from Gansevoort Street to 20th Street opened in 2009 and the second section up to 30th Street opened in 2011, while the final section to 34th Street opened in 2014.
context_section_description: As the city grew, congestion worsened on the west side. Eventually plans were drawn up for a grade-separated line. The West Side Elevated Highway was built with the line's grade separation in the 1930s. Work on the highway – named for Manhattan Borough President Julius Miller, who championed it – began in 1925, and the first section was dedicated June 28, 1934. This included a new elevated eight-track freight terminal at St. John's Park, located several blocks north of the old one, with a south edge at Spring Street. North of there, an elevated structure (the present-day High Line) carried two tracks north on the west side of Washington Street, curving onto the east side of Tenth Avenue at 14th Street, then crossing Tenth Avenue at 17th Street and heading north along its west side. Just south of the Pennsylvania Station rail yard at 31st–33rd Streets, the line turned west on the north side of 30th Street, then north just east of the West Side Highway. The northernmost bridge crossed 34th Street, and a ramp took it back to Eleventh Avenue south of 35th Street. The elevated line was built through the second or third floors of several buildings along the route; others were served directly by elevated sidings.
  In 1937 the tracks along Eleventh Avenue were bypassed by a below-grade line, passing under the 35th Street intersection and running north just west of Tenth Avenue before slowly curving northwest, passing under Eleventh Avenue at 59th Street and rejoining the original alignment. There were three sections that remained open, one at 37th Street, one at 45th Street, and one at 49th Street. The one at 37th Street was covered over in the mid-2010s, but the openings at 45th and 49th Streets remain to this day.
  Around the same time, New York City parks commissioner Robert Moses covered the line from 72nd Street north to 120th Street with an expansion of Riverside Park. His project, called the West Side Improvement, was twice as expensive as the Hoover Dam and created the Henry Hudson Parkway, as well as a railroad tunnel through the park. The large 60th Street Yard served as the dividing point between the two-track realignment and a wider four-track line to the north. North of 123rd Street, the line became elevated between the Henry Hudson Parkway and Riverside Drive before returning to the surface and crossing under the Parkway to its west side near 159th Street. It continues along the shore of the Hudson River to the Spuyten Duyvil Bridge, a swing bridge across the Harlem Ship Canal (Spuyten Duyvil Creek), before merging with the Hudson Line just north of the bridge.
  In addition to serving the industrial and dock areas of the Lower West Side, the line was the primary route for produce and meat into New York, serving warehouses in the West Village, Chelsea, and the Meatpacking District, as well as serving the James Farley Post Office and private freight services.
caption: Spuyten Duyvil Bridge, Bronx end, when the swing is open
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