The New York Transit Museum is marking the 100th anniversary of a Bronx subway station with a vintage train ride and cemetery tour.
The Woodlawn station, designed by architect Squire Vickers, opened on April 15, 1918.
To commemorate the station’s opening, the transit museum is dusting off a World War I-era low-voltage subway train for a trip to the neighborhood from Grand Central Terminal on April 15. The train leaves at 11 a.m. and returns at 5 p.m.
The Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) low-voltage subway cars were built between 1916 and 1925. At the time, nearly 1,200 of the cars ran along the subway system, which was operated by the IRT before the city took over in 1940, according to the museum.
The interior of the subway cars will take riders back in time with period seating, handrails and advertisements.
Once the train arrives in Woodlawn, riders will deboard for a guided tour of nearby Woodlawn Cemetery – the final resting place of famous New Yorkers such as former Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Jazz musicians Miles Davis and Duke Ellington.
The subway station and cemetery, which opened shortly before the trains arrived, are both credited with stimulating development of the neighborhood, according to the transit museum.
Tickets for the event, which includes the guided cemetery tour, cost more than your average $2.75 subway trip: $50 for adults and $25 for children. Members of the New York Transit Museum benefit from a discounted price of $35 for adults and $20 for children.
