Simpson Street (IRT White Plains Road Line)

Simpson Street is a local station on the IRT White Plains Road Line of the New York City Subway. Located at the intersection of Simpson Street and Westchester Avenue in Longwood, Bronx, it is served by the 2 train at all times, and the 5 train at all other times except during late nights and rush hours in the peak direction.

This elevated station, opened on November 26, 1904, and renovated in the early 2000s, has two side platforms and three tracks. The center express track is used by the 5 train during rush hours in the peak direction. To the north, the line curves from Westchester Avenue to Southern Boulevard. The IRT Pelham Line, which curves above Westchester Avenue five blocks northeast of this station, is viewable from the east end of the platforms.

Both platforms have cream-colored windscreens and red canopies. Both platforms also have green outlines, frames and support columns, in their center and green waist-high, ornament-style steel fences at either ends with several lampposts. The station's signs are in the standard black name plates with white Helvetica lettering.

Due to low clearance of the line above ground, both station houses are at platform level and there are no crossovers or crossunders. The station has been renovated to be ADA-accessible. The Manhattan-bound platform's station house is staffed full-time and contains several sets of doors leading to the small waiting area from the platform, a turnstile bank, token booth, two staircases going down to either northern corners of Simpson Street and Westchester Avenue, and one elevator going down to the northeast corner. A high exit-only turnstile on either side of the station house leads directly to one of the street stairs from the platform.

The northbound platform's station house is unstaffed, containing several sets of doors leading to the small waiting area from the platform, a bank of three turnstiles, two staircases going down to either southern corners of Simpson Street and Westchester Avenue, and one elevator going down to the southwest corner. It had a customer assistance booth until April 2010. A high exit-only turnstile on either side of the station house leads directly to one of the street stairs from the platform.

The 2006 artwork here is called What We Build is Not Permanent, We Are Not What We Build by Lisa Amowitz. It consists of stained glass panels on the platform windscreens and station houses with the theme with renewing or rebuilding what has died or fallen.

This station listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 17, 2004, along with IRT Substation #18.


Famous quotes containing the words simpson, street, white, plains and/or road:

    “In my grandmother’s house there was always chicken soup
    And talk of the old country—mud and boards,
    Poverty,
    The snow falling down and necks of lovers.”
    —Louis Simpson (b. 1923)

    “You had such a vision of the street
    As the street hardly understands;
    Sitting along the bed’s edge, where
    You curled the papers from your hair,
    Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
    In the palms of both soiled hands.”
    —T.S. (Thomas Stearns)

    “Little Lamb,
    Here I am;
    Come and lick
    My white neck;”
    —William Blake (1757–1827)

    “The westward march has stopped, upon the final plains of the Pacific; and now the plot thickens ... with the change, the pause, the settlement, our people draw into closer groups, stand face to face, to know each other and be known.”
    —Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)

    “As life runs on, the road grows strange
    With faces new,—and near the end
    The milestones into headstones change,
    ‘Neath every one a friend.”
    —James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)