Crugers Metro-North station

PHOTO: Crugers was a station on the Hudson Line of the Metro-North Railroad which served the residents of the hamlet of Crugers, New York until its closure in 1996 when it and the next station northbound, Montrose, were replaced by the Cortlandt station between them.

The station, which still remains in part, was replaced as the last stage of expanding the Hudson Line to six-car high-level platforms and a track curvature at the station precluded such a conversion.

The station had 48 parking spaces for commuters.
It also has a bridge over the south end of Crugers Station Road and the tracks that despite being closed still exists today.

PHOTO: The former Crugers station is now just an empty lot

NY TIMES FLASHBACK: Cortlandt Welcomes New Train Station (September 8, 1996)

THE first new railroad station to be built in the state since Metro-North was formed in 1983 has made its debut here, and commuters are smiling. They praise its design, its convenience, its spacious parking lot. Few fail to mention their previous alternatives, the far smaller Hudson Line stations of Crugers and Montrose, which are now closed.

''This train station is so lit up,'' said Enzo Pagan, a veteran who lives at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Veterans Affairs Hospital in Montrose. ''Crugers was like a dull old platform. People just walked on the tracks. The station was all beat up. The bridge looked rusty. But this station looks so clean and safe. It's like day and night.''

Mr. Pagan, wearing a black toreador hat and a bright red shirt, said he was going visiting. While he waited for the 7:50 A.M. train north, commuters to Manhattan began arriving for the 7:44 train south. People dressed for business mingled with others in blue jeans. Many sipped coffee bought from Robert Zukovich, who operates a temporary newspaper stand at the station.

''The 6:19 A.M. is the busiest train,'' Mr. Zukovich said. ''I'm gone after the 7:44.''

Frank Sansone, who works the night shift at the A.&P. supermarket in Croton-on-Hudson, said he took the train home to Wappingers Falls every morning because ''it saves my truck wear and tear.'' He used to use the Crugers station, but ''this is more convenient,'' he said. ''It's bigger and easier to get to.''

The $11 million station, which reflects a 50 percent increase in ridership on the upper Hudson since 1987, has 750 parking spaces, for which 576 permits have already been issued. By contrast, Crugers had 48 spaces and Montrose, 102.

Marjorie Anders, a spokeswoman for Metro-North, described the two former stations, which were less than two miles apart, as ''tiny stations on curved segments of railroad.

''You couldn't lengthen the platforms and people had to climb stairs to get on and off.''

Linda D. Puglisi, Town Supervisor of Cortlandt, said parking could not be expanded at the previous stations, which were in residential neighborhoods. Illegally parked cars habitually clogged streets leading to the stations.

The new station was developed as a joint venture between the town and the railroad, and the town had a say in the warmly colored, almost Southwestern look of the architecture. The town will maintain and operate the landscaped parking lot, which is equipped with up-to-date, long-term coin machines. (Parking revenues are to be evenly divided between the town and the railroad.)

The station is accessible to wheelchairs, with elevators to allow the handicapped to avoid the glass-enclosed overpass, which is not air-conditioned but has space heaters for winter use.

Ms. Puglisi said the station, an eight-year project, had helped put Cortlandt, a town of 38,000, more prominently on the map. The town includes the villages of Croton-on-Hudson and Buchanan and the hamlets of Verplanck, Montrose and Crugers. A state grant of $1.5 million will allow the town to widen intersections and make other traffic improvements on Routes 9 and 9A, which lead to the station.

Ms. Puglisi said the town and railroad would develop a survey to gauge commuter satisfaction with the station by next month.

But Bob Leaversuch, an editor at McGraw-Hill in Manhattan, knew on the first day what was missing. ''There are no bathrooms,'' he said. ''That's part of the 90's, right? Trying to minimize crime. It's a bit of a shell, too.'' He looked across the southbound track, where a cement company was operating. ''And noisy.''

Ms. Anders dismissed the complaint about toilets, saying the trains had them. But Ms. Puglisi said the town would ''continue to lobby for bathrooms,'' and proposed using some of the 5 percent of gross profits earmarked for capital improvement projects to add such amenities.

The town is also discussing additional train service with the railroad -- two express trains and two local trains have already been added -- as well as features like a fence along the tracks and a permanent concession stand.

Later this month a $60,000 bronze sculpture will be unveiled at the station. Three life-size figures depict an American Indian, a Dutchman and a brick maker, representing the town's earliest inhabitants and workers.

The sculptor Robert Taplin of West Haven was selected by a panel, which included Cortlandt residents. The work was commissioned by Metro-North through the Arts for Transit program of its parent agency, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/08/nyregion/cortlandt-welcomes-new-train-station.html