Metro-North Railroad continues to renovate its Crestwood station on the Harlem line, hoping to eventually find a tenant for its long vacant building at the station.
Metro-North followed recent canopy and platform work by undertaking an exterior upgrade of the vacant building there. So far, brick and stucco work has been completed. Next will be interior work to remove lead paint and mold, according to Metro-North spokeswoman Marjorie Anders.
“We need to find money to do the abatement and that”™s not easy in this current economic climate,” Anders said.
The Crestwood station building has been vacant for three decades, dating back prior to before the Metro-North was even incorporated, in 1983. In recent years, the company has made several attempts to lease out the property but didn’t find any takers.
Once the interior is spruced up, Anders said, the railroad will open a bidding process to find a tenant for the property. If funding is in place to complete the interior abatement, bids can be solicited by the end of the calendar year, Anders said.
The Crestwood station was made famous by Norman Rockwell in a painting called “Commuters,” featured on the Nov. 16, 1946 cover of The Saturday Evening Post. The painting depicted city-bound commuters crowding the platform in front of the old station building.
