By Jeff Coltin
Life at Rose Hill, especially on the western edge of campus, is closely tied to the Metro-North.
Freshmen in certain wings of South and Loschert get their first taste of big city life by lying awake to the sound of rumbling trains passing through the middle of the night.
Cosi welcomes those who are running late for the train but not late enough to stop and grab some coffee. And lucky Campbell residents can guess how soon a train will arrive even before they feel the rumble, based on how quickly people are swarming towards the Third Avenue gate.
But not everything is so constant.
Changes are coming to the Metro-North station and the plaza that serves as its cover. Fordham Plaza is getting completely redesigned, as a café replete with a swooping canopy replaces the old home of Pronto Pizza.
Enough planters and trees will be added to make the formerly windswept bricks look like the Botanical Garden’s western outpost. And the vendors, now limited to a few tables along Fordham Road, will be returning in some force with seating and purpose-built space for sales down at the plaza’s southern end.
At the station below, the northbound platform will be doubled in width. Travelers to Westchester County and places beyond will be treated to more benches and heated shelters as they wait for trains and Manhattan-bound travelers will get an additional access point to the platform directly from Webster Ave.
The MTA, the state agency that controls the Metro-North, expects the full project to be completed by this Fall, but less-welcomed changes will be coming sooner.
When Fordham students return from Spring Break this year, they will be coming back to a fare increase on all trains, subways and busses. As covered in the Ram’s last issue [Vol. 97 Issue 2], an off-peak ticket to or from Grand Central will rise 25 cents to $6.50, a weekend City Ticket will rise to $4.25 and a subway or bus swipe will jump to $2.75.
But don’t expect the minor increase to keep Fordham students off the train. “If it’s marginally different, I’m not too frustrated about it,” said Patrick Higgins, FCRH ‘15.
Rachel Dougherty, FCRH ’15, agreed. “When I’m in a rush to get home, and it’s worth it to spend the extra dollars, I don’t mind it.” Dougherty said the Metro-North gives her the option to shorten her hour and a half commute from her job in Brooklyn.
Other students don’t even have the option not to take the train. “You have to take the Metro North at night because it’s safer,” said Kenny Ducey, FCRH ’15, who works as a sports reporter for WFUV. He said that the sports department has a rule which states you cannot take the subway back to campus with the radio station’s equipment.
Many students love the Metro-North, but few as much as Erica DePalma, FCRH ’15, whose father is a train engineer. “I’ve been riding the train my whole life,” she said. And she means it—her first grade birthday party was on the Metro-North. “We ate pizza on the train, we jumped over the seats and such,” she laughed.
Connections between the University and the Metro-North go back to the earliest days of the school, according to Dr. Allan Gilbert, professor of anthropology and de facto campus historian. He said Fordham was founded just as the railroad was being pushed north from Manhattan.
“The timing was serendipitous,” Gilbert said. “That may have been the reason [Archbishop John] Hughes bought [the land] in the first place.”
