On a recent trip to Rochester, NY, we stopped in at Mt. Morris. DevB had a lead on there being an abandoned railroad station in town, so who was I to argue?
Just off to the side of beautiful downtown Mt. Morris lays this gem of an abandoned station. I’m not quite sure when it was built, though it clearly dates back to the early 1900s or late 1800s. The building is your typical small town train station – only it hasn’t seen any use in decades. What appears to be an original piano is still located inside (and is probably the only interesting item still left in there). The last passenger train to call on this station was believed to be in the 1960s. The tracks outside are still in occasional use with a new spur running off to a new nearby salt mine (the largest salt mine in the US). The station was built by the Delaware Lackawanna and Western Railroad. (For more in-depth rail discussion about Mt. Morris and the various railroads that used to run through it, start here. )
Whoever owns this building does not seem to be doing anything with it. It reported was sold a few years back for the tiny sum of $30k. (30k in NYC could maybe get you cardboard box to sleep in over a sidewalk subway grate). This isn’t to say it’ll stay ‘abandoned’ for much longer. Nearly half of Mt. Morris was bought up by Greg O’Connell, a former NYPD detective who is credited with reviving Red Hook (Brooklyn). For all I know Mr O’Connell may be the station’s owner – as he displayed a fondness for Bob Diamond’s efforts to build a trolley line in Red Hook – allowing him to use some of his warehouse space for working on the trolley cars (which ultimately never went anywhere).
The truly amazing thing about this building – aside from the fact that it still exists and is so well intact with the minimal care it has received – are the names scratched into the bricks. There are dozens of names hand etched into these bricks, some recent but a great many from decades gone by. ’43’, ’17’ ’56’ – each name has a number for the year it was itched, largely being from 1900s.
Whatever the future holds for this building, one can only hope these awesome etched names are preserved.
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there is some great old school brick graffiti scratched into the wall behind the legendary Grande Ballroom…
sometimes you have to look close at stuff instead of just focusing in on the “ZOMG uRbAn DeCaYx0r!!1” shots.
The tracks by this station are now owned by the Buffalo & Pittsburgh Railroad. B&P is one of the biggest railroads in the U.S. along with the Union Pacific Railroad.