When the
Ninth Avenue El was extended to Harlem in 1879 it terminated at
155th Street as a matter of geographic necessity (the hills of
Washington Heights and
Highbridge would have made a northward expansion difficult) and demand (northern Manhattan and the Bronx were still sparsely populated). Development came to the area with the
New York City and Northern Railroad (later known as the
Putnam Division) building its terminal at 155th Street in 1881 and the
Polo Grounds relocating to a site just west of the station in 1889. The line expanded into The Bronx on June 1, 1918, when the
Putnam Bridge, which had been built in 1881 to carry the Putnam Division across the
Harlem River, was leased by the IRT and connected to the 9th Avenue line, allowing it to join the
IRT Jerome Avenue Line and add intermediate stops at
Sedgwick Avenue and
Anderson–Jerome Avenues. With the building of the
Eighth Avenue Line and
Concourse Line by the city-owned
Independent Subway System in the 1930s, the Ninth Avenue El was rendered redundant. On June 12, 1940, the el was closed entirely except for the portion from this station north to provide a connection from the Jerome Avenue Line to the Polo Grounds. The retained service, known as the
Polo Grounds Shuttle, ran from 155th Street to the
167th Street on the
IRT Jerome Avenue Line. Though still moderately successful at its outset, the Polo Grounds Shuttle eventually suffered at the hands of the Concourse line and declining ridership of the
New York Central's
Putnam Division, the successor to New York and Northern. The need for the shuttle decreased when the Polo Grounds went vacant in 1957 after the
baseball Giants moved to
San Francisco and
football Giants moved across the river to
Yankee Stadium. On May 29, 1958, the New York Central ceased operations on the Putnam Division, which rendered the shuttle unnecessary. Three months later, at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, August 31, the shuttle was shut down and the elevated portion of the line demolished. The two underground stations were abandoned, but remain intact. == References ==