Program

Historic Transportation

Subject

Industry & Commerce, Transportation

Location

90 Harmon Dr, Larchmont, NY 10538, USA

Lat/Long

40.94249, -73.74993

Grant Recipient

Girl Scouts Heart of the Hudson, Inc.

The New York, Westchester, & Boston Railway (NYW&B Railway) was an all-electric interurban system that operated from 1912 to 1937. By the time train service ended on December 31, 1937 due to bankruptcy, tracks ran from 133rd St. at the Harlem River in the Bronx north to Port Chester in the eastern division and White Plains in the western division. The Larchmont Gardens station was opened for service March 22, 1926, when the eastern division was extended. While the railway was intended to extend to Boston, Massachusetts, it never got farther north than Westchester County, New York. (Westchester Magazine, 25 November 2019. Accessed 5 June 2024.

After the bankruptcy, many of the stations were given to towns as payment for back taxes. A number were razed at the beginning of World War II in order to recover metals needed for the war effort. Service to the Larchmont Gardens station had ended on October 31, 1937. The building had sat abandoned and boarded up until Ethelyn (Mrs. Roger) Bird, house chairwoman of the Larchmont Girl Scouts proposed it as a much-needed meeting place for the Scouts, saving it from possible destruction (The Daily Times (Mamaroneck), 26 November 1938). The Girl Scouts dedicated their new meeting house on October 7, 1938. In December 1958, the Larchmont Girl Scout Council purchased the structure from the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company, its then-owner, for one dollar. An addition was built on the north side of the structure in 1961. As of 2024, the meeting house is owned by Girl Scouts Heart of the Hudson, Inc. and is used by the local Larchmont-Mamaroneck Girl Scouts for troop meetings and events.