I took this on my way to work one morning in 2011. It’s a window at the Scarborough Post Office right next to the Scaraborough Metro North Station where I used to catch my train every morning. In fact what is now the Post Office was once upon a time the railway station itself. I found the colors and the textures to be appealing.

As Wikipedia says:

The first station building was built by the Hudson River Railroad sometime before 1860, and acquired by the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad in 1869. The station was named “Scarborough” until 1867. On July 16 of that year and until November 26, the area was officially called Weskora. The Scarborough station was accordingly changed by local government officials to “Weskora”, and changed back in December 1867.
The Scarborough post office dates to December 3, 1864, when the U.S. Postal Service established a “catch and throw” office there in the same small building as the earlier established station. A hook was installed along the tracks to hang mail bags to be grabbed by workers on the passing trains for outgoing mail distribution; in turn workers threw mail bags off the train for incoming mail distribution. The first postmaster of the Scarborough Post Office facility was James Van Velsor who had an annual salary of $200 ($3,900 today) in 1873.

A large thunderstorm occurred in the area on August 4, 1898; the newly-renovated station building, built in 1893, was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. At the time, the building also housed Scarborough’s post office. Mail was destroyed although registered mail and money was being kept at the postmaster’s house each night; damage amounted to $5,000 ($141,700 today) and the post office opened the next day, with mail being held in a pushcart. The building was reconstructed identically to its predecessor.

In 1909, after the community of Scarborough was incorporated into the village of Briarcliff Manor in 1906, the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad put up a sign reading “Briarcliff West” at the station. Soon afterward, attributed to the neighborhood’s pride over their name, that sign was thrown into the Hudson River and replaced with the original Scarborough sign.

The Briarcliff Manor village government purchased the station building in 1961 to house its Scaroborough post office. The building was used as a filming location in 1966, in the first episode of the television soap opera Dark Shadows as the Collinsport train station.

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