descend in either direction from its end, matching the two stairs that descend to the sidewalk from the west of the control house. Just south of the station, the line widens to three tracks, which is the configuration up to just before Dyckman Street. Location The station is located above the west side of the street, where parking is located on either side of where West 242nd Street intersects from the west. On that side of the street are commercial buildings, including a large parking garage on the southwest corner; the east side has the track, football field, tennis courts, swimming pools and other athletic facilities of Van Cortlandt Park. Also in the park nearby, to the northeast, is the Van Cortlandt House Museum, a National Historic Landmark. The 240th Street Yard is beyond the parking garage to the southwest, next to the campus of Manhattan College, a few blocks west of the station. Platforms There is one island platform and two side platforms. The station was formerly set up as a Spanish solution with alighting passengers using the side platforms and boarding passengers using the island platform. Now, only the center island platform is open to the public for boarding and disembarking from trains. They are floored in concrete and sheltered with a wooden roof covered in standing-seam metal supported by trussed steel T-frames on the side platforms and timber in the center. Rounded rafter tails project from the eaves. The sides, except for the open southernmost section, have had metal windscreen added. Under the canopies are modern fluorescent lights. On the eastern platform, the original iron railings support original lights, with dish-shaped downlights on a curved stem. At the south end is the only scrolled station sign remaining anywhere in the subway system. The western platform has its original railing and modern lights. Control house The control house is the dominant architectural feature of the station. The copper-clad timber frame exterior is painted in a vertical, batten seam pattern. It is topped with a low hipped roof clad in sheet metal and pierced by two ventilating dormer windows on the east and west side. A fleur-de-lis–patterned group of finials at the peak. On the north facade, narrow casement windows are echoed by recessed panels below. The groups of five in the section on either side of the projecting central bay window are flanked by blind openings. The bay