were sold at the Van Cortlandt Park station. Undeveloped lots along Broadway to the city's northern limit were quickly bought by builders hoping to profit from the boom in luxury houses, which could reach the subway through streetcar lines as well. At that time, it was expected that the line would be extended to 262nd Street. The Horace Mann School was built to serve this population. Later years To address overcrowding, in 1909, the New York Public Service Commission proposed lengthening platforms at stations along the original IRT subway. As part of a modification to the IRT's construction contracts, made on January 18, 1910, the company was to lengthen station platforms to accommodate ten-car express and six-car local trains. In addition to $1.5 million (equivalent to $ million in ) spent on platform lengthening, $500,000 () was spent on building additional entrances and exits. It was anticipated that these improvements would increase capacity by 25 percent. The side platforms at the 242nd Street station were extended to the south. Six-car local trains began operating in October 1910, and ten-car express trains began running on the West Side Line on January 24, 1911. In 1947, Jack Kerouac passed through the station, then a busy trolley hub, at the end of the first leg of his escape from the city in what became On the Road. His goal was to reach U.S. Route 6 at the Bear Mountain Bridge and use it as a route along which to go West to Denver. The attempt failed when he found very little traffic on Route 6 to hitch rides from, and he returned to the city to take a bus instead. The city government took over the IRT's operations on June 12, 1940. The IRT routes were given numbered designations in 1948 with the introduction of "R-type" rolling stock, which contained rollsigns with numbered designations for each service. The route to 242nd Street became known as the 1. In 1959, all 1 trains became local. In 2019, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced that this station would become ADA-accessible as part of the agency's 2020–2024 Capital Program. Station layout There are three components to the station: the platforms, a control house perpendicular to the tracks at the north end, and a crew quarters building spanning the platform at the south end. From the northeast corner an overpass crosses the through-traffic lanes of Broadway. Two stairs