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    Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station: Statuary and Sculptures
    Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station: Statuary and Sculptures
    Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station: Statuary and Sculptures
    Ebook177 pages55 minutes

    Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station: Statuary and Sculptures

    By David D. Morrison and Lorraine B. Diehl

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    About this ebook

    Opened in 1913, Grand Central Terminal is a world-famous landmark building with a magnificent 48-foot-high, 1,500-ton statuary group on top of the main facade. Designed by sculptor Jules-Felix Coutan, a 13-foot-wide Tiffany clock serves as the centerpiece. The figure above the clock is Mercury, with Hercules to the left and Minerva to the right. In the late 1990s, a historic restoration was performed on the terminal after which two cast-iron eagle statues were placed over entrances at Lexington Avenue and Forty-Second Street/Vanderbilt Avenue. These eagles were from the 1898 Grand Central Station building that was demolished in 1910 to make room for the construction of the new Grand Central Terminal structure. Penn Station, which opened in 1910, covered two full city blocks and had statuary groups, designed by sculptor Adolph Weinman, on all four sides of the building. After Penn Station was demolished in the mid-1960s, the statuary was dispersed throughout various locations, mainly in the Northeast.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateJul 15, 2019
    ISBN9781439667415
    Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station: Statuary and Sculptures
    Author

    David D. Morrison

    David D. Morrison is a retired branch line manager and railroad historian. Author of seven other books in Arcadia's Images of Rail series, he is a major contributor to the website trainsarefun.com. He is a charter member of the Railroad Museum of Long Island as well as cochair of the Oyster Bay Railroad Station Restoration Committee. Long Island's major newspaper, Newsday, often seeks him out for historical railroad information. He has given countless presentations to libraries and historical societies and continues to enjoy doing so. He is a longtime member of the Long Island Sunrise Trail Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society.

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      Book preview

      Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station - David D. Morrison

      credited.

      INTRODUCTION

      David D. Morrison . . . a railroad historian who may know more about the eagles of Pennsylvania Station and Grand Central Terminal than anyone else on earth.

      —David Dunlap, The New York Times

      Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station have similar beginnings, yet they are a study in contrast. Both stations are located in New York City’s Manhattan borough only a few blocks from each other. Each is a major railroad passenger station, yet the two are not connected by rail, except for the New York City subway system. Each of the buildings were capped by magnificent statuary groups. That is about the extent of the similarities.

      The major difference between the two stations is that the 1913 Grand Central Terminal building is still there, and the 1910 Penn Station building has been demolished. Also, Grand Central Terminal is a location where trains end their run and go no farther. Trains terminate at Grand Central and then make return trips. Penn Station, on the other hand, is a location where trains can run through. Trains do not necessarily terminate at this location.

      Passenger train service into New York City started in 1832 when the Harlem River Railroad established a station in Lower Manhattan. In 1846, the Hudson River Railroad was founded by Cornelius Vanderbilt, who consolidated the two railroads and established a station in an area of Lower Manhattan known as St. John’s Park. In 1854, the City of New York prohibited the operation of steam locomotives below Forty-Second Street. Train coaches had to be hauled by horses up to Forty-Second Street. This led to Vanderbilt deciding to build a large station building at Forty-Second Street between Lexington and Vanderbilt Avenues. That station, opened in 1871, was called Grand Central Depot.

      In 1898, Grand Central Depot was renovated and expanded from a three-story building to six stories. Designed by architect Bradford Lee Gilbert, it had four towers with cast-iron eagle statues at the corners. That building, which became known as Grand Central Station, lasted only 12 years until 1910, when it was demolished to make room for the construction of the present Grand Central Terminal. Fortunately, most of the eagles were saved and scattered throughout various locations in the Northeast.

      Grand Central Terminal is the third station building at the same location on Forty-Second Street. Opened on February 2, 1913, tracks of the New York Central and the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroads arrive at the station from the north and terminate at that location. Designed by the architectural firms of Reed & Stem and Warren & Wetmore, Grand Central Terminal is still there today in its original beauty.

      Unlike Grand Central Terminal, Penn Station had quite a different origin and fate. The Pennsylvania Railroad (hereafter referred to as the PRR) passenger trains terminated in Jersey City, where passengers would have to board a ferry to go across the Hudson River to Manhattan.

      The PRR was determined to enter Manhattan directly by rail. To accomplish this objective, the PRR purchased the Long Island Rail Road, allowing it to have access to New York State. Land on Long Island was needed for the construction of a passenger car storage yard and servicing facility.

      The PRR engaged in a massive construction project in order to bring its passenger trains into the city. It constructed two tunnels under the Hudson River, four tunnels under the East River, a huge power plant in Long Island City, a two-mile-long passenger car storage yard in the Astoria section of Queens County (Sunnyside Yard), the Hell Gate Bridge, and the biggest and most beautiful passenger station in west-side Manhattan—Penn Station. Designed by the architectural firm McKim, Mead & White, Penn Station opened to the public on September 8, 1910, when a Long Island Rail Road train departed the facility.

      In the words of the late railroad historian Ron Ziel, Penn Station was designed to last eight hundred years before major structural work would have been necessary. Sadly, the building was demolished in a little over 50 years in what The New York Times referred to as a monumental act of vandalism. The building was demolished because the PRR sold it to a developer for the construction of a new Madison Square Garden arena. It was the destruction of Penn Station that led to the passage of the New York City Landmarks Law, which saved Grand Central Terminal from being destroyed.

      Fortunately, most of the statuary and sculptures from Penn Station were removed and preserved, being scattered to various locations, mostly in the eastern part of the country.

      This book will tell the story of the statuary and sculptures that are now at Grand Central Terminal, as well as the story of the cast-iron eagles from the 1898 Grand Central Station. Also told will be the story of the sculptures that are now at Penn Station and the statuary and sculptures that were saved and distributed to various locations, mainly on the East

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