Download or read book The Rise and Fall of Pennsylvania Station written by Gregory Bilotto and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2021 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The construction of Pennsylvania Station (1904-1910) was a monumental undertaking ... for the voluminous earth displaced, incredible innovation, and brilliant French-influenced classical architecture, but it also was a quintessential archetype of the Gilded Age. The station reshaped the economic and social fabric of New York by dislodging scores of families and local businesses. It had been built for prestige and grandeur rather than sustainability and prolonged the rivalry with the New York Central and Hudson River Railroads, leading to the creation of Grand Central Terminal. Although the station was successful for increasing passenger journeys, the rise of independent travel after World War II and mounting financial losses culminated with its unfortunate demise and eventual destruction. Nevertheless, through the misfortune of demolition emerged the first historic preservation laws, which have saved countless historic buildings, including its Park Avenue rival"--Back cover.
Download or read book The Late Great Pennsylvania Station written by Lorraine B. Diehl and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 1996-11-14 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work traces the history of the creation, operation, and demolition of New York's Pennsylvania Station.
Download or read book Conquering Gotham written by Jill Jonnes and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-04-19 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Superb. [A] first-rate narrative” (The Wall Street Journal) about the controversial construction of New York’s beloved original Penn Station and its tunnels, from the author of Eiffel's Tower and Urban Forests As bestselling books like Ron Chernow's Titan and David McCullough's The Great Bridge affirm, readers are fascinated with the grand personalities and schemes that populated New York at the close of the nineteenth century. Conquering Gotham re- creates the riveting struggle waged by the great Pennsylvania Railroad to build Penn Station and the monumental system of tunnels that would connect water-bound Manhattan to the rest of the continent by rail. Historian Jill Jonnes tells a ravishing tale of snarling plutocrats, engineering feats, and backroom politicking packed with the most colorful figures of Gilded Age New York. Conquering Gotham will be featured in an upcoming episdoe of PBS's American Experience.
Download or read book Manhattan Gateway written by William D. Middleton and published by Kalmbach Publishing Company. This book was released on 1996 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the various plans to get the Pennsylvania Railroad into Manhattan (over & under the Hudson R.) and out to the Northeast (across Hell Gate), and the monument that was Penn Station. Covers the tragic loss of that great edifice to the Quislings of Penn & the vulgar boosterism of NYC (which
Download or read book Conquering Gotham A Gilded Age Epic written by Jill Jonnes and published by . This book was released on 2009-05-01 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the 19th cent. ends, PA Railroad pres. Alexander Cassatt seeks some way -- other than fleets of ferries from N.J. -- to bring the PRR¿s millions of passengers into water-locked Gotham. By 1901 the PRR will build a monumental system of electrified tunnels under the Hudson River, Manhattan, and the East River to Long Island, capping them with the crown jewel of PA Station. And so begins a high-stakes Gilded Age drama pitting the nation¿s greatest corp. against the forces of Tammany N.Y. This narrative brings to life the feats of politicking and engineering that forever changed N.Y.¿s physical and psychological geography. In late 1910, PA Station, Charles McKim¿s great Doric temple to transportation, opens in all its magnificence. Photos.
Download or read book The Wreck of the Penn Central written by Joseph R. Daughen and published by Beard Books. This book was released on 1999 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It took ten years of laborious planning and exhaustive negotiations to create the mammoth Penn Central Railroad, the largest railroad in United States history. When the leviathan was finally born of a merger between the Pennsylvania and New York Central Railroads on February 1, 1968, the event was hailed as a great day for railroading. But the baby giant survived only 367 days. The crash of the Penn Central set a new record, this time for the largest bankruptcy the United States had ever seen. "The Wreck of the Penn Central" provides a close-up view of the events that brought the Big Train to bankruptcy court--over-regulation, subsidized competition, big labor featherbedding, greed, corporate back-stabbing, stunning incompetence, and, yes, even a little sex.
Download or read book Branch Line Empires written by Michael Bezilla and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-06 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The saga of a fierce business rivalry: “Absorbing, well-written . . . will appeal to American history scholars and railroad enthusiasts.” —Choice The Pennsylvania and the New York Central railroads helped to develop central Pennsylvania as the largest source of bituminous coal for the nation. By the late nineteenth century, the two lines were among America’s largest businesses and would soon become legendary archrivals. The PRR first arrived in the 1860s. Within a few years, it was sourcing as much as four million tons of coal annually from Centre County and the Moshannon Valley and would continue do so for a quarter-century. The New York Central, through its Beech Creek Railroad affiliate, invaded the region in the 1880s, first seeking a dependable, long-term source of coal to fuel its locomotives but soon aggressively attempting to break its rival’s lock on transporting the area’s immense wealth of mineral and forest products. Beginning around 1900, the two companies transitioned from an era of growth and competition to a time when each tacitly recognized the other’s domain and sought to achieve maximum operating efficiencies by adopting new technology such as air brakes, automatic couplers, all-steel cars, and diesel locomotives. Over the next few decades, each line began to face common problems in the form of competition from other forms of transportation and government regulation—and in 1968, the two businesses merged. Branch Line Empires offers a thorough and captivating analysis of how a changing world turned competition into cooperation between two railroad industry titans. Includes photographs
Download or read book Royal Blue Line written by Herbert H. Harwood and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2002-05-02 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Herbert H. Harwood, Jr., recounts the 70-year history of the B & O's showcase service. Generously illustrated with over 250 evocative photographs, advertisements, menus, timetables, and maps, Royal Blue Line vividly recalls America's most regal railway journey.
Download or read book The Pennsylvania Railroad 1940s 1950s written by Don Ball and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1986 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the history of the railroad during the height of its success, looks at its locomotive and rolling stock, and shares employee anecdotes.
Download or read book Pennsylvania in Public Memory written by Carolyn Kitch and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-06-26 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What stories do we tell about America’s once-great industries at a time when they are fading from the landscape? Pennsylvania in Public Memory attempts to answer that question, exploring the emergence of a heritage culture of industry and its loss through the lens of its most representative industrial state. Based on news coverage, interviews, and more than two hundred heritage sites, this book traces the narrative themes that shape modern public memory of coal, steel, railroading, lumber, oil, and agriculture, and that collectively tell a story about national as well as local identity in a changing social and economic world.
Download or read book Old Penn Station written by William Low and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2007-04-03 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illustrated account of the construction, history, and demolition of one of the most famous railroad stations in America-- New York City's Penn Station.
Download or read book Klansville U S A written by David Cunningham and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 'Klansville, U.S.A.', David Cunningham tells the story of the astounding trajectory of the Klan during the 1960s by focusing on the pivotal and under-explored case of the United Klans of America (UKA) in North Carolina. Why the KKK flourished in the Tar Heel state presents a puzzle and a window into the complex appeal of the Klan as a whole.
Download or read book Historical Dynamics written by Peter Turchin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-08 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many historical processes are dynamic. Populations grow and decline. Empires expand and collapse. Religions spread and wither. Natural scientists have made great strides in understanding dynamical processes in the physical and biological worlds using a synthetic approach that combines mathematical modeling with statistical analyses. Taking up the problem of territorial dynamics--why some polities at certain times expand and at other times contract--this book shows that a similar research program can advance our understanding of dynamical processes in history. Peter Turchin develops hypotheses from a wide range of social, political, economic, and demographic factors: geopolitics, factors affecting collective solidarity, dynamics of ethnic assimilation/religious conversion, and the interaction between population dynamics and sociopolitical stability. He then translates these into a spectrum of mathematical models, investigates the dynamics predicted by the models, and contrasts model predictions with empirical patterns. Turchin's highly instructive empirical tests demonstrate that certain models predict empirical patterns with a very high degree of accuracy. For instance, one model accounts for the recurrent waves of state breakdown in medieval and early modern Europe. And historical data confirm that ethno-nationalist solidarity produces an aggressively expansive state under certain conditions (such as in locations where imperial frontiers coincide with religious divides). The strength of Turchin's results suggests that the synthetic approach he advocates can significantly improve our understanding of historical dynamics.
Download or read book Sunnyside Yard and Hell Gate Bridge written by Sunnyside Yard and Hell Gate Bridge and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2016 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sunnyside Yard was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad as part of its massive New York Extension, the centerpiece of which was Pennsylvania Station in the heart of Manhattan. Opened in 1910, it is still the world's largest railroad passenger car storage yard. At the height of its operation in the 1930s, there were 79 tracks, with a capacity for 1,100 cars. Hell Gate Bridge was a joint venture of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New Haven Railroad to construct a direct rail route for trains between New York City and the New England states. The main span is 1,017 feet between the towers, and it rises more than 300 feet from the East River to the top of the towers.
Download or read book The Panama Railroad written by Peter Pyne and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1848, a group of ambitious American entrepreneurs decided to embark upon a remarkable engineering feat—they would build a railroad across the Isthmus of Panama to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The creation of the Panama Railroad ranks as one the boldest capitalist ventures in the 19th century, and would require battling climate, disease, and geography before it was completed. On a human level, it would transform the destiny of thousands of lives in America, Panama, the West Indies, and Asia, as well as in Ireland. The Panama Railroad provides the first comprehensive account of the railroad's construction, going well beyond the known stories of the titans of industry involved with its construction, such as William Aspinwall, George Law, and Cornelius Vanderbilt. It seeks to correct false claims and address numerous gaps in past histories, and in particular showcases the stories of the ordinary Irish workers willing to travel halfway around the globe to pursue an uncertain future and a perilous undertaking in the hopes of escaping the devastating aftermath of the Great Famine of 1845–49.
Download or read book Pittsburgh s Inclines written by Donald Doherty and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2018 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering a panoramic view of present-day Pittsburgh, Monongahela and Duquesne Inclines attract pedestrians traveling from the river's shore to the top of Mount Washington. These inclines were completed in 1870 and 1877 by real estate speculators hoping to capitalize on undeveloped land at the top of "Coal Hill," a name given due to its many coal mines. Housing in the valleys and other low-lying areas could not accommodate the influx of new residents following the Civil War. Using technology perfected to haul coal from mines, the region's first inclined railroads, or funiculars, carried people and goods and formed a part of the Allegheny Portage Railroad. By 1900, inclines were an integral part of the city's identity. During the early decades of the 20th century, however, automobiles and trucks made access to Pittsburgh's hilltops relatively easy. Before the automobile, there were at least 15 inclines in Pittsburgh. Today, there are two: the Monongahela and Duquesne Inclines.
Download or read book Classical New York written by Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2018-09-04 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the rise of New York from the capital of an upstart nation to a global metropolis, the visual language of Greek and Roman antiquity played a formative role in the development of the city’s art and architecture. This compilation of essays offers a survey of diverse reinterpretations of classical forms in some of New York’s most iconic buildings, public monuments, and civic spaces. Classical New York examines the influence of Greco-Roman thought and design from the Greek Revival of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries through the late-nineteenth-century American Renaissance and Beaux Arts period and into the twentieth century’s Art Deco. At every juncture, New Yorkers looked to the classical past for knowledge and inspiration in seeking out new ways to cultivate a civic identity, to design their buildings and monuments, and to structure their public and private spaces. Specialists from a range of disciplines—archaeology, architectural history, art history, classics, and history— focus on how classical art and architecture are repurposed to help shape many of New York City’s most evocative buildings and works of art. Federal Hall evoked the Parthenon as an architectural and democratic model; the Pantheon served as a model for the creation of Libraries at New York University and Columbia University; Pennsylvania Station derived its form from the Baths of Caracalla; and Atlas and Prometheus of Rockefeller Center recast ancient myths in a new light during the Great Depression. Designed to add breadth and depth to the exchange of ideas about the place and meaning of ancient Greece and Rome in our experience of New York City today, this examination of post-Revolutionary art, politics, and philosophy enriches the conversation about how we shape space—be it civic, religious, academic, theatrical, or domestic—and how we make use of that space and the objects in it.
