Grand Central Terminal Railroads, Engineering, and Architecture in New York City

Kurt C. Schlichting

ISBN 10: 0801865107 / ISBN 13: 9780801865107

Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001

About this Item

Fine (unidentified signature and date "6/08" on the title page, fresh copy in equally fine dust jacket. First edition, first printing. Hardcover. Illustrated endpapers.xiii+ 243 p. with index. Illustrated with vintage and contemporary photographs, maps, reproductions. A history of one of New York City's preeminent buildings, the Beaux-Arts monument to America's railroad age, Grand Central Terminal. Begun in 1903 and completed in 1913, Grand Central became the city's most important transportation hub (along with the long destroyed Pennsylvania Station) kinking long-distance and communter trains to New York's network of subways, elevateds, and streetcars. The actual first Grand Central Station (completed in 1871) was spearheaded by Cornelius Vanderbilt whose railroad empire demanded an appropriately palatial passenger terminal in the heart of the city. The replacement terminal (on the same site) required the excavation of more than 3 million cubic yards of rock and earth, the demolition of 200 buildings, 30,000 tons of steel, and the development of a new, smoke-free electrified rail system to service the vast, two-story underground train yard. In 1969, its new owner, the Penn Central, made plans to demolish it but public outcry prevented it and a meticulous restoration project began in the 1990s.

Seller Inventory # E30258

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Grand Central Terminal Railroads, Engineering, and Architecture in New York City
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0801865107
• ISBN 13: 9780801865107
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First edition.
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Architecture

About this title

Synopsis

More than a history of a train station--the story of a city and an age, as reflected in a building aptly described as a secular cathedral.

About the Author

Kurt C. Schlichting is a professor of sociology and the E. Gerald Corrigan '63 Chair in the Humanities and Social Sciences at Fairfield University. His book Grand Central Terminal: Railroads, Engineering, and Architecture in New York City, also published by Johns Hopkins, won the Professional/Scholarly Publishing Award in Architecture from the Association of American Publishers.