The Hudson Terminals and Their Bifurcated Form DARIUS SOLLOHUB New Jersey Institute of Technology

Home , Clinton and Russell, Hudson Terminal, The Apthorp

342 THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE/THE SCIENCE OF ARCHITECTURE

The Twins before the Twin Towers: the Hudson Terminals and their Bifurcated Form DARIUS SOLLOHUB New Jersey Institute of Technology

tions built in New York in the first decade of the twentieth century. The H&M also resisted the urge to build a skyscraper. Instead, the H&M’s architects designed the terminals for comfort and convenience, without ostentation, hierarchy or grandiosity. Their twinning embodied pluralism instead of singular monumentality.

After their shear size, the most distinguishing feature of the World Trade Towers was that there were two, that they were twins. Yet, in the chronology of the their design, the rationale for why their plan- ners and designers made this choice remains tan- talizingly vague.1 In the media blizzard that followed their destruction, it is often cited that the structures they replaced, the Hudson Terminals, were also twins. While the reasoning for the twinning of the Trade Towers remains limited, this pa- per explores how the earlier twins are the direct outcome of remarkable technological achievement, surpassed only by how their built form reflected the Progressive management practices of the company that built them. These forces made them what they were: bifurcated buildings.

When completed in 1908, these twins were as well When completed in 1908, these twins were as well known in their day as their successors would be. known in their day as their successors would be. The terminals were the flagship structures for the The terminals were the flagship buildings for the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad (H&M), which had Hudson & Manhattan Railroad (H&M), which had completed the first tunnels below the Hudson River. completed the first tunnels below the Hudson River. The H&M also overcame fierce resistance from ri- The H&M overcame fierce resistance from rivals to vals to pioneer a customer-focused attitude toward pioneer a customer-focused attitude toward the the public, a management practice rooted in Pro- public, a management practice rooted in progres- gressivism. The railroad adopted this practice to sivism. The railroad adopted this practice to dis- distance itself from its rival railroads that the pub- tance itself from its rival railroads that the public lic perceived to be corrupt, greedy and arrogant. perceived to be corrupt, greedy and arrogant. The The facilities the H&M built reflected its idealism, facilities the H&M built reflected its idealism, shun- shunning the monumentality typified by Pennsyl- ning the monumentality of the other stations built vania and Grand Central Stations, the other sta- in New York in the first decade of the twentieth THE TWINS BEFORE THE TWIN TOWERS 343

century. The H&M’s architects designed the termi- The project remained stalled until 1902 when Wil- nals for comfort and convenience, without osten- liams Gibbs McAdoo took over. McAdoo not only tation, hierarchy or grandiosity. Their twinning finished one pair of tunnels, initiating train service embodied pluralism instead of singular monumen- in 1908, he began the second pair that terminated tality. in the Hudson Terminals on Church Street in lower Manhattan. The Terminals became the railroad’s To comprehend why the Hudson Terminals were primary station and corporate headquarters and twins, one must first trace what brought them the H&M would grow to become a seventeen-mile about, as their physical form directly reflected the urban mass transit network. The H&M became a engineering innovation and management practices paragon of rail operation and made McAdoo a na- of the organization that built them. The comple- tionally recognized figure. Because of his manage- tion of the H&M’s sub-aqueous tunnels that the ment success and critical involvement in Woodrow Terminals were the principal portals for took more Wilson’s 1912 presidential campaign, he left the than forty years to complete. When finished, the H&M and accepted the post of Secretary of the New York Times described the tunnels as: “one of Treasury in Wilson’s cabinet. There he initiated the the greatest engineering feats ever accomplished, Federal Reserve and became wartime Director of greater perhaps than the Panama Canal will be Railroads during World War One. McAdoo later cam- when opened, considering the obstacles which had paigned vigorously but unsuccessfully for the 2 to be overcome.” The tunnel project was first Democratic Presidential Nomination in 1920 and envisioned in the spirit of pervasive technological 1924. He became a senator from California in 1930 optimism after the Civil War, a period that saw the at the age of 70, serving until he died in Washing- transcontinental railroad completed in 1867, the ton in 1941.4 same year construction of the Brooklyn Bridge began. An individual who had worked on the Trans- McAdoo’s politics were those of the Progressive continental Railroad, Dewitt Haskin formed a com- reform era. Progressivism was not a single coher- pany that started digging in 1874. Almost ent movement but an issue-oriented effort born at immediately, a court injunction initiated by a com- the local level. Generally, it sought government and peting railroad stopped his work, the first in a pat- electoral reform, fair business practices and social tern of corporate obstructionism that would plague equity. While essentially a practical man, McAdoo’s the project for its duration. Five years passed be- Progressivism inflected towards its social aspects, fore construction resumed. but in ways that complemented the practicality of business. The principles of Progressivism that When the Brooklyn Bridge opened to a starburst McAdoo brought to bear most on building and of fireworks in 1883, work was again halted be- managing the railroad were a general distrust of neath the Hudson as intractable difficulties, hor- corporate monopolies, a similar distrust of the rific accidents called blowouts, caused when the cronyism of municipal governments, faith in new compressed air failed to prevent river water from ideas, science, engineering and the power of ex- entering the tunnel, plagued the project. One of perts, and an extremely high regard for the com- these entombed twenty-one workers in 1880. A mon man.5 mysterious crippling disease called the Benz (air bubbles in the blood) affected twenty five percent Born in Georgia in 1863, McAdoo rose from post of tunnel workers until project engineers discov- civil war southern poverty and trained as a lawyer ered a remedy in 1889. The project developed a in Chattanooga. In 1889, he raised money from dark aura about it, which in part led to Haskin’s northern financiers to buy the Knoxville street rail- inability to procure financing after his primary way in order to use then cutting-edge technology backer died in 1882. His efforts eventually ceased and electrify it, but McAdoo miscalculated and even- in 1887. A well-capitalized British engineering com- tually lost control of the railroad, loosing his per- pany that employed improved technology took over sonal savings as well. Then 29, McAdoo moved his in 1889 and made significant progress, but the family to New York City, deciding that it was the worldwide financial depression of the early 1890’s only place where he could recoup his loss. Arriving caused work to cease yet again.3 in 1892, in the midst of a financial depression, he and his family struggled. Without work, McAdoo 344 THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE/THE SCIENCE OF ARCHITECTURE

used the time to reflect, read and scheme. Even- service to undermine their monopolies. Powerful tually, he sold bonds, mostly for railroads. All the real estate figures in Manhattan, allied with while, knowledgeable about electrification from his Manhattan’s surface railroads, tried to influence experience in Knoxville, McAdoo daydreamed about New York’s Rapid Transit Commission in denying a tunnel under the Hudson, unaware of the dark the H&M a permit to operate. The real estate mag- history of the failed project now dormant. McAdoo nates feared easy access to New Jersey would de- knew electrification could solve the problem of preciate Manhattan property values. The surface evacuating smoke from the tunnels, a problem railroads, which would later merge with the sub- Haskin never fully resolved. While casually describ- ways, feared the H&M’s competition. But McAdoo ing his tunnel daydream to a business associate in carefully courted public opinion and prevailed in a 1901, he was astonished to find that a partial tun- series of public meetings.10 nel already existed. McAdoo decided to purchase the tunnel and in a remarkable campaign of Hardened by this assault, McAdoo publicly vilified fundraising successfully solicited aid from J.P. Mor- his tormentors as a strategy to build ridership. He gan and other financiers to resume construction in cast the H&M as different from these monopolies, 1902.6 which subordinated passenger needs to profit because other viable transportation alternatives sel- When completed, the tunnels Haskins began and dom existed and passengers simply accepted McAdoo finished provided the critical link for rail abuse. ” The public be damned”, the notorious ad- passengers traveling between Manhattan and the age of the time made by William H. Vanderbilt of mainland, providing a much faster alternative to the New York Central family, stood for this preva- the slow ferries, which were often impeded by fog lent attitude. McAdoo’s marketing strategy ex- or ice. The H&M trains connected the large rail- ploited this arrogant quip by announcing,’“Let the road termini along the Hoboken and Jersey City Public Be Pleased”, as the H&M’s official policy.11 shoreline with the elevated rail network in New York Customer satisfaction would be the H&M’s mea- and continued underground beneath the shopping sure of service, as McAdoo became a hands-on district along Sixth Avenue to Nineteenth Street. manager who spent hours touring the system, But plans to continue tunneling to Astor Place and keeping watch and talking to employees.12 The Grand Central Station at 42nd street and Park Av- H&M also had the luxury to learn from the mis- enue were never realizes. Instead, the H&M com- takes of New York’s first subway, the Interborough mencing an entirely new pair of tunnels connecting Rapid Transit (IRT) system, which opened in 1904. New Jersey to a new terminal in lower Manhattan. As the H&M would become, the IRT was a new and By the time McAdoo left for Washington in 1912, evolving system that was electric, high speed and the H&M had extended further into Jersey City and based on generally short trips. But like the horse to Newark. The total cost incurred by the H&M by drawn trolleys and elevated railroads that preceded 1912 exceeded $70 million, over one billion in it, the IRT became infected by the notoriously cor- today’s dollars, all with privately raised capital.7 ruption of Tammany Hall, corrupting influences that thoroughly pervaded the running of the subways. The engineering required to complete parts of the Surliness amongst its staff and inefficiencies that railroad was the stuff of heroic modern engineer- led to chronic overcrowding and breakdowns were 8 ing bravura, equaled only by McAdoo’s skill at the accepted norm. McAdoo mandated politeness outflanking the robber baron corporate rail and and forbade surliness. In his opening day speech utility monopolies whose treacheries repeatedly to H&M employees, he announced that he would tried to thwart his efforts. The better financed, long summarily fire any who used the phrase “step haul railroads, most of which were monopolies, lively”, well known from the surface railroads and perceived the H&M as a threat. These corporations IRT. Cleanliness and safety were also important owned the ferries and did not want to loose pas- concerns as employees cleaned cars and stations sengers, even if the tunnels saved their rail pas- daily. When the H&M experienced its first break- sengers considerable time. Profit, not the customer, down, McAdoo established a new standard for hon- 9 was their primary motive. When railroads used esty. The H&M’s reputation for engineering court injunctions to block the H&M, McAdoo coun- excellence became synonymous with safety and terattacked by threatening to build new parallel comfort, using innovative technologies in every- THE TWINS BEFORE THE TWIN TOWERS 345

thing from its switching to its automatic doors to did, how critical operating costs were to a com- its cars. The steel cars of the H&M offered a quiet, pany with such a massive debt burden. McAdoo smooth ride, starkly different from the noisy, rough was firm. “I want the road [railroad] run with journey on the IRT’s wooden cars.13 economy, but not at the expense of justice.”19 McAdoo later cited a second motive that inequity As a provider of transportation services to the in pay would harm morale. If employees were masses, McAdoo recognized that the H&M must treated inequitably how could they be asked to treat take every measure to be inclusive and advertis- patrons with decency?20 ing in all foreign language newspapers, including German and Yiddish.14 The H&M’s openness con- As McAdoo became well known for the engineer- tinued the company’s overture to the public but it ing and management success of the H&M and his also made business sense. McAdoo needed to re- own sense of social justice, he lectured extensively. pay $70 million in debt and needed to maximize In his lectures, McAdoo used his own experience ridership. The H&M’s policy may have been con- with the H&M as he continued his attack on big sistent with McAdoo’s progressive ideals, but to business. “The hostility of the public to corpora- assure conservative shareholders like Morgan, it tions, especially transportation corporations, so also had to rank as solid business practice. much in evidence during the past few years, is the McAdoo’s insistence on customer service paid off. cumulative effect of years of indifference, When the H&M had to raise fares in 1911, it en- oftentimes contemptuous, on the part of corpo- countered scant resistance. Many wrote that the rate managers to the interests and just grievances increase was worth it, a comment that any other of the public.”21 As an antidote, he argued that railroad in New York at the time could never gar- corporations should be accountable to the public. ner.15 The H&M’s most pioneering inclusivity ex- Individual executives could not escape guilt be- tended toward women, as both patrons and hind a corporate shield. “I assert that no corpora- employees. In doing so, the H&M was setting the tion is soulless…” he lectured, “…the management bar of customer service by effectively saying to a of the corporation is the soul of its dominant indi- late-Victorian populace that if women would ride vidual - usually the president; if that soul be self- the H&M alone, then it must be safe and the expe- ish, little, and narrow, the policy of the corporation rience must be without discomfort. In addition to will be selfish, little, and narrow.“22 If, as McAdoo overall courtesy, the company provided amenities argued, the organization reflected the nature of specifically directed at women. The H&M installed its leader, then McAdoo put himself under consid- a large powder room in the Hudson Terminal Sta- erable scrutiny as president of the H&M. He rose tion supplied with free powder and hairpins and to his own challenge through expressions of hu- for five cents, any rest room patron, man or mility. He later dispelled notions that the tunnels woman, was supplied with a towel and a bar of made him a wealthy man by announcing what he soap. It initiated a system in which a wife could made, which was modest when compared to what leave packages purchased in the city at the H&M corporate figures of the age earned.23 When the baggage office for her husband to pick up later in tunnels were first finished, the press began calling the day.16 The overture toward women was an them ‘The McAdoo Tunnels’. McAdoo wrote to each aspect of Progressivism which showed a willing- newspaper and asked that they stop this practice.’“I ness to try new ideas. When a New York women’s do not like to be praised for other people’s work,” organization suggested a special subway car for he wrote.24 For McAdoo to accept that the tunnels women riding H&M and IRT trains, only McAdoo be named for him, his achievements would be was willing to try.17 At the Hudson Terminals, the monumentalized at the expense of others. In his H&M hired only women to sell tickets, a practice view, this would be “selfish, little and narrow” and brought from Chicago by the H&M’s general su- would ultimately hurt the company. perintendent.18 It was when McAdoo decided to pay female employees the same wage as men that As a reflection of its customer-oriented philoso- the same superintendent criticized him. “Why phy, the H&M’s built its facilities to be inclusive, should you pay more for your labor than is neces- comfortable, clean and safe. The H&M made an sary when you want the road [railroad] run with important station planning decision at the three economy?” His superintendent knew, as McAdoo stations on Manhattan’s Sixth Avenue in 1908. The 346 THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE/THE SCIENCE OF ARCHITECTURE

H&M learned from the experience of the IRT, whose be, but as the difference was made up in the spac- narrow station entrances located within the space ing between windows, it was not immediately ap- of the sidewalk immediately drew public criticism parent; contemporary descriptions refer to them because of overcrowding. This furthered the IRT’s as twins. High land cost prompted the H&M to build reputation for having a general disregard for rid- speculative office space atop the rail terminal in ers.25 Instead, the H&M stations opened directly order to gain the highest possible return, the first to the basement concourses of what were then New hybrid of this type to be built in New York (fig. 1 & York’s most desirable department stores, with ad- 2). The venture paid off. The Terminals were fi- ditional stairways leading to storefront passages nancially successful, housing a who’s who of promi- at street level used when stores were closed. Pas- nent corporations. Tenants entered both buildings sengers would emerge from trains into a bustling through identical lobbies from Church Street on commercial environment rather than the dank, opposite elevations from the station portals, con- crowded and potentially sinister stations of the IRT. tinuing the Terminal’s discrete circulation systems. The merchandisers welcomed these entrances as Thirty-nine elevators served both buildings with a their sales boomed and responded in kind by lin- combination of express and local service, with three ing station platforms with display windows, recog- elevators descended directly to concourse level. nizing as the H&M did the emerging and newly Two bridges connected the buildings at the third mobile female market.26 When the H&M extended and seventeenth floors. Street level retail, occu- the line to 33rd street, it took an even more direct pying available street frontages, continued the approach by constructing the Gimbels department commercial focus of the station below. Two pro- store for the merchandiser above its terminals.27 fessional clubs, the Mechanics Club and the Rail- road Club (chartered by McAdoo) occupied the top Accommodation of passengers was the H&M’s para- floors of each building. Each featured extensive mount functional concern; facilities were designed dining facilities and garden terraces with views of from the inside out, or better put, from the tracks the Hudson. In keeping with the pro-female over- up. Despite their neo-renaissance garb, The Hudson tures of the H&M, the Railroad Club had its own Terminals were proto-modern buildings with inno- Women’s Dining Room. vative ideas that focused on function, safety, comfort and ease of circulation. Inside the three level The architectural firm of Clinton and Russell de- station, the H&M’s customer focus was most evi- signed the Terminals. Before working for the H&M, dent in its circulation. Ingress and egress were via they had produced many large office and residen- opposing platforms, thereby avoiding conflict tial structures, many features from which appeared among passengers. Someone trying to board a train in the Terminals. Although they competed with the would never collide with an onslaught of rush-hour more prominent New York firms of Carrere & commuters disembarking.28 Learning from the Hastings and McKim, Mead and White for impor- IRT’s cramped stairways, the Terminals featured tant civic projects, such as the New York Municipal broad ramps and elevators that eased circulation Building, these had eluded the firm. Instead, they and created a more gracious environment. The sta- succeeded at producing many of the infill commer- tion had four entrances marked by glass marquees cial buildings that were beginning to fill out the on the side streets off Church, one each from Manhattan grid. These buildings shouldered in Cortland and Fulton and two from Dey. The station among their neighbors, despite their sometimes- concourse was replete with retail establishments, massive bulk, taking on an almost demure quality. with everything from butchers to barbers, similar The twenty-seven story 60-62 Wall Street was the to the department stores at H&M stations uptown.29 most significant of their mid-block infill office building, blending in with its adjoining street wall in- Completed in 1908, the twin, twenty-two story stead of striving for singularity. The contemporary buildings above the station, housing mostly office architectural press described it as “at best a pilas- space, would be the most prominent structures the ter, without the force or sculptural presence of a H&M would build, and for a time, the largest build- column.” Commentary regarding their Mercantile ings in the world. Because of the difference in size Building, that it “attracts but little interest from of the two blocks upon which they stood, the Ter- the public eye unless its plainness is noted in con- minals were not identical, as their successors would trast to the magnificent façade of the Metropolitan THE TWINS BEFORE THE TWIN TOWERS 347

Life Building,”30 aptly characterized the firm’s com- were hybrids of complex programs rendered as mercial work, as Clinton & Russell’s infill buildings solid blocks and like the Apthorp, theses blocks generally acted more in a supporting than leading would seek to blend rather than stand out, clad role. At the Mercantile Building, the firm was con- like their neighbors with stone base, brick shaft tent to express their design ingenuity below ground and terra cotta top.. Despite their mass and huge where an arcade connected the building elevators size, they were supporting infill rather than singu- with the IRT. One side of the arcade’s entire length lar monuments. included shop windows of the first large basement store in New York.31 This connectivity, the first of The Terminals, located at the edge of Manhattan’s its kind in New York, foreshadowed the H&M’s historic center in an area that was experiencing embrasure of retail along 6th Avenue and the un- profound change, would soon find themselves waist derground concourse at the Terminals. deep amongst towers. Pioneering among these developments was Ernest Flagg’s Singer Building, Many of Clinton & Russell’s uptown hotel and resi- diagonally across Church Street from the Termi- dential designs drew critical acclaim and were nals, which opened in 1908 as the tallest building widely copied. In their Astor Hotel (1904), they in the world, a title it soon lost.33 The Singer deftly incorporated many different programs into Corporation, fearing the literal and figurative a massive single block, creating a new type of ho- shadow cast by the massive City Investing Build- tel that was a tremendously successful.32 The Astor ing (Francis H. Kimball 1908) being planned next featured a highly developed rooftop with winter door, turned to Flagg to add a tower to the head- gardens and outdoor planting which connected to quarters he himself had designed in 1898 (Fig.3 ). ballrooms directly below, versions of this arrange- The result established a type that was widely cop- ment, complete with similar twin-pavilions, graced ied and codified by the city in its landmark Plan- the Terminals. Clinton & Russell also designed ning Resolution of 1916. Blending practicality with apartment buildings for the Astor Family and oth- the capacity for corporate self-promotion, the ers on Manhattan’s upper west side. Most, occu- Singer Building would become the corporate ty- pied full block frontages along the city’s wide pology of choice for rivalrous companies such as avenues. Two of these, Graham Court and the Woolworth (whose tower would supplant Singer’s Apthorp, were modeled after the Italian Renais- within 5 years), Chrysler and City Services. This sance Palazzo, built around large courtyards and corporate rivalry would fuel a building war that occupying an entire block. From the exterior, they lasted for decades. appeared as a single solid mass, rising in one con- tinuous wall from base to cornice. Like the Termi- Development was not limited to downtown Man- nals, the Apthorp was reputed to be the largest hattan. Dynamic change was evident citywide. The building of its type in the world when built. De- Terminals were one of three important multi-block spite their mass and separation from other struc- rail facilities under construction in New York in the tures, Clinton & Russell designed these in keeping first decade of the twentieth century. The other with their downtown infill strategy. Rather than two stations, Pennsylvania (Penn) and Grand Cen- becoming the monumental urban palaces they were tral, were tactical campaigns in built form, archi- based on, they played an ensemble role, integrat- tectural volleys in an intense war between ing with the surrounding residential neighborhoods, competing railroads. These were major monumen- generally respecting nearby building heights and tal facilities built by the kinds of corporations that following the proscribed neo-classical canon of turn McAdoo normally castigated and had carefully of the century New York, with clearly defined bases, crafted his own company’s public image to oppose. middles and tops, and with symmetrical, highly The New York Central was, after all, the origin articulated entryways. Where budgets limited, of’“public be damned” quip that McAdoo so care- Clinton & Russell typically substituted brick and fully manipulated. Since the H&M’s management terra cotta for stone. The Hudson Terminals would philosophy directly opposed these corporations, its be an amalgam of many of these Clinton & Russell buildings were the opposite of those the larger rail- buildings. Both in their basements and on their roads built, almost by default, the H&M had to take roofs, they included the programmatic features that a different form, a response that ultimately ren- the firm had pioneered. Like the Astor Hotel, they dered them as two, twin towers. 348 THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE/THE SCIENCE OF ARCHITECTURE

The Pennsylvania and the New York Central Rail- McKim argued strongly for horizontal monumen- roads built these stations as monuments of corpo- tality despite objections from his client, who wanted rate prestige. The intense competition escalated to build a hotel atop the structure to maximize in 1903 when the Pennsylvania Railroad hired investment. McKim argued against the hotel for McKim, Mead and White, with Charles Follen McKim two reasons: the first, his horizontal conviction; as partner in charge, to build its new station. and second, that adding program, whether it be a McKim’s architectural expression reflected the hotel or office, would debase the station and di- ambitions of his client; the station was to be monu- lute its singular monumentality. Fortunate that a mental, based on European imperial structures. Its faction at the railroad supported him, McKim pre- scale borrowed from ancient Rome’s Baths of vailed and the station was built as a single, mas- Caracalla, and its imperial iconography from sive, multi-block structure.34 Langhans’s Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. McKim based all his work on the low-slung classical monu- In response, the New York Central resolved that it ments that he was exposed to in his training at the would amend modernizing renovations already Ecole des Beaux Artes in Paris. At Penn Station, underway and build an entirely new station. In 1903, the railroad announced a closed competi-

Figure 1. Ground floor plan of Terminals showing Dey Street passing through.

Figure 2. Section showing Station below the Terminals. THE TWINS BEFORE THE TWIN TOWERS 349

Figure 3. The skyline of lower Manhattan: Hudson Terminals at center, Singer Building tallest at right.

tion35 won by Reed & Stem whose design featured taken to underscore its importance. Across town, a twenty-story hotel atop the station, the revenue- the Pennsylvania strove for similar ends.42 The producing capabilities of which William H. Newman, railroad absorbed 32nd street, buying the property the railroad’s president, especially favored. But from the city and placing its primary entry on the while “Newman was looking at the bottom line”, street’s axis facing Seventh Avenue and the most William K. Vanderbilt (the Chairman of the Rairoad), developed areas of the city to the east. The origi- “had his eye on Penn Station.””36 When the Penn nal plans called for massive urban reconfiguration Station design was published in 1904, he inter- that was never realized. These included widening vened and instructed the architects to remove the Seventh Avenue to form an urban square that hotel. “Vanderbilt had no intention of allowing a McKim’s copy of the Brandenburg gate would domi- crosstown rival to eclipse the grandeur of Grand nate; widening and building arcades on 32nd Street; Central.“37 Vanderbilt’s demand for a freestanding cutting new avenues north to 42nd Street and south monument seconded McKim’s belief that the in- to 23th on the centerline of the monumental wait- clusion of any other program would violate the ing hall; and building a diagonal boulevard and station’s singular presence, resulting in loss of cor- underground trolley to connect with its rival sta- porate prestige. Vanderbilt also forced Reed & Stem tion across town.43 to collaborate with the firm of Warren and Wetmore.38 The monumental ambitions of both railroads were best exemplified in their respective cavernous in- While the competing railroads carefully planned teriors. The Pennsylvania’s promotional literature their respective stations to be corporate symbols, described its Waiting Hall as the “the largest room their ambitions extended to the station’s surround- of its kind in existence,”44 but while its spaces may ings. While McKim looked to Rome and Berlin, have been dimensionally generous, Penn Station’s Whitney Warren, the partner in charge at Grand outward expression of power and highly disciplined Central, preferred Paris.39 From the south on Park interior procession was intentionally uninviting. Avenue, the new Grand Central would rise like a “Pennsylvania Station did not aim to please. It grand Parisian Palaise at the end of one of Baron aimed to impress, to overwhelm, and to dignify Hausman’s alles.40 From the opposite side the rail- the visitor through the grandeur of its architec- road created an entire new neighborhood of full- tural forms and the ceremonial quality of its plan. block office and apartment buildings rising to a Penn Station did not make you feel comfortable, it consistent cornice height to dignify this approach.41 made you feel important.”45 From the street to Carefully framed by these surroundings, the sta- the platform, the marshaled effect of its spatial tion sat as an imperial palace with every measure sequence was meant to express the railroad’s might 350 THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE/THE SCIENCE OF ARCHITECTURE

and an overriding sense of control to dissolve any by widening or creating new streets, and by re- of the chaos common to train stations, “ One does shaping the immediate surroundings to frame not rush to catch a Pennsylvania train“– one pro- views, the H&M resisted almost all opportunities ceeds to it in orderly but expeditious fashion.”46 for increased exposure, no small feat for the larg- Counter to its name, its Waiting Hall had no seats est buildings in the world. The H&M opted not to in which to sit and wait. Shortly before the build- develop adjacent real estate. To be perceived as a ing opened, its superintendent recommended add- speculator would have tarnished his image. McAdoo ing seats to the waiting hall, citing that passengers would later write that others would make millions sat on the floor in its Jersey City Terminal and might from investments around H&M stations, something do the same in New York. But the railroad, clearly he could have done but did not.51 The H&M also following McKim in lockstep, did not comply, re- shied away from any axial visibility for the Termi- sponding that the seats would dilute the hall’s nals, whose conditions were similar to those at Penn monumentality. Instead, seats were crowded into Station, straddling two city blocks. Rather than other waiting spaces nearby. The station was not place an eye-catching Beaux Art architectural fea- designed for the people who would think to sit on ture where Dey Street passed through, the H&M the floor, but for the elite; it was a place where elected to keep it as a thoroughfare, even though one contemporary critic described: “well gowned the entire two-block site had been excavated four women… would sweep up and down his broad stair- stories below grade to accommodate the station. cases.”47 Grand Central Station’s spaces matched They rejected the ornate bridge that Clinton & Penn Station in scale, While the Pennsylvania Russell designed for them, which bore a resem- boasted that New York’s City Hall could fit inside’‘the blance to the sculpture that would sit atop Grand largest room of its kind’, the New York Central Central (Fig.4 ). The H&M deliberately avoided the claimed that its concourse was larger than the nave edifice on which to ascribe monumentality. Most of St. John the Divine, New York’s recently begun other railroads of the time would have filled the massive cathedral. In this skirmish, metaphysics space of Dey Street with a tall, light filled hall trumped political power. 48 through which passengers would pass. However par- simonious, McAdoo’s creditors would have certainly McAdoo watched quietly from the sidelines and was considered this a fitting and necessary amenity.52 conscious not only of both corporate giant’s practices, but how both station designs reflected those McAdoo also resisted Flagg’s example - a justifi- policies.4950 As such, the Terminals would shape able precedent that could have actually increased the Terminals as the opposite of the uptown sta- the H&M’s income - to build a tower. While McAdoo tions in almost all regards, as if they sought to was unafraid to build the largest building in the reform those structures by example. At the Hudson world at the time, concern about his image and by Terminals, the needs of the customer subordinated extension the image of the company left him with any corporate symbolism, monumentality or sense no desire to build the tallest. In his memoirs, of grandeur. The H&M professed no designs on its McAdoo considered the tall building as unneces- surroundings. Instead, its buildings blended with sary and generally disparages the American ten- the urban fabric as infill, they were more back- dency towards bigness.53 He was especially ground then foreground, playing supporting instead sensitive to how the American public regarded big of lead roles. Moreover, despite their immense bulk, business, concerned “that they look upon high fi- any notion of monumentality -whether as a slen- nance, and the concentration of authority in the der tower, or as a sprawling granite or marble hands of wealthy men and powerful corporations, monolith, set back from and framed by its sur- as a public menace.””54 McAdoo recognized that in roundings – was avoided. It would have been hypo- the public’s mind big buildings stood for big busi- critical of McAdoo, given his public ness. McAdoo must also have recognized from his pronouncements, to build a monument either to neighbor across the street the connection between the corporate prestige of the H&M, or to himself. skyscrapers and the capitalists that built them, a Singer, Woolworth, or later, a Chrysler. His experi- While the wealthier railroads went to great lengths ence with’“McAdoo’s Tubes”, of having the press to make their buildings visible, locating them along name the tunnels after him without his prompting, visual corridors, proposing to increase exposure showed him how a singular achievement, whether THE TWINS BEFORE THE TWIN TOWERS 351

an engineering or architectural one, could be con- tiple unit train, an innovation of electric railroads, nected with his name. That he had to campaign to as a metaphor. The traditional steam train con- have the practice stopped proved how indelible it sisted of a locomotive capable of propulsion, pull- could be. As a tall tower next to Singer’s, a’“McAdoo ing many motor-less, passive cars. In contrast, the Building” might be impossible to play down. Even multiple unit train, common to today’s subways, is worse, a skyscraper might suggest that his em- a joining of many identical cars that all propel them- brasure of the public was insincere that, in the end, selves. Any car is capable of leading the train, he was just another corporate villain, that his was whether there be two or ten. McAdoo used this a”“selfish, little, and narrow” company. metaphor to describe the make-up of the H&M and saw himself as only the motorman of the corpora- McAdoo wanted to avoid at all cost the monumen- tion, steering from one of the cars.56 tality tendencies that the railroads of the day shared. Despite the Terminal’s massive bulk, the The theme of democratic equivalence and sup- station was as invisible a public piece of infrastruc- pression of any hierarchy was an underlying prin- ture could be and still signify as a station. In the ciple of the H&M and clearly one transmitted in the hierarchical grain of streets in Manhattan, entry to form of the Terminals, which like the multiple unit the station was from the secondary street while cars, are equivalent, identical. the office lobbies were given the preferred entry from the wider north-south streets. The Terminals By using metaphors to describe the H&M, McAdoo were deliberately anti-hierarchical and anti-monu- understood the power of symbols. From the time mental. Even if the financial necessity of including the decision was made to build the sub-aqueous offices were not an issue, it would be difficult to tunnels in pairs of inbound and outbound tubes, imagine McAdoo arguing, as McKim and Vanderbilt they were referred to as twins. When McAdoo pe- did, for singular, monumental purity. All H&M fa- titioned the press to stop using his name, the tun- cilities in Manhattan were hybridized, integrating nels were subsequently called the Hudson Tubes with either offices or department stores. The H&M even considered a hotel for the Gimbels and pos- Figure 4. Unbuilt bridge across Dey Street. sibly other sites. Their interweaving with other building types diluted the essential singularity McKim’s definition of monumentality required.55

While Dey Street split the site of the station, the anti-monumental concerns of McAdoo and the H&M contributed to the twin bifurcation of the Termi- nals. With customer needs subordinating any dis- plays of corporate symbolism, monumentality or grandiosity, and with no designs on surrounding real estate, the buildings blended, even receded, as infill into the urban fabric. Dividing the buildings helped them blend. But in their dual nature, any difference, one being taller than the other, a larger entry, might be perceived as giving greater hierarchy to one, construed as the singularity that McKim and Vanderbilt sought. One could enter the station from four equivalent entries: two pairs of mirror images in plan and cross section. Architec- tural treatment of both office blocks was identical so as not to prioritize entry to the H&M’s corporate offices. Since McAdoo’s own club was in one of the towers, care had to be taken to occupy its twin with the Mechanics Club, a club of equal stature. In speaking engagements, McAdoo used the mul- 352 THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE/THE SCIENCE OF ARCHITECTURE

or simply, the Twin Tubes. They are still referred 4 Ibid: 14 to as the Twin Tubes today 5 Broesamle, John J.. William Gibbs McAdoo; A Passion for Change 1863-1917 (Port Washington, NY/ London: (Fig. 5). Whether they were called the Hudson Kennicat Press, 1973); 25-26. McAdoo lionized the com- Tubes or the Twin Tubes, like the Hudson Termi- mon man. In a Speech at the Press Club on January 21, nals, they were always described in the plural. The 1911 he stated that “The ‘common people’ possess in use of the plural implies the pluralistic, inclusive some ways a highly developed instinct or common sense, and democratic as opposed to the singular the ex- which enables them to decide rightly…so-called ‘compli- clusive and monopolistic. A rendering made for the cated’ questions. They have, through this instinct or com- invitation to the celebration marking the opening mon sense a comprehension second only in its accuracy of the downtown tunnels shows a composition of to mathematics or an exact science.” pairs, the twin tubes, the twin terminal towers, 6”McAdoo William G.. Crowded Years: The Reminiscences the seals of the two states and two ships, one a of William G. McAdoo (Boston/New York: Houghton steamship and one a ferry. All four pairs are sym- Mifflin: 1931): 1-88 metrically placed about a common vertical 7 The Ravenswood Gas Company completed the centerline. A second centerline, suggested by the first sub-aqueous tunnel in New York beneath the East surface of the Hudson River, creates another pair- River in 1894. One of the few benefits of the decade- ing between the towers and the tubes, as mirror long delay in construction was that significant advances in tunneling technology gave the H&M and its bondhold- images of one another. ers the confidence to start a second pair of tunnels even The underlying theme that the H&M employed in creating a new kind of railroad was one of integra- tion. The railroad stepped in to integrate Manhat- tan with the continent, New York with New Jersey, different modes: steamships and ferries, subways Figure 5. A contemporary postcard showing the twin Terminals and tubes. and transcontinental rail. In this sense, the twins represented joining instead of exclusion; a pluralistic view of Progressive optimism instead of the status quo and isolation of monopolies. In the end, the idealism and the rivalry would be all for naught. Within fifty years, the H&M, the Pennsylvania and the Grand Central would all succumb to bankruptcy. Beginning in the 1960’s, Penn Station and the Hudson Terminals were slowly and systematically demolished. Both left the rail that caused them to be in the first place. From the taproot left in lower Manhattan, another set of twins would grow.’

NOTES

1 Heyer, Paul. Architects on Architecture: New Directions in America (New York: Walker, 1966): 186 Minoru Yamasaki recounted that “given the required program one tower became unreasonable in size” and that “several towers…looked too much like a housing project.” Others on the team recall that two simply “felt right”. Glanz, James and Lipton, Eric.”“Towering Ambition. The Rise of the World Trade Center: A History with Life and Death Implications””The New York Time Magazine, Sun- day, September 8, 2002 / Section 6: 38 2 The New York Times, February 26, 1908 3 Cudahy, Brian J.. Rails Under the Mighty Hudson (New York: Fordham University Press: 2002) 10-26 THE TWINS BEFORE THE TWIN TOWERS 353

before the first pair were completed. 11 McAdoo. Crowded Years: 104-5 8 Watchorn, Robert. 12 Hendrick: 495 The railroad encouraged comments but “The Builder of the Hudson Tunnels,””The Outlook, vol. complaints were rare. Of the 49 million passengers in 90 (December 26, 1908): 913. Workers carefully dyna- the first year, less than 50 complaints were received, mited a rock reef that blocked the tunnel’s path, using which McAdoo himself investigated and personally re- kerosene torches to harden a scant fifteen feet of silt sponded to. holding back millions of gallons of Hudson River water, 13 Hendrick: 496-500 while engineers dropped sails from the America’s Cup 14 McAdoo. Crowded Years: 121-22 McAdoo went so far yachts, the strongest water-tight fabric known at that as to distributed H&M timetables in foreign language time- time, to strengthen the seal from above. In excavating tables on ocean liners. He later successfully championed for the terminals, workers dug out treacherous quick- revoking a treaty with Russia because of its anti- sand to bedrock, a feat that anticipates the Port Semitism. Authority’s innovative, daring excavations years later. 15 “A Business Man in Politics.””The Outlook, vol. 102 9 Cudahy: 27-9. One notable exception, the Penn- (September 28, 1912): 227 sylvania Railroad, cooperated with the H&M but only be- 16 cause it was simultaneously planning its own tunnels Fitzherbert: 5 (using the H&M’s engineers) to their monumental sta- 17 Ibid: 6. A car equipped with a specially dressed guard was run on the tube trains for the ladies, but most women wanted to ride with the men. The “old maid’s retreat”, as Figure 6. Invitation showing the composition of twins. the newspapers dubbed the idea, was dropped after a few months, but not after a complete public explanation by the H&M for why it was done 18 McAdoo. Crowded Years: 105-6; Fitzherbert: 5. In Chicago, women were perceived to be friendlier than men and better at handling change. In New York, this became a key element of the H&M’s customer-oriented agenda. In order to minimize lines and congestion, these female clerks were deployed in groups of movable ticket booths called “flying squadrons”. According to one rail historian, the women were typically attractive, which casts the’“let the public be pleased” motto in a different light. Although there is no record of any intentions, this practice of deliberately using attractive women may have had a psychological motive. The dark history of the building of the tunnels was still in many people’s minds. Forty five years of horrific stories about blowouts and the mysterious crippling of the Benz had created a collective sense of dread about underwater tunnels. Going below the Hudson in a tunnel could be a source of enormous anxiety. To make the experience as anxiety-free as possible and using women to do so may have been a company strategy. Whether this is true may never be known, but if so, it anticipates the strategic use of women steward- ess in the early days of air travel fifty years later. 19 Synon, Mary. McAdoo the Man and His Times: A Pan- tion uptown. Cooperating with the H&M and relying on orama in Democracy (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1924): their service to downtown allowed the Pennsylvania to 38 convert its ferries to automobile use. 20 Fitzherbert and McAdoo, p. 105. The H&M’s gesture 10 Fitzherbert, Anthony. won it, and McAdoo, a place in the women’s rights move- “The Public Be Pleased: William G. McAdoo and the ment. The Interborough Teachers Association used the Hudson Tubes,””Headlights (New York: Electric precedent to secure equal pay legislation at the state Railroader’s Association, June 1964): 2; Hendrick, Bur- level, but it quickly earned a governors veto. McAdoo, ton J.. “McAdoo and the Subways,” McClure’s Magazine, who claims to only have had passing knowledge of vol. 36 no. 5 March, 1911): 491-4’ women’s rights struggles before his decision, was drafted 354 THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE/THE SCIENCE OF ARCHITECTURE

as a champion by women’s groups. He was asked to ad- complete reversal by the architect. Flagg had once spo- dress a Carnegie Hall convention, which he declined for ken out vehemently against the building of skyscrapers. medical reasons He wrote in 1896:”If the beauty of the city is a matter 21 McAdoo William G.. The Relations Between Public Ser- worth considering of, it certainly would not be improved vice Corporations and the Public: A Lecture given to the by these gigantic monuments to greed rearing their heads Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard at intervals above the other buildings.” “As an architect University, April 6, 1910 (New York: Alexander Hamilton I will never have anything to do with buildings of this Institute, 1910): 9 kind.” (Flagg, Ernest.”“Against Tall Buildings”, Architec- ture and Building, vol. 24, no. 3 pp 82-3) Flagg was joined 22 McAdoo. The Relations Between Public Service Corpo- in his rebuke by many of his contemporary architects rations and the Public: 7 and their patrician New York clients, who found skyscrap- 23 McAdoo. Crowded Years: 101 ers offensive; invading other’s airspace and putting the 24 Ibid: 98 street and immediate neighbors in perpetual shadow. Capitalist greed, especially that of the newly wealthy Wall 25 Stern, Robert A.M., Gilmartin, Gregory and Massengale Street entrepreneurs, was the perceived motive: J. New York 1900: Metropolitan Architecture and Urban- ism 1890-1915 (New York: Rizzoli, 1983): 46; Real Es- “the only advocate of high buildings are those who have tate Record and Guide 74 (November 5, 1904): 949 a direct pecuniary interest involved.” )Flagg, Ernest.”“The Danger of High Buildings”, The Cosmopolitan, vol. 29 (May 26 Fitzherbert: 5; These stores, Siegel Cooper, Simpson- 1896) no. 3 p 70) Flagg and others rallied civic leaders Crawford Store and James McCreery, all occupied a por- to restrict height, but they never achieved an outright tion of Sixth Avenue then known as Ladies Mile. ban. Over time, Flagg’s position softened into a compro- 27 Hilary Ballon. New York Pennsylvania Stations (New mise. Flagg’s tower had been a long time in coming. York: Norton, 2002): 55, Charles Moore, The Life and Against the tower typology for may years, Flagg eventu- Times of Charles Follen McKim (Boston/New York: ally developed a hypothetical model that included a base Houghton Mifflin Company, 1929): 87. roughly consistent in height with its surroundings, sur- 28 Watchorn: 914 The three-level station beneath the twin mounted by a slender tower, no more than one quarter buildings combined the best features of both the new the footprint of the base in proportion. These could rise subway station type and the older rail terminals. As at a as high as practical, resulting in a skyline that would be traditional terminal, tracks split, allowing multiple plat- a ‘tiara of towers’. (Goldberg, Paul, The Skyscraper (New forms serving different destinations, but instead of com- York: Alfred p. Knopf, 1981): 10) Flagg’s contribution ing to a dead end, the tracks connected in a loop, similar would become “one of the most important developments to the design of the IRT at City Hall Station. This com- in the evolution of the skyscraper. It simultaneously sat- bined arrangement allowed for more efficient operation. isfied the need for dense concentrations of office space, the requirements for reasonable light and air inside the 29 Davies, J. Vipond and Wells, J. Hollis. “A Terminal offices and on the street and the need for a permanent, Station””American Architect and Builder’s News vol. 97 visible and memorable icon that would function as a sym- (January 19, 1910): 36 Originally, ramps at the Courtland bol of a corporation.”(Stern, Gilmartin, and Massengale. and Fulton Street portals were solely meant for egress New York 1900: 170) and those at Dey Street for ingress, continuing the seg- 34 regation of circulation from below. In practice, however, Ballon, New York Pennsylvania Stations: 42 The col- these passages eventually allowed circulation in both di- umns needed to support the hotel would have decreased rections the number of tracks from 21 to 19. The railroad saw itself as a transportation provider first and a hotelier sec- 30 Stern, Gilmartin, and Massengale. New York 1900: 48. ond, even though the hotel would offset cost. 31 “New York’s First Underground Sidewalk””Architects’ 35 Roth, Leland M.. The Urban Architecture of McKim, Mead and Builders’ Magazine vol. 6, October 1904: pp 29-36 and White: 1870-1910 (Unpublished Ph.D Manuscript, 32 “The Hotel Astor””Architects’ and Builders’ Magazine Yale University, 1973): 697The Grand Central invited four vol. 6, November 1904: pp 49-71; Stern, Gilmartin, and firms to participate, including McKim, Mead and White. Massengale. New York 1900: 223, 267-9, Its success led McKim’s more flamboyant partner, Stanford White, de- many to believe it to be as a replacement for the legend- signed the entry. Unconcerned with McKim’s low-slung ary Waldorf Astoria. Because of its success, the Astor monumentality and need for programmatic purity, White’s was immediately expanded and its design influenced the design featured a fourteen-story block mix of hotel and building of other hotels including the Knickerbocker office space surmounted by a sixty-story tower on the (Trowbridge & Livingston 1906) and the Rector (Daniel axis of Park Avenue that would have been New York’s Burnham 1910-11) tallest building. The tower would have featured a jet of 33 As ambitious as it was, Flagg’s design represented a steam driven three hundred feet into the air and illumi- THE TWINS BEFORE THE TWIN TOWERS 355

nated red at night. But Newman found the McKim, Mead backs from the street and lack of retail on the street and White design to be “far too expensive and impracti- facades inhibited the kind of retail development around cable” and rejected it. the station that was natural to New York. Some develop- 36 Ballon, New York Pennsylvania Stations: 79. ment did occur however, a U.S. Post Office built across Eighth Avenue and over the tracks, and finally the Penn- 37 Ibid: 79 sylvania Hotel across Seventh Avenue as the railroad fi- 38 This was due in part to the perception that, as a Min- nally relented and built a hotel. Both were designed by nesota-based firm they were too provincial, lacking the McKim, Mead and White and possessed the necessary ability to match McKim, Mead and White’s monumental architectural complimentarily, but neither could catalyze standard. Like McKim, Whitney Warren, the firm’s lead the critical mass necessary to match the New York partner, had studied at the Beaux Arts. He would use Central’s extraordinary success. Instead, the Pennsylva- every measure to surpass every quality of McKim’s Penn nia naively expected its neighbors and the city to follow Station. its intentions under their own volition. Ironically, McKim’s 39 The placement of the stations and the manipulation of insistence on monumental purity played a role in inhibit- the surrounding environment followed City Beautiful prin- ing development nearby. The station’s setbacks from the ciples, the urban design practice of those educated at street and lack of retail on the street facades inhibited the Beaux Arts. Each railroad sought to create an envi- the kind of retail development around the station that ronment akin to the grandiose drama and forced regu- was natural to New York. Some development did occur larity of Daniel Burnham’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 however, a U.S. Post Office built across Eighth Avenue in Chicago, echoing its master planner’s famous charge and over the tracks, and finally the Pennsylvania Hotel to “make no small plans”. across Seventh Avenue as the railroad finally relented and built a hotel. Both were designed by McKim, Mead 40 Stern, Gilmartin, and Massengale , p. 37 and White and possessed the necessary architectural 41 Ibid., p. 153. The railroad’s squeamishness regarding complimentarily, but neither could catalyze the critical towers and office space was short lived. In 1929, Warren mass necessary to match the New York Central’s extraor- completed the towering New York Central Building north dinary success. Little of this was ever realized as the of station, thus completing the “urban room” that Park railroad was hesitant to invest the necessary capital to Avenue had become. From the south, the tower was set spur nearby real estate investment. Pennsylvania Sta- back far enough so as not to detract from the station’s tion never really fully integrated into the surrounding city, monumental singular presence. a fact that contributed to its tragic demolition within sixty 42 If one of the battles between the railroads was for years. physical hegemony over the city, the New York Central 44 Ibid: 62 clearly won it. For while McKim and his client’s ambitions 45 Ibid: 53 equaled that of their rival, they began at a disadvantage 46 and their achievements fell far short of their goals. They Ballon, New York Pennsylvania Stations: 55, too sought to reconfigure the surrounding streets to pro- 47 Ibid: 54. vide access and views, and to influence the architectural 48 Ibid: 81. While Penn Station’s processional excluded character along those streets to provide a backdrop to seating for those waiting, Grand Centrals waiting room, the station, all to underscore the station’s, and by exten- with a full complement of seats, held a prominent posi- sion the railroad’s importance. But unlike the New York tion, the first space one encountered. While Penn Sta- Central, the Pennsylvania did not own property in Man- tion was intended to have one primary entry with the hattan and had to purchase land to build. This proved others treated more as clearly secondary, or as exits, expensive and the railroad would eventually balk at the Grand Central was designed as porous, with many en- cost of expanding around the station. Despite this, the tries of equal stature. Where Penn Station did incorpo- monumental expression of the station was an overarching rated retail, it was in a very controlled manner. Retail priority, achieved at any cost. lined many of the processional paths in Grand Central 43 Ballon, New York Pennsylvania Stations: 85-92 None and even lined the street front of the primary elevations, of these were ever realized as the railroad was hesitant a feature irreconcilable with McKim’s severe colonnade to invest the necessary capital to spur nearby real estate along Seventh Avenue. In the end, Grand Central investment. Pennsylvania Station never really fully inte- emerged as a much friendlier station, monumental yet grated into the surrounding city, a fact that contributed accessible where’“ceremony was subordinated to effi- to its tragic demolition within sixty years. Instead, the ciency.” Pennsylvania naively expected its neighbors and the city 49 While Warren, Vanderbilt and the New York Central to follow its intentions under their own volition. Ironi- were extremely conscious of what was built at Penn Sta- cally, McKim’s insistence on monumental purity played a tion, they were probably equally aware of the Hudson role in inhibiting development nearby. The station’s set- 356 THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE/THE SCIENCE OF ARCHITECTURE

Terminals downtown. The Vanderbilts were investors in may have even considered a hotel for the Terminal site. the H&M and among the dignitaries who rode the first Gaudi was purportedly approached in 1908 by a group train under the Hudson on opening day. Renderings of of American businessmen, led by McAdoo, to build a ho- Grand Central clearly show accommodations of the tel. Unfortunately, virtually all records and drawings of planned H&M extension as “McAdoo’s Tubes.” this structure were lost in a fire, with only a few sketches (www.hudsoncity.net/tubesenglish/index.html) William that bear some resemblance to Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia K. Vanderbilt certainly must have been aware of both Church remaining. It is conceivable that this story might the company’s policies and how their facilities embodied be true; McAdoo did travel annually to Europe, usually them. The friendliness of Grand Central - its efficiency, to spas in Germany to restore his health, but if the 1908 multiple entries, ramps, embrasure of retail, and overall date is correct, the Terminals were already completed. If democracy of its spaces’– is arguably as indebted to the the date is wrong and the trip had occurred earlier, one H&M’s precedent as it is a response to Penn Station’s can draw several conclusions. It supports McAdoo’s dis- shortcomings. After all, the Terminals were completed regard for monumental purity that McKim and Vanderbilt two years before Penn Station and during a period that required of their stations in rejecting the hotel proposals Grand Central was still being designed. And while by others. If intended for a site adjacent to the Termi- Vanderbilt and his architects may have been very much nals, it might show that McAdoo’s intentions were, after aware of the published designs for Penn Station since all, closer to those of his uptown rivals and that like the 1904, they surely would have been aware, as most New Pennsylvania and the New York Central, he did make Yorkers were, of the successful operations of the H&M real estate plans around the Terminals. The hotel could and its functionally innovative terminal well before con- have served a higher public purpose than offices, and struction began on Grand Central. even produce more revenue. But the scale of the build- 50 Fitzherbert: 3; Cudahy ing is entirely inconsistent with McAdoo’s stated aver- sion to big business and big buildings. The renditions of 51 McAdoo: 102 the project produced after the fire by Gaudi devotee Juan 52 That financial concerns prevented the H&M from ab- Matemala show a massive tower, taller than the Eiffel. sorbing Dey Street is improbable. It is true that the H&M These phantasmagoric drawings, which appear in Rem would have had to, as the Pennsylvania did, purchase Koolhaas’s Delirious New York of 1978, depict a building the city land that Dey Street occupied. (Ballon, New York with cavernous interior spaces, with floors so large that Pennsylvania Stations: 38 ) But the city had asked the it would be difficult to operate as a hotel. Given McAdoo’s Pennsylvania to pay a relatively modest amount, since essentially pragmatic nature, it remains a mystery how the railroad was providing so significant an urban ame- this project could have fit with his plans. nity. The H&M could have made the same argument for 56 McAdoo. The Relations Between Public Service Corpo- a similar discount. The company paid to restore the street, rations and the Public: 8 why not put that towards rentable space? The H&M could have been easily offset the cost of Dey Street with the REFERENCES: BOOKS revenue from the added floor area added in the air space. Ballon, Hilary. New York Pennsylvania Stations (New York: McAdoo clearly wanted the gap to remain and the build- Norton, 2002) ings to remain separate. Clinton & Russell had originally designed an ornate stone bridge at the third floor that Broesamle, John J.. William Gibbs McAdoo; A Passion for was never built. In its stead, two, unadorned utilitarian Change 1863-1917 (Port Washington, NY/ London: ones were. This flourish may have either been too ex- Kennicat Press, 1973) pensive or ostentatious, inconsistent with the populist Broesamle, John J.. William Gibbs McAdoo; Businessman image that McAdoo was projecting for the H&M and its in Politics, 1863-1917 (Unpublished Ph.D Manuscript, facilities.. McAdoo clearly sought to avoid even the slight- Columbia University, 1970) est suggestion of unnecessary display, especially one seen (Port Washington, NY/ London: Kennicat Press, 1973) down Dey Street, which might invite comparisons with his arrogant rivals. Croly, Herbert. The Promise of American Life (New York, Macmillan, 1911) 53 McAdoo. Crowded Years: 110 Cudahy, Brian J.. Rails Under the Mighty Hudson (New 54 Ibid: 111 York: Fordham University Press: 2002) 55 Collins, Glenn. “Postmodern, In a Manner Of Speak- ing; A Shape Out of 1908 Is Offered Downtown”, The Goldberg, Paul, The Skyscraper (New York: Alfred p. New York Times, Tuesday, January 21, 2003: B1 A for- Knopf, 1981) gotten account, which resurfaced in the aftermath of 9/ Heyer, Paul. Architects on Architecture: New Directions 11, tells that the Catalan expressionist architect Antonio in America (New York: Walker, 1966) Gaudi designed a hotel for the Terminal site or in its Lippmann, Walter. Men of Density (New York: Macmillan, vicinity. Like his more business-focused and less sym- bolic minded counterparts at the larger railroads, McAdoo THE TWINS BEFORE THE TWIN TOWERS 357

1927) Flagg, Ernest. “The Danger of High Buildings”, The Cos- McAdoo William G.. Crowded Years: The Reminiscences mopolitan, vol. 29 (May 1896) no. 3 p 70 of William G. McAdoo (Boston/New York: Houghton Glanz, James and Lipton, Eric. “Towering Ambition. The Mifflin: 1931) Rise of the World Trade Center: A History with Life and McAdoo, William G.. The Relations Between Public Ser- Death Implications””The New York Time Magazine, Sun- vice Corporations and the Public: A Lecture given to the day, September 8, 2002 Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard Hendrick, Burton J.. “McAdoo and the Subways,” University, April 6, 1910 (New York: Alexander Hamilton McClure’s Magazine, vol. 36 no. 5 March, 1911): 491-4’ Institute, 1910 Hendrick, Burton. “McAdoo.””The World’s Work XXVI (Oct. Moore, Charles. The Life and Times of Charles Follen 1913) 626-37 McKim (Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, Inglis, William. “Celebrities at Home: W. McAdoo.” 1929) Harper’s Weekly LIII (Oct. 16, 1906) 10-12,32 Parissien, Steven. Pennsylvania Station: McKim, Mead McAdoo, William. “The Soul of a Corporation.””The World’s and White (London: Phaidon Press, 1996) Work XXII (Mar. 1912) 579-92 Pease, Otis ed.. The Progressive Years; The Spirit and Watchorn, Robert. “The Builder of the Hudson Achievement Of American Reform (New York, G. Braziller, Tunnels,””The Outlook, vol. 90 (December 26, 1908) 909- 1962) 14 Powell, Kenneth. Grand Central Terminal: Warren and Van Norman, Luis E. “The Achievement of the Hudson Wetmore (London: Phaidon Press, 1996) Tunnels” Review of Reviews (Apr. 1908) 425-32 Roth, Leland M.. The Urban Architecture of McKim, Mead “A Business Man in Politics.””The Outlook, vol. 102 (Sep- and White: 1870-1910 (Unpublished Ph.D Manuscript, tember 28, 1912): 227 Yale University, 1973) “The Crookedness of the Hudson Tunnel.””Scientific Schlichting, Kurt C. Grand Central Terminal: Railroads, American XCVIII (Mar.14,1908) 178 Engineering, and Architecture in New York City (Balti- more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001) “The Hotel Astor””Architects’ and Builders’ Magazine vol. 6, November 1904: pp 49-71 Stern, Robert A.M., Gilmartin, Gregory and Massengale J. New York 1900: Metropolitan Architecture and Urban- “In the Public Eye: A Business Man in Politics.””The Out- ism 1890-1915 (New York: Rizzoli, 1983) look CII (Sep.28, 1912) 227-28 Synon, Mary. McAdoo the Man and His Times: A Pan- “Little Stories about Big Men.” Transportation XI orama in Democracy (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1924) (Feb.1933) 430-33 Willis, Carol. Form Follows Finance: Skyscrapers and “New York’s First Underground Sidewalk””Architects’ and Skylines in New York and Chicago (New York: Princeton Builders’ Magazine vol. 6, October 1904: pp 29-36 Architectural Press, 1995) “The Opening of the First Hudson River Tunnel.” Engi- References: Articles neering News LIX (Feb. 27, 1908) 230-34 Bender, Thomas and Taylor, William, “Culture and Archi- “The Hudson River Tunnel.””Scientific American LXXXIX tecture: Some Aesthetic Tensions in the Shaping of Mod- (Aug.22,1903) 132-33 ern New York City,” in William Sharpe and Leonard “The Hudson River Tunnel.””Scientific American XC Wallock, eds., Visions of the Modern City (Baltimore: Johns (Mar.26,1904) 253-54 Hopkins University Press, 1987), pp. 185-215 “Progress of the Great Railway Tunnels.””Scientific Ameri- Collins, Glenn. “Postmodern, In a Manner Of Speaking; can XC (Mar.26,1904) 253-54 A Shape Out of 1908 Is Offered Downtown”, The New “Progress of the New Jersey Tunnels and Subways.” Sci- York Times, Tuesday, January 21, 2003 entific American XCIII (Dec.6,1905) 459-61The New York Davies, J. Vipond and Wells, J. Hollis. “A Terminal Times, February 26, 1908 Station””American Architect and Builder’s News vol. 97 The New York Times, February 26, 1908 (January 19, 1910 Real Estate Record and Guide 74 (November 5, 1904): Fitzherbert, Anthony. “The Public Be Pleased: William G. 949 McAdoo and the Hudson Tubes,””Headlights (New York: Electric Railroader’s Association, June 1964) Flagg, Ernest. “Against Tall Buildings”, Architecture and Building, vol. 24, no. 3 pp 82-3