I was equally terrible at printmaking, yet found the process enjoyable, and could often be found in the print shop dropping acid—that is metal plates into acid baths to etch them for printing on an old timey press. Despite my lack of abilities, I think learning the process gave me a special appreciation for the craft. There is just something exceptionally lovely about the emotion that a print can convey, especially in the realm of railroading. From the light that filters through a massive train station window to the belches of smoke erupting from a locomotive, the subject matter provides a veritable playground for the skilled printmaker.

Enter Joseph Pennell. More than just skilled in the arts of printmaking, he was a master of the craft. Although his work illustrating articles for Harper’s and The Century Magazine took him around the world, his prints of railroading subjects in Pennsylvania (his home) and New York (the city that inspired him and eventually became his home) are especially memorable. Working mainly in the techniques of intaglio, aquatint, and lithography, his body of work captures notable moments in American railroading history—from the construction of New York’s Pennsylvania Station and Hell Gate Bridge, to lovely views of Grand Central Terminal, and Philadelphia’s long-gone Broad Street Station.

So what exactly goes into a print? For intaglio [above left], the process consists of coating a metal plate with a waxy substance, and then etching lines (backward, as the print is a reverse of the plate) with sharp tools into that wax. From there, the plate is placed in an acid bath, where the exposed lines are “bitten” into the plate. The wax is later removed, and the plate can be coated with ink and printed through a press to yield a version on paper. Aquatint works similarly, but allows for gradations in tone on the metal plate beyond the linework of intaglio. Lithography [above right] is a departure from the previous processes in that the artist uses a waxy crayon to draw an image onto a stone plate. Acid is likewise used, but here it creates a surface on the stone through a chemical reaction which will either hold or repel ink from which a print can be produced. While the acid process of intaglio requires drawings made of thin lines and points, lithographs are not constrained by this, and each technique can be used to evoke a completely different mood in the final print.

Pennell’s early printmaking work was predominantly in the technique of intaglio, but he later came to prefer the process of lithography. No matter which technique he used, Pennell had an incredible talent of conveying textures and emotions through his artful linework. He zealously attended to detail and was quite the perfectionist—trusting no one but himself to pull prints from his plates, and subsequently destroying his own plates after 50 printings to prevent the possibility of anyone finding them and attempting to print degraded images from them later.

Although Pennell’s work holds both artistic and historic merit, from today’s lens the man himself held many ethically problematic opinions. In fact, were he alive and working today, it is quite possible that he would have been rightfully “cancelled” for his racism. Yet in the time period in which he were alive, Pennell’s opinions were likely commonplace. As such, I think it is important to view his work in historical context. He was one of a long line of men who felt that art institutions should solely be the space of white males, and in his autobiography, The Adventures of an Illustrator, describes the admittance of Henry Ossawa Tanner to his “white [art] school” as “the coming of the n—–.” After detachedly recounting the time when Tanner was dragged out onto Broad Street and mock crucified to his easel (which Pennell may have been an active participant in), Pennell opines, “curiously, there never has been a great Negro or a great Jew artist in the history of the world.” Apart from the noteworthy moments he captures in his prints, Pennell’s work also encapsulates a sentiment of a world that we continue to strive to move beyond.

Creator: Pennell, Joseph (creator)

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.50571

If you enjoyed this article, consider making a donation to the Friends of the Tanner House, the organization looking to restore Henry Ossawa Tanner’s house in Philadelphia.

In New York City, the firm of Ames & Rollinson was noted for their work in the field. Around the 1930s, hand illuminated diplomas were their bread and butter—twenty-five artisans churned out over 10,000 diplomas each year, most of which were printed on traditional calfskin vellum. The company also produced many other unique and special documents, including the $25,000 prize check given to Charles Lindbergh from Raymond Orteig’s New York to France non-stop flight challenge, award certificates given to American Telephone & Telegraph Company employees that showed devotion by sticking to their posts during fires, floods, or gun battles, and an array of bound folders commemorating business executives upon their deaths.

In lieu of any established name for said documents, I began referring to them in my mind as “death notes.” Typically, when an executive, president, or board member of a prominent company passed away, the board of said company recognized their efforts and achievements in the minutes of their next meeting. The transcript for that portion of the meeting was then sent to the artisans over at Ames & Rollinson, who produced an illuminated and bound copy to be presented to the next of kin. No expense was spared for these commemorative folders—they were bound in the traditional Moroccan style with a gilt tooled and dyed goatskin cover, a watered silk doublure, sheep or calfskin pages, and illuminated with either Italian gold or French platinum leaf. The resulting book would then be signed by a representative of the company before being sent off to usually the deceased executive’s wife.

Ames & Rollinson created documents like these for a wide array of notable names, including Henry Morton Stanley, J. Pierpont Morgan, William Tecumseh Sherman, Walter P. Chrysler, George Pullman, and Chauncey Depew… whose original “death note” recently came into my possession. Commissioned by the New York Central Railroad Company, the Michigan Central Railroad Company, and the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis Railway Company, the ten page document provides a brief biography of Depew, along with a heartfelt tribute, and a listing of all of the board members for each of the railroad companies. Along with the folder is the original letter written by railroad secretary Edward Stephenson to Depew’s widow May Eugenie Palmer when the book was mailed to her.

Born in Peekskill on April 3, 1824, Depew was a graduate of Peekskill Military Academy and Yale University. Admitted to the New York State bar in 1858, Depew operated a law practice in Peekskill. Around the time that Cornelius Vanderbilt came calling to offer him the position as attorney for the New York & Harlem Railroad, Depew had already been offered the position of US Minister to Japan. According to lore, when Depew told Vanderbilt about how the resident minister position offered better compensation, the brusque Vanderbilt retorted, “Railroads are the career for a young man; there is nothing in politics. Don’t be a damned fool.” And that is how Robert B. Van Valkenburgh became the US Minister to Japan, and Chauncey Depew became a railroad man.

When Depew started at the Harlem in 1866, Vanderbilt’s railroad holdings consisted of only around two hundred and fifty miles of territory. Ultimately, Depew would end up overseeing a massive railroad system of over twenty thousand miles as President and Chairman of the Board of the New York Central Lines. Depew’s legacy has been commemorated in the village of Depew in Erie County (where today you’ll find Amtrak’s station for Buffalo), several streets including Depew Place outside Grand Central and Depew Street along the Harlem in Pleasantville, and in a unique old manuscript, which I share with you today.

Objectively, the 1966 Giants were quite awful. Playing their home games at the old Yankee Stadium, they proceeded to lose every single match except for one. They managed to tie their first game on the road, but subsequently lost the remainder. Not only did they have the worst record in the entire league that year, the 1966 season was the worst in franchise history, with the fewest total wins, and the worst point differential (-238)^[2]. In fact, the season ranks as one of the all time top 25 worst seasons for all teams in the entire NFL^[3].

If for some reason you had wanted to watch that hot mess of a team back in ’66, the New York Central did offer special Harlem Division trains for each of the home games. Leaving from North White Plains, the train made local stops to Mount Vernon before proceeding to Melrose, several blocks away from Yankee Stadium. Round trip fare was $2 from North White Plains through Scarsdale, and $1.50 from Crestwood through Mount Vernon—a $1 discount from the normal coach fare at the time.

Interestingly enough, to facilitate faster egress the train made a reverse move to dispense passengers on the northbound platform, which had exits on both 162nd and 161st Streets, as opposed to the southbound platform which only exited near 162nd (this platform does not exist today—the current platform is located north of 162nd Street, with the end situated where the tracks for the Port Morris Branch used to split off from the Harlem. The location of the old Melrose platform is now covered by the Morrisania Air Rights housing project).

Anyone who rode the special train received a commemorative brochure which explained how to get to the stadium from the station, as well as included a list of players on both sides and current league rankings. We’ve posted some of these before, but I recently purchased a few new ones, and figured I’d share.

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.70815

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.70820

https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.70826

On the way home, the second and fifth cars of the consist were bar cars, and likely the place where many fans drank away their sorrows after the Giants considerable losses.

These special trains were short lived, and although it might be funny to blame their cancellation on the Giant’s abysmal record, it probably had something more to do with the Central’s lackluster financial situation, leading to their merger with the Pennsylvania Railroad two years later.

Hardly known until Grand Central’s restoration in the 1990’s—and rarely talked about since—many simply assumed that only a select few individuals who had the chance to traipse across sky-high scaffolding would ever gaze upon these signatures 116 feet above the floor. In reality, the full-frame 45 megapixel Canon R5 coupled with an RF 100-500mm lens is sufficiently capable of capturing much of the approximately two inch tall hidden writing, when wielded by a photographer with a will to search the stars!

But why are there any names up there to begin with, and to whom do they belong? For the answers to those questions, we must delve into the backstory of artist Charles Gulbrandsen…

A feature that interested me was the use of small dots, no bigger than a silver dollar, of almost neutral coloring. I said, “Nobody on the floor of the concourse, even with binoculars, could see these dots. Why did you put them here?”

—Charles B. Driscoll recounts of a conversation with Charles Gulbrandsen while touring the sky mural high above Grand Central. Neither the dots nor the signatures were ever intended to be seen from the floor.

Enter Charles Gustave Gulbrandsen

Born in Brooklyn on December 3, 1890 to Norwegian immigrant parents, Charles Gustave Gulbrandsen grew up surrounded by music and art, and family members of considerable creative talent. Charles found a love in painting, commencing with an early career in creating murals, and in his later years designing scenery for theatrical sets, and for television. As an apprentice at Hewlett-Basing Studio, Gulbrandsen played a small part in the creation of the first celestial mural above Grand Central’s main concourse.

Grand Central’s original skylight concept, and the constellations that we actually got.

Originally conceived to be a skylight, both timing and financial constraints led to the alternate concept of a fresco night sky. While much of Grand Central was strong and built to last, perhaps the fact that the ceiling was a bit of an afterthought ultimately led to a less sturdy construction. No matter the cause, it did not take long for the ceiling to begin leaking. Just over a decade later, it had deteriorated to the point of being an eyesore—seeping water had left cracks, streaks, and mold. New York Central executives approached artists for replacement ideas, including Robert Winthrop Chanler, who envisioned a more fantastic starry sky, albeit even less astronomically accurate. Despite these plans the cost of a replacement would be high, and thus no action would be taken for nearly twenty more years.

By the 1940s wartime railroad traffic was booming, and Grand Central set records year after year for visitors passing through. Railroad officials began to have serious fears that the Terminal’s corroded sky was more than simply a cosmetic issue—were any plaster to fall from above it could cause grievous injury. Ultimately, Charles Gulbrandsen was recalled to redo the ceiling, this time as the primary artist. By this time he had worked on several other noteworthy murals, including the ten in the National Newark Building, the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Constitution Hall, and Cornell’s Willard Straight Hall.

Though there was debate about whether the ceiling should be made “correct”—placing the constellations in their appropriate places, and not flipped—Gulbrandsen was set on a near-faithful recreation of the original. Some may have called the work a restoration, but in reality it was a complete do-over. Using large sheets of four foot by sixteen foot tracing paper, details from the original mural were transferred to the new surface—a one-eighth inch thick layer of pressed asbestos board. Then Gulbrandsen, along with five assistants, repainted the entirety of the mural in oil paints. The original mural had taken a year to create, while the recreation took about half that time, the majority of which consisted of bolting the steel rod scaffolding directly to the ceiling girders, and fastening the new board above the old plaster.

The ceiling is decoration, not a map. The constellations are north. They should be south. So what?

—Charles Gulbrandsen on the design of the sky ceiling, 1944. According to Gulbrandsen, the initial reversal was an intentional artistic choice, adapting a subject matter more suitable for a dome onto the Terminal’s barrel-vault configuration.

In total, the painting work took only ten weeks. As new constellations came to life, friends and family members were often invited up onto the scaffolding by Gulbrandsen to get an up-close look at the work going on. Many of the visitors picked a spot to leave their mark, signing their names or other messages for posterity, all invisible to the naked eye of the millions of travelers far below. Even today you can find the names of Gulbrandsen’s eldest children, his wife, several friends, railroad employees, reporters, and others scattered across the vast space of the sky. And when the ceiling was restored in the 1990s, several added to the tradition, including conservator John Canning, whose company worked to clear the grime away.

During the pandemic, finding the names hidden in the sky became a minor obsession for me. I started with the only location I had ever heard mentioned previously—J.V. Brophy’s name hidden in the eye of Pegasus. From there, I was able to determine that my camera, with its super telephoto lens and additional digital zooming, could actually capture the names. The next step was simply to search—I snapped photos of the constellations, merged them in Photoshop, and looked for “abnormalities” in the super-high resolution images. When you ignored all the other details that were too small to see from the ground, like the round holes that the original scaffolding was mounted through, the large staples fastening the boards to the ceiling, and the random streaks of dirt, you’d often find someone’s personal mark.

There was considerable excitement in finding a name, which quickly turned to curiosity. Who were these people, and why were their names there at all? Throughout the journey I learned a lot about an entire clan of talented artists and musicians, became well acquainted with the frustration of not being able to figure out who everyone was, and experienced a profound sadness for a young man whose life was tragically cut short very soon after signing his name in the heavens. It was uniquely exhilarating to find how these people fit into the larger puzzle, and especially so when I sighted the name of an artist whose name I recognized, who likely signed their name while capturing a famous photograph.

The next time you are in Grand Central, look up! There are secrets in the stars, and I am confident that I did not discover them all…

Cancer

Starting off at the northwest end of the Terminal’s ceiling (which would realistically be in the southeast, if the constellations were not reversed) is Cancer, the crab. Look to the right claw and you’ll find two sets of names, one surrounding the star Tegmen, and the other at the claw’s very tip.

1. Moses & Marguerite Harris

Born in 1899 in Brooklyn, Marguerite Harris is remembered as a talented “force of nature.” Leaving home at age fourteen to escape her staunchly religious parents, Marguerite became the assistant to Geoffrey Scott, editor of The Boswell Diaries. With a keen eye for art, Marguerite ran several art galleries in Los Angeles and New York City, including the “Ten Dollar Gallery,” where every painting cost just that amount (after the Great Depression, it became the “Twenty Dollar Gallery”). She was married several times, notably to film producer Sam Zimbalist, from whom she separated around 1940. After returning to New York, she married Moses Harris, and became known as a successful poet and editor. She founded the poetry journal Wand, was a force behind the Woodstock Poetry Festival, and was a recipient of the Edwin Markham Prize for Poetry.

2. 1997 All For Thomas & Jarett

I wasn’t able to track down who Thomas and Jarrett were, but someone wrote their names up on the ceiling of Cancer’s right claw during the restoration of the mural in the 90’s. If you’re ever looking for a signature to spot, this is the brightest and largest, so it would be my first recommendation to beginning ceiling stargazers.

Gemini

Following along the line of the ecliptic (the path of the sun through the stars), the next constellation we arrive at is Gemini, the twins. At least two signatures can be found within.

1. Rose & Mickey Flinn

2. Tom Glason

Orion

Moving on is Orion, the hunter, just below the ecliptic, and the only constellation to not be reversed. Signatures can be found in several of the constellation’s major stars, including Rigel (in the hunter’s foot) and Betelgeuse (in the shoulder). Passing through the bottom of the constellation is the celestial equator, a projection of the Earth’s equator into the sky.

1. T.A. Gilbert

2. P. Bock 1945

3. Ingrid Gulbrandsen

Born on November 8th 1890 in Arendal, Norway, Ingrid Lovold was a talented pianist that was educated in Belgium. She met Charles Gulbrandsen shortly after emigrating to the United States, and they wed in 1911. Together they had five children, including three whose names can be found on Grand Central’s ceiling.

4. Olga Yashina

5. Alfhild Engborg

Born in 1916, Alfhild Gulbrandsen was the second child of Charles and Ingrid Gulbrandsen. She grew up playing the piano and singing, and later attended the Packard School for Business to train as a secretary. Shortly before her name was written here, she married Arvid Robert Engborg.

Engborg held various jobs as a secretary throughout her life, including at the publishing house Doubleday, and was later a customer service representative for Sears Roebuck. She continued to play the piano throughout her life, and was remembered for other creative pursuits, including dressmaking.

Taurus

Next along the ecliptic is Taurus, the bull. Many signers chose stars for their marks, and here is no different. You will find names around the notable stars Elnath (tip of the horn) and Aldebaran (in the bull’s face), along with several others.

1. Nancy Green

2. Lt. H.C. Allington Jr. & Marge Allington

Born in Tarrytown on October 27, 1924, Homer Clifford Allington grew up in Binghamton, and later Port Washington, New York. Through his high school days he was known as “Sug” and was President of the Fratry, the local boy’s service organization. Although short in stature, Allington was a lover of sports (except badminton), and worked on beefing up his muscles by doing the Charles Atlas workout, with the hopes of joining the Navy Air Corps.

Allington instead became a member of the Army Air Forces, and was stationed in Guam as part of the 19th Bombardment Group. He took part in the firebombing of Tokyo in March of 1945, where he was the bombardier aboard B-29 Zero Auer. Shot down by anti aircraft fire, the plane crashed in Kawaguchi City, just north of Tokyo.

Shortly before shipping out, Allington scrawled his and his mother’s name around Zeta Tauri, the star at the tip of Taurus’s right horn. Decades later, it is a memory of one of many young people lost too soon during a brutal World War.

Allington was linked to the Gulbrandsen clan by his elder sister Helen, who married Charles Frithjof.

3. Charles B. Driscoll, New York Day By Day, 1945

Charles Benedict Driscoll, born October 19, 1885 in Wichita, Kansas, was an author of Irish descent, penning the book “Kansas Irish” about his Irish-born father’s life after immigrating to the United States. He worked as a newspaper reporter and editor, and was the author of the column “New York Day by Day” from 1938 until his death in 1951.

Driscoll was given a tour of the work by Charles Gulbrandsen himself, describing the work in the New York Day by Day column which appeared on June 6, 1945.

4. Signe Fay

Born in 1914, Signe Gulbrandsen was Charles and Ingrid’s first child. A talented lyric soprano, she received scholarships to the Curtis Institute of Philadelphia and the Julliard School of Music. As a professional vocalist Gulbrandsen appeared in many concerts in New York and New Jersey, and sang with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra in 1937. She appeared on Broadway as Mary in the play “Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines” in 1938, and one year later married Thomas Bernard Fay.

5. John Christian

Musca & Triangulum

Further along the ecliptic we pass Aries (the ram), where I did not find any names, and reach the constellations of Musca, Triangulum, and the deprecated Triangulum Minus. Several signatures can be found throughout this group.

Gulbrandsen’s extra triangle

Although not a signature per se, I was unable to find any actual signature by of the artist himself. That being said, the second triangle in Triangulum is a departure from the original mural. Intended to be a faithful reproduction of the original, why was a second triangle added? Perhaps it was a special way for Gulbrandsen to leave his own mark.

As a constellation, Triangulum Minus is considered obsolete, and no longer recognized as an official constellation.

1. CHAWG

2. T.E. Lynch

3. J.A. Zang

4. G.A. Hall

5. Helen Hall

6. E. Nowak

Edwin Stanley Nowak was born on April 18, 1918 in Wyoming County, New York, and grew up in Rochester. Throughout his youth he photographed with a Kodak Brownie, developing his negatives at home. After a short stint studying chemical engineering at the University of Michigan, Nowak landed a lucrative job testing photographic film at Kodak, never returning to finish his degree. Alas, laboratory work left young Nowak unfulfilled, and he took a pay cut to work at a local photography studio.

The allure of more interesting and well-paying photography work lured Nowak to New York City, where he found jobs in the fashion industry and taught darkroom technique at the School of Modern Photography. He persuaded the New York Central Railroad to hire him, and served as the company’s on-staff full-time photographer until 1954, and later on a contract basis. Nowak’s body of work provides an impressive look at the final heyday of a great American railroad.

Later in life Nowak moved to Fort Myers, Florida, where he passed away on January 13, 2002.

Pisces

Next along the ecliptic is Pisces, two connected fishes. Look to their starry eyes, which hold the signatures we are seeking.

1. June & Larry Archer

2. Lois Cannon

3. W. E. Gallaher, Hudson Cond.

William Edwin Gallaher was born in 1908 in Crugers, New York and died in 1992. He worked for the New York Central Railroad as a conductor on the Hudson Division. On his World War II draft card he lists Irvington as his place of residence, and Grand Central’s Room 1612 as his place of employment.

Pegasus

The last constellation along the ecliptic is Aquarius (the water carrier), alas I did not find any signatures there, so we pass along to the opposite corner of the mural, where you will find Pegasus. Notable star Scheat, or Beta Pegasi, holds a total of four names, two along the top, and two more along the bottom.

1. J.V. Brophy

2. Edwin C. Hafker

Edwin Charles Hafker of Port Chester, New York. Born July 8, 1908. Hafker worked as a carpenter for Percy L. Smith Builders of Scarsdale. Died September 2, 1996.

Close to Hafker’s name is another bit of writing, but I was unable to decipher it. Perhaps you may be able to make a discovery of your own right here!

3. “Bub” & Helen Gulbrandsen

According to Gulbrandsen family lore, this was written by the elder Charles in celebration of the nuptials of his son Charles Frithjof Gulbrandsen – “Bub” and Helen Welte Allington.

Charles Frithjof was born September 7, 1920, attended St. Lawrence University after the war, and worked for IBM on Madison Avenue in Manhattan.

4. Mike DeLuco, John Canning, 1996

John Canning is a graduate of the Glasgow Stow College of Building, the Scottish Decorative Trades Institute, and the Glasgow School of Art. He emigrated to the United States in the early ’70s, and established a studio focusing on historic preservation in Cheshire, Connecticut. Some of the studio’s early projects included restoration work at Yale University and Connecticut’s state capitol building. The company was selected to work on Grand Central Terminal’s ceiling as part of the larger restoration efforts in the late ’90s under Beyer Blinder Belle.

Michael Albert DeLuco is a painter originally from Maine that has worked for John Canning’s company since 1987. He worked as a restorer on Grand Central’s ceiling in 1996 and 1997.

Hopefully, the above information will provide the next stargazers a place to begin their own journeys. Know some information about any of the people above, or find something new on the ceiling yourself? Drop me a line or comment below, and I’ll keep this list updated!

Special thanks to Amanda Murphy, great granddaughter of Charles Gulbrandsen, who provided photos and information for this article. Additional family photos were accessed through Ancestry family trees.

The transformation of the area around the train station in the early twentieth century was quick, and massive. The railroad’s tracks rose up, removing them from grade and separating them from the ever increasing amount of automobiles. The electrification process began, laying under-running third rail to permit electric powered trains which were able to operate more frequently. Meanwhile, older, now-obsolete infrastructure like the turntable north of Railroad Avenue disappeared. And in the area surrounding the station, businesses came and went—some by fire, and others by the wrecking ball.

1910 map showing the railroad’s route through White Plains. The small yard at the south end had disappeared before 1960, and the one at the north end was gone in the late 1960s. This land would become the site of the current station in White Plains.

Enter Admiral Dot

No prominent railroad town would be complete without an array of hotels for weary travelers to lay their heads. Surrounding the depot at White Plains were several, including the Union, the Orawaupum, as well as Admiral Dot’s Hotel.

Owner and operator Leopold Kahn was a quasi-celebrity, previously exhibited as a circus oddity along with several other “midgets” with similar military-esque monikers. The Admiral Dot appellation was given to Kahn in his youth by showman P.T. Barnum himself. Although from a modern lens such “freak show” exhibitions seem ethically problematic, at the time displaying such abnormalities for amusement and profit were commonplace. Dot, who at age seventeen was said to only weigh twenty pounds and was just over two feet tall, was shown alongside “Siamese twins“, a horned woman, and a “man monkey,” among many others.

Though many came simply to gawk at someone they found strange, Kahn actually enjoyed performing, and would sing, dance, and play musical instruments. Outside of the circus he performed as part of an acting troupe comprised of others with dwarfism, where he met his wife Lottie. Soon after their wedding in 1892, Kahn retired from “showbusiness” and took the small fortune accumulated from the circus (a quarter million dollars, equivalent to almost $7.5 million today) to settle down and open a hotel along Orawaupum Street.

Admiral Dot’s Hotel was just a short walk from the train depot, and even advertised by printing unofficial railroad timetables. A family affair, the couple maintained the hotel with nephew Major Atom (who was also in the circus), who worked as the night clerk. Along with the hotel, which was comprised of 48 guestrooms, a bowling alley, ballroom, and restaurant, Kahn also operated Lexington Hall, a banquet hall and concert venue behind the hotel where the Excelsior Orchestra performed every Wednesday night for dancing. Both survived until February 1911 when they burned to the ground in a fire along Orawaupum Street. As a firefighter with Independent Engine Company #2 Kahn was one of many that fought the fire, but was unable to stop it from destroying several businesses, including his own.

Processed By eBay with ImageMagick, z1.1.0. ||B2

Processed By eBay with ImageMagick, z1.1.0. ||B2

A New Rail Station Rises

Befitting the ever growing city of White Plains, a new monumental station was planned to replace the old, and completed in 1914. Designed by two of Grand Central’s architects, Warren and Wetmore, the station was one of the most notable along the Harlem Line, and a twin to the station built at Poughkeepsie. It boasted a large waiting room (the largest in Westchester County) with six long, double-sided chestnut wood benches, a cafeteria where travelers could grab a meal, and an adjoining room for Railway Express. The new station was built on a pile foundation and featured a copper roof and exterior walls of patterned brick, adorned with terra cotta detailing. The inside was finished with brick and wood paneling, and used steam heating and as expected for a recently electrified railroad, electric lights. Similar to those found in Grand Central, chandeliers featured exposed bulbs, highlighting the use of electricity. Coupled with the large eastern-facing arched windows, the station was filled with light.

The station itself was at street level, but was connected to the raised tracks twenty-five feet above, with 600-foot-long wooden platforms and shelters available for riders to wait.

Despite the sturdy brick construction, the station lasted only 69 years, meeting the wrecking ball in 1983, finally killing off a decayed and graffitied shadow of its former self.

The Bronx River Parkway is Born

Years of factory waste and the direct dumping of sewage left the Bronx River a foul and polluted waterway, deemed a “serious menace to public health.” The Bronx River Parkway Reservation project, which began in 1906, had several major goals, prime among them to clean up the river and to create a modern and efficient roadway from which to enjoy the scenery. As the railroad paralleled the river in many areas, the restored vistas would be visible to those onboard trains as well. In fact, some of the perceived pollution were the miles of billboards erected on the banks of the river and facing the tracks, advertising directly to the captive audience of train riders.

Although the restoration of the river was an admirable goal, not everyone was thrilled with the idea of the project. Significant portions of land needed to be taken—about two thirds of property owners sold their land directly, the rest was claimed through the courts and condemnation proceedings. Project designers stated that much of the land was blighted and filled with dilapidated shacks that were better off removed, but in reality this wasn’t always the case. In White Plains a neighborhood of Italian Americans on the opposite side of the railroad tracks was ousted, with homes, businesses, and churches razed.

At completion, the reservation was approximately fifteen miles long, and varied in width from 300 to 1,000 feet, with 125 acres in the city and 900 in Westchester.

When looking back at the project through the lens of modernity, I think one can see that cleaning and preserving the river was a necessity. However, the final arbiters of what land was taken and what neighborhoods were razed seemed to have made exceptions based upon cronyism, or to benefit more affluent areas like Bronxville, and likewise introduced ethical issues. Eugenicist and “scientific racist” Madison Grant, leader of the Bronx River Parkway Commission, was likely overjoyed to wipe immigrant neighborhoods off the face of the map, as he saw “non-Nordics” such as Irish and Italians as inferior humans and corruptors of American society.

The Commision’s idyllic vision for the parkway did not include the heavy industry that had grown up around the railroad, and several ousted businesses did not survive after losing their sidings and direct links to the Harlem.

In the city… there is a low class of development and increasingly unsanitary conditions. These already constitute an intolerable nuisance and serious menace to public health, apparently being neglected until some disastrous epidemic shall bring it forcibly to public attention…

Each of these three tales prove poignant snapshots of the drastically different White Plains of the early twentieth century. As evidenced by Dot’s unofficial timetable, a person living in New York City may have actually ventured to White Plains for the purpose of entertaining themselves at the hotel, restaurant and concert venue, and may have taken the train to do it. At one point in time the core area of White Plains surrounding the train station was both walkable and filled with businesses and entertainment.

The rise and fall of the Warren and Wetmore station in the city proved to be a poster child for the movement of urban renewal. Something that was once beautiful had degraded into a broken down and graffitied shadow of its former self. Tearing it all down and starting anew seemed like the best idea to planners and leadership at the time. In some ways, the razing of a neighborhood for the Bronx River Parkway’s construction was almost like a dry run, foreshadowing the future actions to take place in the area near the station. Many municipalities across Westchester and beyond experienced the taking and razing of homes and businesses for the progress of parkways and interstates, but far fewer of them went through the drastic step of erasing their entire downtown in the name of progress.

It may not have been paradise, but it got paved over, and today there’s a heck of a lot of parking lots. Was the complete erasure of downtown successful in attracting businesses? Certainly. But it erased a community and turned it into an imposing car-centric quasi-office park. As the dilapidated White Plains mall crumbles, and the Galleria reaches its functional end of life, new ideas are needed to reinvent downtown, and bring back the people that have long been kept away.

Special thanks to Patrick Raftery, Librarian at the Westchester County Historical Society. Posts like these would not be possible without the excellent archival photography found at the WCHS, and in the collections of the White Plains Public Library and the Westchester County Archives.

The new station to which the train had arrived was a simple wooden affair, which the guests likened to a “barn-like shanty.” It simply blended in with the rest of the small farming town of just over a thousand inhabitants. At the time White Plains was merely a “sweet inland village” just over the “pleasant hills and through the valley of the Bronx.” It was remembered as a battlefield of the Revolution, and where George Washington kept his headquarters for a time. But now, linked with rails of iron (and they were iron—not the metal-strapped wood rails the Harlem had spent much money to experiment with and later replace) to the city of New York, surely this sleepy town was bound to grow exponentially!

Adding to the crowd already surrounding the station, the three hundred or so railroad brass and their invited guests ambled out and onto dinner just a short ways away. Their trip began at New York’s City Hall, stuffed until they were practically overflowing into cars hauled by horses of the flesh and blood variety. Transferring over to a steamer at 27th Street they began their journey of “romantic and historical tradition and reminiscence” which is just a fancy way of saying that when the president of the railroad is on board and wants to stop to fill up on alcohol, by God you stop the train at Harlem and Fordham to get more, of course!

Thankfully railroad president David Banks was not too inebriated to provide a rousing speech highlighting the Harlem’s past obstacles and opposition overcome, and provide optimism for the future of the railroad—North to the Housatonic? West to Albany? Something great surely would be happening forthwith as it was the manifest destiny of the capitalists and businessmen of New York to build a railroad to Lake Erie and then the west!

And one cannot forget the toasts!

To the Judiciary of New York—their learning and judgement—as well as the ladies, of whom we see many here—how can the Harlem Railroad fail to prosper, supported by law, love, and physic?

To the farmers of Westchester County, may they reap the benefit of riding on a rail!

Those were, of course, two of many mentioned that night. As far as reaping benefits, it was not only the farmers of Westchester that would be advantaged, but likewise many of the men that celebrated that evening… and the residents of a tiny village that would eventually grow to become the city we know today.

Although there was a good road—thank the sticks and stones, and iron, and other hard materials, including the hard-fisted laborers who worked on it; although there was good weather—thank God—it requires the whole of these commendable considerations together to reconcile one to a dreary, monotonous kill time journey of 3 hour’s duration on 23 miles of a railroad.

—An unfortunately sober reporter for the New York Herald

These [the Harlem Railroad and New York ferries] being cheap and public modes of conveyance, are crowded with masses of people escaping from the city, and pouring themselves out upon the places in its immediate vicinity. The influence arising from this evil is most deleterious. It allures the population from the sanctuary to scenes of mirth and sin. It inflicts on the inhabitants of these adjacent localities, the curse of a vicious and reckless influx of strangers. Intemperance, licentiousness, profaneness, and every form of irreligion, are thus fostered, both in the city itself and in the places of resort around it.

—New York Evangelist rails against the sinful methods of public transportation which operated every day of the week, ignoring the Sabbath, in 1842.

The true measure of distance, especially from a historical perspective, cannot be accurately gauged in miles, but instead in the duration of time it takes one to get there. With the advent of railways, people and goods were able to travel much further than they ever were before, in far less time. But any technological advance of such magnitude inevitably draws out the naysayers, fearmongers, and conspiracy theorists…

The railroad is unnatural! It is sinful! Men were never intended to move at such great speed. Women! Their ovaries will fall from their wombs, rendering them sterile. The jarring motion of the locomotive will make your blood boil, and cause permanent injury to your brain! Madness will certainly be induced by the speed of the dastardly beast! People will surely suffocate! And the cows! Think of the farm animals that will cease to graze, disturbed by this unholy contraption! Hens will quit laying eggs, birds will plummet from the sky in the throes of death.

All of these, and many other, nonsensical beliefs were attributed to the coming of railroads; when preparing their road’s extension, the directors of the Harlem almost expected to hear some of these senseless ideas from the commoners of Westchester.

While no protest would stop the expansion of the Harlem, the cooperation of a succession of land owners along the proposed route of the road was needed. Thus the “diplomatic” and “amiable” Gouverneur Morris Jr. was sent out to negotiate, or “overcome the minds of many of the land owners’ existing prejudices against railroads.” In some cases, little fighting was necessary, as residents intuited the value of having a railroad nearby. Two members of the Purdy family fell into this camp— Jacob, who transferred the land for White Plains, and Isaac, whose land later became the aptly named Purdy’s station. In both cases the land transfers were for nominal fees of a single dollar.

Once the land was acquired, construction steadily moved forward. Many of the laborers constructing the road were Irish immigrants, paid up to 75 cents a day and their board—dirt floor hemlock shanties along the future right-of-way. By June of 1844 service to Tuckahoe was open to the public, and the next six miles into White Plains soon thereafter. The openings were well attended curiosities, and for some it was the first time in their life they had ever glimpsed the magnificent iron horse.

For two full years White Plains served as the terminus of the Harlem Railroad. As such, the road required all the necessary infrastructure to operate, including a roundhouse and turntable. Two small railyards existed on either side of Railroad Avenue (today’s Main Street), with the one on the north end having the turntable, roughly located where the current White Plains station is today. On the south end there were several tracks that directly served some of the new industries that had popped up adjacent to the railroad, including animal feeds, coal, lumber, and other building materials.

Although industries may have found the rails useful, the population of White Plains did not immediately explode after the coming of the Harlem. The added connectivity was certainly valuable, it was just not frequent—service began with only four round trip passenger trains per day, with the trip taking well over an hour (even without the pit stops for acquiring more alcohol). Over time the frequency of trains steadily increased, and the ride time shortened, thanks to new technology (including electrification) and newly scheduled express trains. And instead of a single flat fare for every trip, new types of tickets were introduced, including booklets intended for commuters with 150 ride coupons, valid for three months from the date of purchase.

Just before the turn of the century the Harlem’s single train schedule was split out into two—Form 112, which included the more distant locations along the Harlem, and the Form 113, which were the commutation trains from Grand Central. The timetables also were broken down into weekday and weekend schedules, with additional southbound frequency in the mornings, and northbound in the evenings, new offerings tailored to the commuter. Finally, White Plains had become a realistic suburb, where both living in “the country” and working in the city was feasible, or as New York Times noted in 1927, “White Plains is but thirty-six minutes from Grand Central Station [sic] and actually nearer in point of time than many subway terminals in New York City.”

The present [railroad] service is the result of a steady and satisfactory growth from year to year, until, at the present time, about as many trains are run during the rush hours of the day as the present track accommodations will take care of… for years the service given has actually exceeded the bare necessities of the business to be taken care of, and that instead of being a little behind the times with its service, the railroad company has led the procession…

In addition to all its other charms as a suburban home center, the village of White Plains has that most indispensable feature of suburban life, a first-class train service; and in this respect it is excelled by no other village in the outlying districts of the center of the universe commonly called New York… If the recent growth of both the village and the train service is any indication, White Plains has a very gratifying future indeed.

—John Rosch’s Picturesque White Plains, 1906.

Looking back over the past hundred-plus years of White Plains’ history, did the city live up to the hopes of Rosch and other citizens of yesteryear? Beyond the railroad, what other factors influenced the growth of this city? How did the railroad, complete with two railyards, come to the state it is now? What transit-oriented development can today’s citizens hope to see in the next decade? All of these questions will be considered in the upcoming continuation of our series on the history of White Plains… coming soon!

As a graphic designer, advertisements have always captured my interest. Wartime advertisements are something that have appeared on the blog before, with this post about the New York Central’s war ads. Although almost, if not all, of the American railroads published ads depicting their contributions to the war effort, there is a particular rail-related company that has a massive body of work when it comes to wartime ads which is rather impressive.

The Pullman Company, most notably known for their sleeping cars and porters, was extremely active during World War II. Despite being broken up in 1944 due to an antitrust case, Pullman advertised throughout the entirety of the war, often promoting the fact that their cars were one of the primary means of transportation for soldiers to get to their ship-out points, and later for their returns home.

Other advertisements asked the public to either refrain from riding trains or in sleeper cars unless absolutely necessary (at one point sleepers were restricted from operating over routes under 450 miles, yet public ridership was also up due to the rationing of gasoline), or to make sure that if unable to make their reservation they don’t just no-show, but cancel in advance so no space is left unfilled. In one case, an ad shows a furloughed soldier stuck in a station unable to return home to see the birth of his child as the train was sold out. Thankfully, someone cancelled their reservation last minute, allowing the soldier to return home. Another ad asks whether a soldier will make it to his own wedding, complete with a picture of an exasperated bride. This soldier likewise waits for a last minute cancellation on a sold-out train. My favorites, however, may be the ads containing the corny catchphrase, “Sleep Going to Keep Going.”

At the outset of the war troops moved in the standard Pullman sleepers that had been serving the general public prior. Eventually new sleepers were produced, devoted solely to troop transport. Riding the train as a soldier could be quite a claustrophobic experience—the New York Central operated cars with three-tiered foldable bunks, accommodating a total of 39 men. Besides the soldiers, additional riders may have included a higher-ranking military man designated as the “Train Commander,” a Pullman porter, or a railroad employee operating as an escort and liaison to the Commander. Another car operating as a field kitchen served three or four troop transport cars—initially out of baggage cars converted for that purpose, and later in specially designed troop kitchen cars.

As part of my collection of advertisements and timetables, I have a rather large assortment of Pullman ads—large enough to split it into multiple posts. Enjoy a little look back with the first part of my collection of digitally-restored Pullman advertisements below.

And if you don’t believe the Pennsy, it looks like the Central seems to think that Santa will take a visit to all the overnight trains tonight. So who are we to disagree?

Wishing all readers of I Ride The Harlem Line, whoever you are, if you’re still out there despite my lack of posting for the past few years, a very happy holiday and new year.

If you ever wondered why many railroads began explicitly printing “Official Timetable” on their publications, it was certainly in response to the practice in the later 1800s and early 1900s for local businesses to distribute self-made timetables for the nearby train station with an ad for their shop on the other side. The marketing concept is both effective, and still commonplace today. If someone has something that is functional and useful that they will have close by that has your ad on it, there is a higher likelihood that when that consumer needs something, they will turn to you. Whether it be the unofficial timetable of yesteryear, or the box of matches (although not quite as common these days), fridge magnet, or wall calendar of today, all of these products are useful but also make you remember a particular business.

Although I try to focus my collection on the Harlem Division, it was hard for me to resist this purchase. Beyond my love for unofficial timetables, this card was probably the most quirky examples I had ever seen. And how can one say no to a cute puppy hiding in a hat? If I was looking for a hat in Oneida, surely I would have purchased one from Mr. Stone!

And how could you ever forget W. A. Stone, with this cute puppy timetable?

Watson A. Stone was born in 1847 and was a life-long resident of New York, spending much of his adult life in the Oneida area. Stone was an official sales agent for Knox Hats, a noteworthy New York City-based hat company that counted many wealthy and famous as patrons. According to popular lore every American president up until Kennedy wore Knox hats, and presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln was wearing a Knox-made stovepipe hat during his influential Cooper Union speech. In addition to his business selling hats and boots, assumedly to all the famous, well-to-do, and fashion-forward folks passing through Oneida, Stone was the Oneida postmaster from 1881 until his death in 1888 (which places the publication of this card at some point before that year).

The New York Central and the O&W Stations in Oneida

Other than being cute, the timetable hearkens back to a time when Oneida was traversed by several different railroads and was a maze of railroad tracks, simply a memory today. In the late 1950s and early 1960s several sections of the New York Central main line were relocated in upstate New York, including a section near Batavia (1957), and an area from Oneida to Canastota (1965). With that relocation, New York Central trains would no longer run through downtown Oneida, dashing anyone’s plans to hop off the train and quickly pick up a fashionable hat to wear.

Today, the former railbeds through town are an informal trail system, with plans to make it an official rail trail.

An early horsecar on the New York and Harlem Railroad. Initial service was powered by horse, and later provided all service south of 14th Street, where locomotives were not permitted

Map of the New York & Harlem’s street railway

At Harlem, the northernmost portion of the chartered line, the New York & Harlem would meet up with the New York & Albany Railroad, providing a much-needed year-round link to the state capital (sailing up the Hudson at that time was difficult if not impossible in the winter months). Despite groundbreakings at several points along the proposed line, the New York & Albany never succeeded in creating this link. Slowly the New York & Harlem was given permission to do what the New York & Albany could not – first into Westchester County in 1840, and was later granted full rights to build to Albany in 1846. At that time the The New York & Harlem purchased the what was left of the failed road, including the land it had secured to build its line, for $35,000. Although the New York & Harlem never reached Albany – entering into an agreement with the Boston & Albany Railroad, which it met in Chatham – this trackage became the bread-and-butter of what became the Harlem Division when it was leased to the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad in 1873.

“The benefit to the City of New York, possessing as it does, the best seaport in the Union, will be incalculable.”

“Gentlemen must judge for themselves, but of one thing we are certain: the road will be built, and the most gratifying results may be anticipated.”

-Co-founder and Vice President John Mason, at the ceremonial groundbreaking of the New York & Harlem Railroad on Murray Hill in 1832.

The remainder of the New York & Harlem, which ran south of Grand Central Depot, was leased in 1897 to the Metropolitan Street Railway Company. Today’s tidbits from the archive deal with just that subject – before the lease of the street railway portion of the New York & Harlem, a letter was sent to all shareholders regarding the decision at the most recent Board of Directors meeting. Shareholders were instructed to sign and return a paper stating that they approved of the decision. Below is a scan of an original copy of this mailing, which this particular shareholder never responded to.