Grand Central Terminal by Kurt C. Schlichting

Author:Kurt C. Schlichting
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2001-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

Controversy

Controversy over credit for the design of Grand Central continued for years. William Wilgus took credit for the idea of a two-story underground terminal powered by electricity and for using the air rights to pay for the vast changes planned for the 42nd Street station. He never claimed any credit for the architectural design of the terminal building itself; a brilliant engineer, Wilgus had no training or expertise as an architect. In turn, Wilgus attributed to Reed and Stem the idea for the elevated roadway around the building and the arched bridge carrying Park Avenue over 42nd Street.

Warren and Wetmore’s major contributions included replacing the twelve-story revenue building, proposed by Wilgus and Reed and Stem, with a lower but more monumental structure devoted to railroad functions with limited commercial space. Warren and Wetmore’s design proclaimed the glory and might of the New York Central Railroad by adopting the language of the Beaux-Arts in a classical, low-rise building with arches and portals crowned by ornamental statues and detailing. Warren focused on the monumental aspect, rather than the mundane world of square footage and rental income. In addition, Warren’s building did not include the elevated driveways of Reed and Stem’s design. Wilgus, angered at the decision to abandon both the revenue-producing building and the elevated roadways, maintained that Warren’s design involved only the exterior treatment of the station and did not alter the essential circulation and separation of functions he had originally proposed to Newman in 1903. Wilgus summarized the changes from his perspective: “The Company, however, while not approving the change from the fundamental features of the original inception, contrary to the views of its Vice President [Wilgus], concluded that the exterior treatment of the station proper, consisting of a low monumental effect without the elevated driveway and 42nd Street bridge, was preferable to the revenue producing type with the Reed and Stem driveways.”6 To the end of his life, Wilgus remained embittered at William K. Vanderbilt’s intrusion into the design of Grand Central and his insistence that Whitney Warren play a pivotal role.

But more than just personal connections had led to Warren’s inclusion. Vanderbilt, enamored of the Beaux-Arts, in the 1890s commissioned Richard Morris Hunt to design his New York mansion on Fifth Avenue at 52nd Street and the Marble House, his summer home in Newport, Rhode Island. Marble House presents the classical model so favored by the Beaux-Arts, drawing heavily on Jacques-Ange Gabriel’s Petit Trianon at Versailles for inspiration. Facing Newport’s fashionable Bellevue Avenue, the Marble House’s front facade includes four huge Corinthian columns dividing the exterior into a series of classical, symmetrical bays. Over the front entrance Hunt included the head of Apollo. Today, as guides for the Newport Preservation Society escort tourists through the Marble House, they point out William K. Vanderbilt’s initials carved into the sculpture. The Vanderbilts, never reticent, felt comfortable with Hunt’s use of the ancient gods to adorn their summer pleasure palaces.

If Vanderbilt chose Versailles as a model for his Marble House, it

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