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The Middle-Class City. John Henry Hepp, IV
Читать онлайн.Название The Middle-Class City
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isbn 9780812204056
Автор произведения John Henry Hepp, IV
Издательство Ingram
Additional evidence that these changes in interior and exterior layout were related to a new vision of space and not just reactions to increased traffic or growing size can be found at the Pennsylvania Railroad’s rather insignificant Kensington depot. Despite its location far from downtown and its infrequent use (because the railroad had transferred most of its major passenger services to the West Philadelphia station), the Pennsylvania board still authorized some “much needed improvements” there in the mid 1870s. The result was a small brick station building attached to a two-track train shed exclusively for passenger services. The track layout around the passenger facility was also revised to more clearly separate people from cargo.20
The trends apparent in these mid 1870s improvements became fully articulated in the three main depots built in the 1880s and 1890s. Broad Street Station, the Baltimore & Ohio facility, and Reading Terminal all were exclusively passenger structures with complex, well-defined interiors in which the railways clearly separated human space from train space. This unmistakable division continued outside the buildings, where the railroads spent freely to isolate their trains from road traffic.
The first of these stations to open was Broad Street Station in 1881. Qualitatively different from any previous depot in Philadelphia, its facade was unlike that of any existing railroad structure in the city; it was in the style and on the scale of a great London railway terminus, such as the recently completed St. Pancras. Its first floor was made of large blocks of gleaming granite, its upper floors fabricated of brick. The elaborate gothic style made it look more like a cathedral than a train depot (figure 14). It was a fitting temple to the power of Philadelphia’s most influential corporation: the Pennsylvania Railroad. But its grandeur was more than a simple projection of power by its owner, a proclamation that it and its industry had arrived. It was also a manifestation of the wealth and the culture of the Victorian bourgeoisie.21
The rational spatial patterns of the Victorian middle class were immediately apparent at the depot. The Pennsylvania built a block-wide brick viaduct from the Schuylkill River to Fifteenth Street, which allowed its trains to reach Broad Street Station totally separated from street traffic. Not only did this elevated approach eliminate grade crossing and allow the railroad to increase train speed and safety, but it also allowed the PRR to gain more control over passenger access to the trains within the station. Unlike at ground-level depots such as Ninth and Green, where passengers could and did enter the structure through the train shed, at Broad Street Station passengers could reach the platforms only through access points designated by the rail-road. The company used this new form of control to full advantage by separating the platforms from the station concourse by a series of train gates that were guarded by railroad employees. By keeping travelers off the tracks, accidents, like the one John Smith narrowly avoided at Ninth and Green, could be largely eliminated.
Figure 14. A temple to transportation: the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Broad Street Station in 1881. Courtesy of the Print and Picture Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia.
Smith was a frequent visitor to Broad Street Station and can serve as our guide to the new facility. He and a friend went there to catch a train for a brief visit to the suburbs not long after the depot opened. Smith met his companion at Market Street in front of the depot a little before ten on a Saturday morning. They likely stopped for a moment to admire the exterior of the new station and would soon find its interior equally striking. To enter the building, they walked north, first passing the exit for arriving passengers, then the pedestrian and carriage passages to Fifteenth Street. Near the north end of the station they went through polished wood and leaded-glass doors into a small lobby and then on to a large booking hall. They noted the separate local and through tickets windows and, while waiting to buy their tickets, also observed the Pullman Company office (for parlor and sleeping car reservations) and outgoing baggage room, all carefully classified spaces targeted at the departing passenger. After completing their transaction, they went up the sixteen-foot-wide grand stairway, which was lined with gleaming enameled bricks. Above them on the stairs was a hand-carved and inlaid wood ceiling befitting a private club. When they reached the second floor, they saw more well-organized and elaborately decorated rooms. This level was the train floor because the railroad entered the station via elevated tracks. They immediately noticed the airy and spacious feeling of the well-lit, two-story general waiting room: eighty feet by fifty-two feet, with large windows, a skylight, polished hardwood wainscoting and details, and painted plaster walls. A large map of the Pennsylvania system dominated the north end. The room had padded benches, and opened onto smaller spaces containing a confectionery store, a newsstand, a package room, and a telegraph office. Although Smith and his friend would have liked to have explored more of the new station, train time was approaching. They went through one of the two arched openings into the train lobby, where they found their departure track clearly indicated above the gate. To reach their train, they showed their tickets to the uniformed attendant at the gate. As they approached their train, they noted how—unlike at Ninth and Green—even the train shed seemed bright, because of the many glass panels in the roof. As a guide to the city observed: “The [four train sheds] of this great station [create] a wide, lofty apartment.”22
On this visit, Smith did not have time to take in all of the station’s amenities, but he would return often and have many opportunities to explore the remainder of the building. A few years later, on a Sunday morning, he boarded the wrong horse-drawn street car and missed his train to the suburbs. With an hour to kill until the next departure, he may have visited some of the areas of Broad Street Station he had rushed by on his first trip. This time, after buying his ticket and ascending the main stairs into the general waiting room, he may have walked to (but not through) the ladies’ waiting room. The ladies’ waiting room was not quite as large as the main one but was similarly furnished and decorated. A guide to the city noted: “The ladies’ waiting-room is a magnificent apartment, having tall, Gothic-arched windows, set with ornamental glass, a hardwood paneled ceiling, and a great, cheery, open fire-place, ornamented with tiles. It is very comfortably furnished with settees, rockers and easy-chairs and rugs.” Both rooms were well lit, by natural light during the day and by electric lamps (backed up by gas fixtures) at night. The reason Smith could not go through the ladies’ waiting room was that it and the adjoining ladies’ retiring room were guarded by a railroad matron. Smith could wander into the restaurant, however. Here he found both a lunch counter and a dining room (which had a small section reserved for women). He walked through them and returned to the general waiting room. If truly bored, he may have explored the separate arriving and departing baggage areas or used the elevators to reach the third floor, where he could find the barber shop and the bathing facilities for male travelers.23
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