Since the Grand Central IRT station serving today’s #4, 5 and 6 trains opened beneath the great train terminal in 1918 it has featured mosaics on its side walls depicting a steam locomotive coming right at you, complete with bell stack and cowcatcher. The mosaic was the work of artist Jay Van Everen (1875-1947), who was part of the Synchromist movement of the early 20th Century, an art theory that suggested that sound can be depicted by colors and brushstrokes. Van Everen gained the attention of chief subway architect and designer Squire Vickers, also a painter, and designed some of the mosaics that weren’t executed by Vickers himself. I’ve always been fascinated with these subway works because many depict buildings and scenes that are no longer in existence.
Take steam engines and Grand Central Terminal. Steam engines have never entered the current GCT, which was constructed in 1913; however, they were certainly involved with the earlier version, built in 1873: Park Avenue north of the terminal was one vast trainyard in the late 19th Century, with puffing steam engines idling as well as traveling north toward the Bronx and points north. Trouble arose when the engines were placed in the Park Avenue tunnel after its construction as a horrific accident occurred on January 8, 1902 when a New York Central train rear-ended a stopped train in the tunnel. Belching steam and smoke had obscured a red light symbol. A law was passed the next year that mandated electrification of the NY Central by 1908.
Subsequently, the New York State Assembly passed the Kaufman Act in 1923 that banned steam completely within Manhattan and led to electrification of far flung operations like Staten Island Rapid Transit and eliminated surface railroads on 10th and 11th Avenues — leading to the construction of the West Side Freight Railroad, today’s High Line, the high-concept linear park.
Check out the ForgottenBook, take a look at the gift shop, and as always, “comment…as you see fit.”
2/17/20