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A Gilded Age Epic: The Construction of Penn Station and Its Tunnels
Viking
April 2007
On Sale: April 19, 2007
384 pages
ISBN: 0670031585
EAN: 9780670031580
Hardcover
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Historical | Non-Fiction
The epic story of the struggle to connect New York City
to the rest of the nation The demolition of Penn
Station in 1963 destroyed not just a soaring neoclassical
edifice, but also a building that commemorated one of the
last century’s great engineering feats—the construction of
railroad tunnels into New York City. Now, in this gripping
narrative, Jill Jonnes tells this fascinating story—a
high-stakes drama that pitted the money and will of the
nation’s mightiest railroad against the corruption of
Tammany Hall, the unruly forces of nature, and the
machinations of labor agitators. In 1901, the president of
the Pennsylvania Railroad, Alexander Cassatt, determined
that it was technically feasible to build a system of
tunnels connecting Manhattan to New Jersey and Long Island.
Confronted by payoff-hungry politicians, brutal underground
working conditions, and disastrous blowouts and explosions,
it would take him nearly a decade to make Penn Station and
its tunnels a reality. Set against the bustling backdrop of
Gilded Age New York, Conquering Gotham will enthrall
fans of David McCullough’s The Great Bridge and Ron
Chernow’s Titan.
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