Читать книгу The Middle-Class City - John Henry Hepp IV - Страница 11

Chapter 2

Such a Well-Behaved Train Station

I checked my bag at Reading Terminal and suddenly felt like false pretenses. I wondered if anybody had ever done anything dishonest before at Reading Terminal, it always seems like such a well-behaved train station.¹

During the Victorian era, the downtown railway passenger terminal developed as a distinctive middle-class place in the multi-classed city throughout the Westernized world. Whether Reading Terminal in Philadelphia, Grand Central in New York, St. Pancras in London, or Central Station in Glasgow, space and time became more precisely ordered for bourgeois passengers during the late nineteenth century. The interiors of the newly constructed stations became more complex and better defined. Both inside and outside the structures, the railroads more clearly divided space meant for trains from that for humans. Time also became more precise and increasingly divorced from its natural setting as the railroads adopted standard time and devised new schedules. Railway timetables—like the depots owned by the same companies—became more detailed and exact as the century progressed. By the turn of the century, middle-class women and men lived by railroad time, traveled on carefully scheduled train paths, and arrived and departed from complex, well-planned central depots. The rhythms of bourgeois life can be found in and around the Victorian trains stations.²

Reading Terminal, built in 1893 by the ever ambitious but often bankrupt Philadelphia & Reading Railroad, is a wonderful example of a middle-class portal to and from the bourgeois city. Usually the structure is seen as a reflection of both the grand dreams and the harsh realities of the Reading’s always unsuccessful attempts to best its crosstown rival, the Pennsylvania Railroad. Reading Terminal was neither as busy nor as palatial as the Pennsylvania’s Broad Street Station three blocks to the west, and the two depots immediately defined the relative importance of two corporations. But Reading Terminal and the other late nineteenth-century stations in Philadelphia indicated far more than just the relative business acumen of their owners. From the very respectable dining room on the second floor (see figure 8 for a view of this facility when new) to the more hectic farmers’ market under the train shed, Reading Terminal mirrored middle-class culture in Victorian Philadelphia. It and the other depots quickly became important parts of everyday life for the bourgeois women and men of the region. For many observers, the buildings themselves took on a middle-class tone. By the early twentieth century, Reading Terminal had become, in the eyes of the novelist (and ex-Philadelphian) Christopher Morley, a “well-behaved train station.”³

Before we enter Reading Terminal, we should step back and consider the evolving relationship between the railway stations and the main commercial district during the nineteenth century. In Philadelphia, this relationship can be divided into three distinct phases. First, during the 1830s and 1840s the small, independent railroads attempted to locate their passenger facilities on the fringes of downtown. Later, in the 1850s, the railways moved their now larger depots farther from the business district and began to rely on the then new horse-drawn streetcars for the final delivery of their passengers. The last phase began in 1881, when the now consolidated lines started to move their facilities back into Center City. The map in figure 9 shows the placement of the railroad termini in relation to the central business district in 1876. Not one of the stations stood within the commercial core. Few were convenient to each other; note the nearly four mile gap between the Kensington depot in Northeast Philadelphia (marked as 7 on the map in figure 9) and the Prime Street station in South Philadelphia (1). The railroads had located their stations to these outlying points in the 1850s for a number of legal and economic reasons, including the cost of land and municipal ordinances and agreements that effectively banned steam locomotives from most of the streets of the original city (from river to river between South and Vine Streets). Because of the distance between the terminals and downtown, almost every passenger had to begin or end his or her railway journey by omnibus or streetcar.⁴

The streetcars were the key to station location in Philadelphia from mid century on as they allowed the steam railroads to end the expensive and inefficient practice of using horses to propel their trains within the limits of the pre-1854 city. Prior to the introduction of the streetcars, most steam railroads placed their facilities at the fringe of downtown, even though this meant that the last few miles of the journey had to be made on rails laid in the city streets and the trains had to be pulled by horses. After the coming of the streetcars in 1858, the steam railroads withdrew to operationally more efficient terminals that ended this switch from steam to horse power. In 1866, for example, the West Chester & Philadelphia Railroad moved its passenger station from Eighteenth and Market Streets to West Philadelphia (shown at 2 on the map in figure 9) to save the time and expense of the transfer. An 1869 guide to the raihoad makes explicit the importance of the street railways in this process when it notes that the “passenger depot, at Thirty-second and Chestnut Streets, [was] accessible every three to five minutes by Chestnut and Walnut Street cars, and within one square [a city block to Victorian Philadelphians] of those on Market Street.”⁵

Figure 8. The dining room at Reading Terminal when new in 1893. Courtesy of the Print and Picture Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia.

Figure 9. Philadelphia’s central railroad passenger terminals in 1876. Based on an 1876 John L. Smith map of Center City in collection of author.

Key:
1	Prime Street depot	Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore
2	West Chester depot	West Chester & Philadelphia
3	West Philadelphia station	Pennsylvania
4	Main Line depot	Philadelphia & Reading
5	Ninth and Green station	Philadelphia & Reading
6	North Pennsylvania depot	Philadelphia & Reading
7	Kensington depot	Pennsylvania
A	Old State House
B	Centre Square
C	Vine Street ferry
D	Market Street ferry
E	South Street ferry

This movement away from the commercial core at mid century had a significant effect on railroad passengers: it shifted the risk of delay on the busy streets of the city from the railroad companies to the travelers. In the 1840s, once an outbound passenger boarded a horse-drawn car in or near Center City, he or she was on their railway journey. By 1876, passengers had to carefully calculate their travel times to the outlying passenger facilities or risk missing their train. Some passengers—John L. Smith was one example—consistently had trouble getting their timing right and often missed their trains.⁶

The travel time between these mid-century railroad passenger facilities and the central business district varied greatly, from under ten minutes for some of the ferry terminals to nearly an hour for the stations located in Northeast Philadelphia. For most passengers bound to or from the old State House (Independence Hall to non-Philadelphians), a ride or walk of twenty to thirty minutes was typical. The old State House, located at Fifth and Chestnut Streets, was in the center of the commercial district and serves as a good surrogate for typical middle-class business and shopping destinations of the period.⁷

The location of these passenger facilities influenced the development of middle-class housing in the region. Although the majority of commuters continued to live within the city limits throughout the nineteenth century, suburbanization began on a small scale for the elite and upper-middle class a little after mid century. Haddonfield, in Camden County, New Jersey, developed as an early bedroom community in part because of the quickness of the commute to Center City via train and ferry. One reason that the progress of Philadelphia’s famous “Main Line” suburbs lagged a few decades behind that of Haddonfield was the relative inconvenience to downtown of the Pennsylvania’s West Philadelphia station compared to the ferry terminals.⁸

Of the ten railroad passenger facilities in use in the mid-1870s, the busiest by far were these four: Prime Street, West Philadelphia, and Ninth and Green rail terminals, and the Market Street ferry. Prime Street was the northern terminus of the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad, an independent line that served the cities in its name and formed part of the jointly operated route between New York and Washington. The Pennsylvania Railroad’s West Philadelphia station had trains for New York, Pittsburgh, and Washington (the through trains from New York). The Ninth and Green depot, operated by the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, was the city’s busiest commuter terminal, with trains to Germantown, Chestnut Hill, and Norristown. Ferries from Market Street connected with trains in Camden for many points in southern New Jersey, including the rapidly growing resort of Atlantic City and the elite suburb of Haddonfield. The remaining facilities were not as busy. They either served less important lines (like the small West Chester & Philadelphia) or were the downgraded remnants of once major stations, as the Kensington depot had become following the takeover of the Philadelphia & Trenton by the Pennsylvania Railroad and the subsequent transfer of most of its train service to the West Philadelphia station.⁹

Through the 1870s, the Philadelphia railroads remained committed to their outlying locations. But on December 5, 1881, the Pennsylvania Railroad made travel more convenient for many middle-class Philadelphians and contributed to the radical alteration of the fabric of the city when it opened its Broad Street Station at Centre Square. The new structure replaced not only the railroad’s West Philadelphia depot but, because of corporate consolidations, the West Chester & Philadelphia and Prime Street terminals as well. When it opened, the new station was just west of the central business district, about a ten-minute car ride from the old State House.¹⁰

By the turn of the century, as illustrated in the map in figure 10, the station stood within the expanded downtown. Four separate but related decisions dramatically shifted the focus of the city core to Centre Square from the old State House in the late nineteenth century: the municipality’s construction of a new City Hall in the square, John Wanamaker’s 1876 conversion of an abandoned railroad freight station into a large retail establishment one block to the east, the opening of Broad Street Station one block to the west, and the establishment of a new Philadelphia & Reading passenger terminal three blocks to the east in 1893.

The complement of modern train stations in Philadelphia was completed by the Baltimore & Ohio’s Twenty-fourth and Chestnut Streets depot in 1887 and the Philadelphia & Reading’s 1893 Reading Terminal. The B&O facility befitted the railroad’s late arrival and minor role in the city: it was smaller and was the only late nineteenth century station not built within or near the central business district. Reading Terminal at Twelfth and Market Streets in Center City, however, was an appropriate competitor for Broad Street Station. When it opened, the Reading closed both the Ninth and Green and Broad and Callowhill depots and significantly downgraded the Berks Street station.

Figure 10. Philadelphia’s central railroad passenger terminals in 1901. Based on an 1876 John L. Smith map of Center City in collection of author.

Key:
1	Twenty-fourth and Chestnut Streets station	Baltimore & Ohio
2	Broad Street Station	Pennsylvania
3	Reading Terminal	Philadelphia & Reading
4	Berks Street depot	Philadelphia & Reading
5	Kensington depot	Pennsylvania
A	Old State House
B	Centre Square
C	Market Street ferry
D	Chestnut Street ferry
E	South Street ferry

By 1901, the two main railroad stations for Philadelphia were in the heart of the commercial district. The only two passenger facilities that were far from downtown were the two in Northeast Philadelphia, both of which survived as distinctly minor terminals serving largely local needs in an industrial section of the city. As one guide to the city put it: “Third and Berks and Kensington depots … are but little used, because the major part of the business has been transferred to [the new stations.] They are, moreover, remote from the center of the city, and offer few conveniences for travelers.” By the turn of the century, most train riders bound for Center City could walk from either the new Pennsylvania or Reading depot to their final destinations. The travel time to Wanamaker’s department store, for example, was reduced from twenty minutes by street car from the Reading’s Ninth and Green station to just a two-minute walk from the new Reading Terminal (or a five-minute one from Broad Street Station). In addition, passengers traveling to locations in the city outside the central business district had access to more car lines at the new locations. According to the Pennsylvania Railroad’s official history, “the superior location of [Broad Street Station] seemed to create new traffic.” By moving their terminals closer to the new offices, stores, and theaters, both the Pennsylvania and the Reading dramatically increased the potential for local passenger traffic. The Center City anchors of the middle-class metropolis were firmly in place.¹¹

Broad Street Station and Reading Terminal were not only more convenient to downtown but were also larger and qualitatively different because of the services that they offered to the public. During the late-nineteenth century, the railroads redefined the very nature of space in and around their central terminals. The depots were transformed from simple transportation hubs to civic landmarks. To reach these new terminals the railways separated their trains from road traffic by an increasingly elaborate network of bridges, viaducts, and tunnels. Not only did space become more carefully defined between the railroad and its surrounding community, but it also became more ordered within the stations. Passenger trains were separated from freight trains. Space for trains became more clearly divided from that for people. Incoming and outgoing passengers had separate routes through the buildings. The number of amenities dramatically increased. All in all, the world of the railway traveler became more elaborate and better organized.

The Ninth and Green Streets depot was typical of the enlarged “train barn” stations built throughout the United States in the 1850s. In Philadelphia, both the Philadelphia & Reading’s Main Line depot of 1859 and the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore’s Prime Street station were similar. At its base, this style of building consisted of a head house structure, which usually contained waiting rooms and ticketing and baggage facilities on the first floor and company offices on the second, attached to an enclosed train shed (typically with a largely solid, wooden roof). The structures, though palatial compared to the original depots of the 1830s that they replaced, tended to be small; the station at Ninth and Green Streets (figure 11) took up half of a smaller than average city block and its train shed contained but three tracks.¹²

Like most antebellum stations, the interior layout of the Ninth and Green terminal was simple, with few divisions. In part, this was because these depots offered little to the public except those services directly related to train travel. The only people who ventured to these inconveniently placed mid-nineteenth-century railroad facilities were passengers or people accompanying or meeting train riders. The largest portion of the structure consisted of the dark wooden train shed that covered the three tracks and the “platforms” that were little more than walkways between the tracks. Four other interior spaces are shown on the plan in figure 12 as being used by the public: two waiting rooms, a package room, and a baggage room. The larger waiting room likely contained both the ticket office and the newsstand (the only non-railroad service in the building). The smaller waiting room was probably the Ladies’ Waiting Room, a feature provided at most major urban terminals by mid century. There was no restaurant; nor did the Reading provide a place within the building for its passengers to smoke, as it officially designated both waiting rooms as non-smoking. All in all, its interior was simple and its amenities spartan.¹³

Simplicity in interior layout, however, did not guarantee safety at stations like Ninth and Green Streets. The location of both the tracks and the platforms at street level meant there was no clear division between the areas meant for trains and those for passengers. People walked across the running lines within the station to reach their trains or the street. Railroads could do little to stop this practice, other than having their employees attempt to discourage it. For example, on a Sunday in 1881, John L. Smith left his mother’s house in North Philadelphia to spend the day with friends in Germantown. After dinner, he returned home via the Ninth and Green depot. His day came to a dramatic, and nearly fatal, conclusion when he “made a narrow escape” from a locomotive as it backed into the station while he was crossing the tracks. Smith leapt out of its way, prompted by the shouted warnings of nearly “40 train Hands.” Accidents like this were not uncommon in the United States, as a guidebook for English travelers warned: “A special word of caution may be given to the frequent necessity for crossing the tracks, as the rails are frequently flush with the floor of the station and foot-bridges or tunnels are rarely provided” as was then the practice in Europe.¹⁴

Conditions were particularly bad at this depot. In addition to the many passenger switching movements (like the one that nearly felled Smith), the Reading operated a busy freight line down the center of Ninth Street. The ground-level tracks also created numerous grade crossings of streets for trains using the station. This both slowed the trains and disrupted life in the surrounding neighborhoods. This mix of railroad and street traffic also led to many accidents.¹⁵

Figure 11. A classic mid-century depot: the Philadelphia & Reading depot at Ninth and Green Streets circa 1895. Courtesy of the Print and Picture Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia.

Figure 12. The simple interior layout of the Ninth and Green Streets depot. Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library.

In addition to these problems, the lighting was poor both within the train shed and on Ninth Street. By the mid-188os these issues had become serious enough for Reading operating officials to express concern over passenger safety at the aging depot. One manager proposed locking most of the entrances to the station, posting additional watchmen, and petitioning the city to close Ninth Street as a public thoroughfare in order “to reduce the high number of accidents … as locomotives and cars are being constantly moved.” In other words, the railroad would begin to define more clearly the boundary between trains and people. Another supervisor was concerned with the “many narrow escapes [the railroad has had] while unloading our passengers at night.…” Although the Reading installed additional electric lights in 1883 and did close some entrances, the cramped, dark, and busy station at Ninth and Green remained a relatively unsafe place until its abandonment in 1893.¹⁶

The movement away from buildings like the one at Ninth and Green began in 1876 when the Pennsylvania Railroad built a new passenger station in West Philadelphia and the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore substantially reconstructed its facility in South Philadelphia. These two depots were important transitional structures, built largely on the scale of the mid-century terminals but with far more complex interior designs presaging the elaborate facilities of Broad Street Station and Reading Terminal. Because they were essentially the same size as the earlier stations, these Centennial depots affirm that the Victorian redefinition of space was not developed in reaction to physical expansion.

The Prime Street station had been one of Philadelphia’s most impressive railroad depots since it was built by the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore in 1851–52. Although similar in appearance to the Reading facility at Green Street, it was larger and more elaborately decorated. Its train shed held seven tracks and three “platforms.” When built, the railroad claimed that the head house contained “every convenience known or believed to be essential to a station of such prominent importance.” It was probably the first depot in Philadelphia to contain a dining room in addition to the standard waiting room, ticket office, and baggage facilities supplied at the other stations. But the terminal also had many of the same problems as the Green Street facility. The Prime Street train shed was low and dark. Its tracks and the platforms were placed at street level, allowing passengers to enter the station through the train shed. In addition, until the 1876 renovation, freight trains shared the facility with their passenger counterparts.¹⁷

If space was not well defined in and around the mid-century Prime Street, the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore station was a masterpiece of planning when compared to the jumble of tracks and structures that made up the Pennsylvania Railroad’s first depot in West Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania had moved its main Philadelphia terminal to a small structure at Thirty-first and Market Streets from an even smaller building at Eleventh and Market in 1864. By the early 1870s, the Pennsylvania’s passenger facilities at West Philadelphia had grown to two separate stations with three sets of platforms sprawling over two city blocks, with a group of freight depots and tracks intermixed (see figure 13 for a map showing this conglomeration of tracks and platforms taken from a city atlas). The original 1864 terminal (“A” in figure 13) had two tracks under a train shed and was used by trains to Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. A short distance to the west was the separate “New York” station, built in 1867, with its own two-track train shed for service to Trenton and Jersey City (“B”). Finally, still farther to the west, a wooden walkway led from the New York depot to a platform located on a low-level connecting line that was used by through Washington to Jersey City trains (“C”). With the large number of freight trains running on the tracks adjacent to these passenger facilities, this complex of buildings and platforms was neither safe nor terribly easy for the first-time passenger to navigate. Not only was their little separation between freight and passenger space, there was effectively none between the railroad and the community.¹⁸

At the Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore depots in 1876 space became noticeably better defined both in and around the facilities. Perhaps the single most important change resulting from these improvements was the clear separation of passenger traffic from freight traffic at the new or renovated termini. In South Philadelphia, the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore built a new freight facility adjoining its Prime Street station. This allowed the existing structure to be used exclusively for passenger purposes. In West Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania finally built a depot at Thirty-second and Market Streets large enough to house all its passenger services in one building. Like the renovated facility at Prime Street, the new Pennsylvania terminal was for passenger trains only. Also like its counterpart in South Philadelphia, the West Philadelphia depot’s head house had a complex interior that consisted of “gentlemen’s” and “ladies’ “ waiting rooms, separate ticketing and baggage offices, a restaurant, and company offices. ¹⁹

Figure 13. Complex and confusing: the Pennsylvania Railroad’s West Philadelphia stations in 1872. Courtesy of the Map Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia.

Key:
A	Original depot for the trains to Pittsburgh
B	Station for trains to New York originating in Philadelphia
C	Platform for through New York to Washington trains

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