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Grand Central's Engineer: William J. Wilgus and the Planning of Modern Manhattan. By Kurt C. Schlichting. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012. Pp. xii+276. $49.95.
When the new Grand Central Terminal opened in February 1913,William Wilgus, the former chief engineer of the NewYork Central Railroad and the man who first envisioned and planned the monumental station, went unmentioned.No stories in the press, no speech at the opening ceremonies, no commemorative plaque made note of his contributions. Indeed, as Kurt Schlichting asserts in his biography of the engineer,Wilgus "remains lost to history" (p. 1). He sets out to rectify this loss, meticulously catalogingWilgus's engineering accomplishments and near visionary insights into the "perplexing transportation problems" of New York City in the early twentieth century (p. 8).
In 1899,Wilgus was named chief engineer of the New York Central at age 34.He almost immediately developed a complex and integrated plan to remake the line's outdated depot at 42nd Street, including razing the existing building and train yard, building a two-story underground yard, constructing a new terminal building, and switching the motive power from steam to electricity. If this were not enough, he also imagined a twelve-story office building...