Conquering Gotham : a Gilded Age epic : the construction of Penn Station and its tunnels

Engaging history of the construction of New York City’s Penn Station and the monumental challenges, physical and political, that had to be overcome. The technical points are put across with a minimum of jargon, and one grasps the points easily. The choice of illustrations is also good; too often, books like this skimp on them. The author also explains why Penn Station failed, a point that sentimentalists often overlook. One oddity is repeated references to the “Journal American” newspaper, which is anachronistic, since it wasn’t created until much later. Recommended, especially for railroad and NYC buffs.

Sometimes confusing, but otherwise interesting recounting of the battle the Pennsylvania Railroad had in getting into Manhattan (Gotham). Conquering Gotham included conquering Carnegie, Tammany, Belmont and civil engineering challenges. Creating an incredible work of art at Penn Station, New York lost an opulence impossible to recapture by the demolition of Charles McKim's and Stanford White's original Penn. The book The Late Great Pennsylvania Station is superior in its writing and photographs.

Wonderful history of one the the greatest buildings ever created in America. The tragic, pointless destruction of Pennsylvania Station in the 1960's will always be rememberd as one of the saddest chapters in architectural history. The preservation of historic buildings movement was sparked by the razing of Pennsylvania Station and led to the saving of Grand Central Terminal later in the 1970's. The folly of the American trend to destroy such treasures can be seen in the current movement to recreate Penn Station in the Old Post Office building, located ajacent to the current Penn Station

An interesting combination of industrial and political history, at a time of dramatic change.

The author tends to do a bit too much speculative reconstruction of thoughts or events.

It was very interesting to see how many different people were connected and interconnected in this era in New York.

The repeated use of "Gotham" to refer to Manhattan is a bit overdone.

I really enjoyed this. It was of a proper length for what it covered, plenty of background bio of the people involved and not overly technical in the building specifics. The author is a pleasant find, I have another book of hers in my TBR which will quickly move toward the top.

Rather dry, almost textbook-like telling of larger than life personalities and world-leading engineering that resulted in the "sub-aqueous tube tunnel" that went under the Hudson River to reach Manhattan at the start of the 19th Century.

Again could not understand all of the building terms but the story is unbelievable. It shows the incredible cost in terms of life and money that was spent in buildings that I have always taken for granted. Geez