Beacon at Mile 435.9-1: A Station too late, too far
Trains Magazine September 1985
Garnet R. Cousins
A dark, somber mood gripped the country as 1930 dawned. History's uncanny timing was placing events in a pattern; a new decade was about to begin in an atmosphere nobody would have predicted just a few months earlier. The Depression had begun. If you were lucky enough to have recieved a New York Central calendar that year, each glance at the wall magnified your sense of irony. The scene was so positive: warm yello lights shone everywhere, eastbound and westbound Centuries were side by side, a new station was introduced. Power and confidence had rarely been so well portrayed.
Walter L. Greene's impressionistic calendar painting of 1930 - Eastward, Westward The "Centuries" at Buffalo Central Terminal - dramatically caught the architectural drama possible in the creative use of exterior floodlighting. The architects' clever decision to wash the upper level walls with light had made the tower a beacon visible for 15 miles. All four clocks were lighted from within and could be read from the platforms as well as driveway approach - arriving and departing passengers always knew what time it was. As well as articulating the station's shape, the light made it a kind of billboard, broadcasting through the darkness that here was a place of around-the-clock activity where service never slept.
It was not an original idea. Advertising had come of age in the romantic 1920's.
Times Square and Broadway beat back the night, brashly hawking their wares. On a more sophisticated level, the American Radiator Building in New York City by Raymond Hood was a pioneer in this exciting, theatrical approach to architecture. Completed in 1924, it was given widespread coverage by all the journals. More interesting, it was only a few blocks south of the office of two up-and-coming architects, close enough for them to take in on a lunch-hour walk...impressive enough to become an inspiration for a project they were about to begin, Buffalo Central Terminal.
The beauty of Buffalo's new station, however, belied its intricate and arduous history. It crowned nearly 50 years of effort on the part of merchants, politicians, citizens, and the New York Central in their struggle to come together and agree upon a station design and location. But while agitation for a new station began in 1881, the story's roots went back even further by some 39 years.
In 1842, 17 years after the completion of the Erie Canal to Buffalo, the city was connected to Albany by rail when the Buffalo & Attica was completed to Batavia. In 1848 the first recorded railroad structure in the city, a small brick station, was constructed on Exchange Street (once known as Old Crow Street) and became the first of several stations constructed at that site. This structure burned (date unknown) and was replaced by another in 1855, just two years after the formation of the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad, predecessor of the New York Central. Little is known about this second station. One account referred to it as a "grand old building." President Abraham Lincoln stopped there in 1861 on his way east to be inaugurated. On April 26, 1865, his funeral train paused there. Author Samuel M. Clemens arrived there when he came to town in 1866 to work at the Buffalo Express.
The first state of what was to become the final Exchange Street station was erected in 1870 between Michigan and Washington Streets. In 1875 the Erie Railroad became a neighbor when it erected a large brick station a block east on Exchange between Michigan and Chicago Streets and from there gave the NYC strong competition for New York traffic with a 15-mile-shorter route. Thousands of people flocked to this tation on weekends to take excursions to Portage, Kinzua Bridge, Rock City, Alden and Gowanda. Exchange Street was becoming "railroad alley," a smoky and dangerous conglomeration of grade level street crossings.
In 1879, after a great deal of effort and androit political moves, New York Central succeeded in getting a track connection down between its Niagara Falls line and its Exchange Street Station. Previously, traffic on the Niagara Falls branch had dead-ended at an undistinguished station on Erie Street near the Harbor. These new connecting tracks crossed the famed Terrace, a cobblestone plaza where westbound pioneers changed from canal barges to the northbound strap-rail trains to Black Rock.
In the following summer of 1880, a wood-framed clapboard station was completed on the Terrace and Mrs. Nancy E. Jewett was made agent in charge. This station ended the need for the Erie Street station for train purposes. In exchange for the right to cross and build on the Terrace, the NYC&HR had to agree to always mantain a passenger station west of Michigan Street and to use the tracks for passenger purposes only.
These were important concessions, because even at this early date local citizens and officals were concerened over losing buisness to an East Buffalo station the Centralmaintained almost at the site of the present Buffalo Central Terminal. This station handled through trains of the Central and its affiliated Lake Sore & Michigan Southern. But there was nothing to fear. The connection to the north made the Exchange Street Station even busier.
At about 9 AM on February 8, 1881, the 120-feet wide-by-450-feet long trainshed roof at Exchange Street collapsed, an accident variously blamed on the weight of snow, breaking of a rod in a truss, and cutting of a doorway in one side. The arched roof was constructed of wooden bow-type trusses which rested on 13-inch-thick brick side walls. Under stress, one of the walls buckled and set up a chain reaction that brought the whole roof crashing down, destroying a yard engine and several cars. The time of day, combined with the bitter cold weather, had kept the number of people in the shed area to a minimum. Nevertheless, four persons were killed, three of them railroad employees.
The tragedy spurred agitation for a new station. After investigating the wreckage, however, Central officials decided to repair the damage and concentrate on improving, rather than replacing, the structure.
Laying tracks across the Terrace was vital to completing the Belt Line Railroad. When the Central opened it for service in 1883, citizens could travel around the city for an ickel. This expanded the role of Exchange Street Station, putting an even greater strain on its limited facilities. In 1885, it's first addition was constructed and thereafter the East Buffalo Station sank into anonymity.
By the 1880s Buffalo, a great port and center of commerce, was attracting railroas at the rate of about one a year. A union station began to be discussed. The West Shore was knocking on the door in 1883. Short on funds but long on plans, the New York, West Shore & Buffalo had begun to clear a site on Michigan Street between Exchange and Carroll, a location which would have made it a neighbor to the Erie. It drew up plans for an elaborate union passenger depot, with a brick clock tower, covered entry, and a 600-foot, 8-track trainshed. Buffalo, New York & Philadelphia was to have been a partner in the Adventure. However, bids for what had been estimated as a $200,000 project were in the $400,000 range. The project died, and - almost providentially - the West Short settled for a modest, temporary structure...for shortly thereafter, in 1885, the road was absorbed by NYC&HR.
The year 1999 was one of great activity. A Grade Crossing COmmission was created by an act of the state legislature to coordinate city and railroad plans and responsibilities and to decide how costs would be shared in eleiminating the crossings that were clogging traffic and treatening safety.
That fall, plans were published for a beatiful "grand union depot." They portrayed a massive brick and cut-stone Romanesque-style structure, European in character, not unlike St. Pancras in London. Its main elevation would be along Washington Street with a frontage of 300 feet that culminated on the south end in a giant portal which allowed the station to arch, bridge-like, over the Belt Line. The seven-story structure would sport a 200-foot-high clock tower and was separated from the street by a 100-foot-deep plaza. Along Exchange Street, the station's height dropped to three stories, and this continued for 300 feet before culminating in a 500x280-foot arched trainshed covering 14 tracks. Why this magnificent $700,000 station was never built is a mystery. Perhaps it was the difficulty of bringing together so many diverse interests.
In response to the pressure for a better station, New York Central & Hudson River put a second addition on it's Exchange Street Station in 1900 and a third in 1901. The Pan American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901 (President William McKinley was assassinated while in the city to attend it) was undoubtedly a motivating factor. And yet at the turn of the century, Exchange Street was still a patched-up post-Civil War relic.
The New York Central's brilliant engineering vice president, William J. Wilgus, a native of Buffalo, published a spectacular union station proposal for the city in the January 6, 1906, Railroad Gazette. The 13 railroas which agreed upon the plan, a feat in itself, generated a total of 4300 daily passenger train movements "pass the tower" (the contemporary index of frequency) compared with the 5000 for the old (1871) Grand Central in New York, 4000 at Boston's South Station, 3618 at Pennnsy's Broad Street Station in Philadelphia, and 2500 at St. Louis Union Station.
The 107-acre Genesee Street site, originally suggested by prominent local architect George Cary, was just west of Niagara Square, hub of the city's radial street plan, and extended to the harbor. An expansive boulevard and park approach fanned out in front of the station on the east. The track plan called for 12 6-car stub-end platform tracks and 20 15-car through tracks, the latter feeding into a vast loop track to allowe trains to execute a 360 change in direction and return to their main lines. Another imaginative feature of the plan was construction of adjacent steamboat wharves. Finally, the proposal entailed elimination of all grade crossings from downtown north to Fort Porter, with concentration of freight terminal activity in the vacated Exchange Street Station area.
A city comission, set up to act as a liaison between politicians and merchants of Buffalo and the railroads, endorsed the plan. But Buffalo balked at the cost of closing streets, demolising structures, and constructing harbor facilities, and without the city's participation the project died. Instead, the Exchange Street Station recieved a forth addition in 1906 and a fifth and final one in 1907, even as other union stations were proposed for downtown sites at Lafayette Square, Driving Park, and Eagle Street.
The zenith of union station proposals was presented on June 11, 1907, the joint work of Henry J Pierce, Carl Machener, and W.H. Gratwock representing the city, and W.J. Wilgus (NYC), Samuel Rea PRR, and J.M. Graham (Erie) for the railroads.
The East Buffalo site, known as Filmmore after the major north/south street to the west of it, was the exact location of today's Buffalo Central Terminal. The 1.5 mile long, 300 acre site about 2.5 miles east of Exchange Street Station contained the East Buffalo freight and stock yards of the Central, which would have been transferred to a new Gardenville Yard then under construction.
To offset objections to a location farther from the business center of the city, the report dwelled on its convenience for the growth areas of the east, south, and north, plans for an adjacent park of more than 100 acres, constrution of new and/or widening of old streets, electrification of the Belt Line (including construction of a new station on the Terrace where downtown residents could buy tickets and check baggage before boarding connecting trains to the new terminal), and ability to build the new facility with no disruption of downtown rail activities.
Prophetically, the Railroad Gazette concluded its review of the proposal with the comment that "The plans are presented here more as an interesting study of difficult conditions than as a definite solution of the problem."
Businessmen in the central business district were alarmed by the plans. Old jealousies were rekindled as they saw East Buffalo catching the spotlight. So they gathered together and formed the Joint Terminal Committee of the Chamber of Commerce. They met with officials from all the railroads and became convinced they needed authority to get anywhere. In 1908 the Committee filed a complaint with the newly formed New York State Public Service Commission which charged New York Central with inadequate station facilities, contending that a new station should be constructed at the Exchange Street site. The Central balked, saying there was too little room for growth.
The chairman of the PSC suggested that more progress would be made if an engineer did a study, and George H. Kinball was hird to draw up a new station layout at Exchange Street. Before the plans evolved, however, Erie President F.D. Underwood and Lackawanna President William H. Truesdale said they would not participate in a union station project; and Lehigh Valley dropped out of the fold after buying the old Hamburg Canal strip. Each road had a history of being sole owner of its stations.
In 1911 Democrats gained power in Albany when John A. Dix became govenor. Seizing an opportunity, the Joint Terminal Committee enlisted the services of William H. Fitzpatrick, a prominent figure in Buffalo Democratic politics, to push through a bill creating the Terminal Station Commission. He had the political savvy and the contacts at local and state levels to get the job done, but his task was immensely difficult. The railroads wielding tremendous power, and they were suspicious and resentful of any organization whos goal was directing their decisions on passenger station planning. But Fitzpatrick's Irish tenacity and charm enabled him to realize victory despite vetoes, litigation, and railroad clout.
Buffalo was finally able to cut red tape in acquiring new passenger and freight terminals. In 1913 a new Lackawanna station and docks were finished at the foot of Main Street, and in 1916 Lehigh Valley completed its impressive station on Main. This activity set off a new round of studies by the Central in 1915, but none got far. Pressures on NYC were only relieved when everyone's attention ws diverted by World War I.
At 8:15 AM on February 3, 1917, Exchange Street Station had a $15,000 fire in its west tower. Low water pressure and cold weather made firefighting difficult. About 9 o'clock the cupola - framework exposed and in flames - fell down on the trainsheds, fortunately injuring no one. The time department lost nearly all of its records, including payroll; all telegraphic communication was wiped out; the dispatcher's office was put out of commission; tickets had to be purchased aboard trains. When the damages were repaired, the cupola was not replaced, the resulting flat-top, assymmetrical appearance of the old building emphasizing its patched-up, warhorse image. Patrons must have wondered how much more they or the station could take.
Negotiations were underway for a remedy between the Terminal Station Commission and the New York Central when America's entrance into World War I on April 6, 1917, intervened. By 1923, continuing friction between the Terminal Station Commission and the Grade Crossing Commission was apparent to William H. Fitzpatrick, who pressed for legislation combining the two agencies. The law was enacted July 1, and Maj. George H. Norton, Buffalo City Engineer, became the new Grade Crossing and Terminal Station Commission's chief engineer.
Enter Patrick E. Crowley, who assumed the presidency of the New York Central in 1924. Born within 50 miles of Buffalo in 1864, in Cattaraugus, NY, the son of an Erie station agent, Crowley was an up-from-the-ranks railroader. He began his career as an Erie messenger, then became a telegrapher. Joining NYC&HR on March 1, 1889, as a dispatcher for its subsidiary Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg, he subsequently worked as a chief dispatcher, trainmaster, and division superintendent before being appointed a vice president in 1916. Earning a reputation for operating efficiency, he encouraged the inside joke that his initials stood for "Pull Eighty Cars," If diffident and retiring, Crowley was a popular figure, cordial and on a first-name basis with those far down in the ranks.
He was the right man in the right place at the right time. Many of Central's great physical accomplishments were begun or completed during his administration, including the introduction of Super Power 2-8-4's and 4-6-4's, and the construction of great passenger terminals in Buffalo and Cincinnati and Cleveland.
William H. Fitzpatrick wasted no time in getting to know Crowley and explaining Buffalo's station goals. A century after the Erie Canal put the city on the map, Buffalo had a population of 525,000 and was growing. It was the world's largest flour-miller; cheap electric power from Niagara Falls fed an increasingly diverse industry; 15 railroads served what was called the "Queen City of the Lakes," the gateway to the Middle West, and midpoint on the New York Central (at Mile 438.73 on the 978.73 mile New York-Chicago Water Level Route).
In that jubilant, unregulated (unless you were a railroad) era of President Coolidge taking a daily nap, tycoons playing real-life Monopoly, Babe Ruth producing 46 to 60 home runs a season, and Americans turned on by film and raido, New York Central (including Boston & Albany and Ohio Central but excluding subsidiaries Big Four and Michigan Central) carried 69 million passengers a year (the head count would go to 72.3 million in 1929). NYC counted on passengers and related mail and express revenues for $122 million, vs $240 million from freight in 1925; and passenger train-miles handily exceeded freight (38.1 million to 27.8 million). NYC stock that year hit a high of 137.5 and would peak at 256.5 in 1929. The time was ripe for a first class passenger station!
Crowley appointed R.E. Dougherty, a vice president and engineering assistant to the president, to serve as a liaison with the city on the project. By June 1925, general accord had been reached between the Commission and the Central, and on December 22 an agreement was signed for a new station...on the very site of the 1907 proposal - a portion of a 300-acre East Buffalo land parcel containing NYC freight and stock yards. Some 70 acres were selected along 1.5 miles of track for the project, of which 30 acres were for the station and adjacent facilities. The land was in an industrialized, immigrant, working-class, primarily Polish community.
Why railroad and city were able to agree on a site that 18 years earlier had caused a storm of protest remains a mystery. Crowley, who was certainly aware of the site problem, conveyed the impression at the new terminal's dedication in 1929 that all previously considered sites had been abandoned, saying, "...the only satisfactory solution to the problem was to be found in the location of a station at some point along the main line, thus giving Buffalo the service and advantage of the high-class through trains which could not make use of a station at any of the locations which had previously been considered."
To calm any lingering fears, however, a supplemental agreement with the city promised plans would be submitted for a new downtown station by December 31, 1926 - they weren't. The agreement also declared that the Terrace tracks would be removed - they remained. The $9 million estimate for the work my partly explain the foot-dragging.
To complete the site, the Central had to acquire 150 home sites, a task that became so difficult that condemnation proceedings were considered. Most of the 190 houses contained more than one family, some had five or six. Most could not speak English. It was a rough area. One motorcycle officer said, "It was known then as "The Hollow" when I first came on the force and many a call I answered there. I'm glad they're all torn down. Some of the tenants sure were tough."
William S. Rann, a legal representative for the NYC, had handled the delicate questions of property law involved in acquiring so many land parcels. A local realtor, Fenton M Parke of Parke, Hall & Co. Realtors, purchased the sites on commission for the Central, a task still not finished by April 1926. But in anticipation of success, groundbreaking had taken place March 29 when work commenced on an underpass at William Street for the new tracks.
The site was a vast, flat expanse of hard clay which drained poorly and was frequently inundated by rain; the grade was raised with cinder fill compacted by 14-ton rollers. An elaborate storm sewer system was constructed to relieve water build-up with strategically located catch basins, including one at each switch.
Most of 1927 was spent working on footings; trenches for steam, water, and air lines; the power house; alteration and extension of existing Railway Express facilities; and trackwork. Thirty miles of track were relocated and 31 new miles laid; 105-pound rail was used. The new trackwork involved 40 slip switches and 180 turnouts.
City streets were altered and new ones constructed. Peckham and Lovejoy (the latter renamed Paderewski in honor of Ignace Jan Paderewski, famed Polish concert pianist and, appropriately, a patron of the Century) were widened. A new mile-long, 100-foot-wide street was constructed along the old embankment of the West Shore Railroad named Lindbergh Drive in honor of America's new aviation hero (subsequently renamed Memorial Drive after the flyer's noninterventionist activities on the eve of World War II.) The stinging irony of a new railroad station skirted by a street named for a flyer, innoccent though it seemed, demonstrated the public's fascination with air science and portended events to come. Curtiss Street was moved 200 feet north, relocated so that the new bridge would straddle it like a bridge and it could serve as a service street so that trucks of supplies, mail, and baggage could be segregated from automobiles.
Work on the station proper began August 3, 1927 - at Mile 435.9 on the 958.1 mile Water Level Route between Grand Central Terminal, New York, and La Salle Street Station, Chicago.
The plans had been prepared by architects equal to the job. The firm of Fellheimer & Wagner was formed in 1923 and Buffalo Central Terminal was its first major commission. But the founders' credentials went back many years.
Alfred Fellheimer, Chicago native and 1895 University of Illinois graduate, had become chief draftsman for Frost & Granger. The firm began work on La Salle Street Station, Chicago, during his stay, offering the perfect apprenticeship for an aspiring architect with an interest in railroad structures. In 1902 Fellheimer joined Reed & Stem in St. Paul; again his timing was perfect as that firm was about to win the Grand Central Terminal competition. He worked first on shop buildings, power stations, and a passenger station in Schenectady, then from 1908 to 1911 on GCT and Michigan Central's new station in Detroit.
When Reed's untimely death sattered the firm in 1911, Fellheimer established a firm with Stem that designed several stations including NYC's in Utica as well as miscellaneous structures for the New York, Westchester & Boston. In 1914 he went completely on his own, handling commissions for stations in Burlington VT, and Macon, GA. During World War I he worked on a port of embarkation for the Hoboken Shore Railroad, also engaged in consuting work for the Japanese, Haitian, and Great Western (England) railways.
Steward Wagner, a 6-foot, 2-inch native of Marlin TX, was an interesting contract to his 5-foot, 4-inch Midwest partner. He had come to New York in 1907 to study at Columbia University, won a competition for the design of the Missouri State Capital Building, and worked for a number of local firms before going on his own in 1914. His experience wsa nonrail. Besides bringing varied contacts to the new firm, Wagner's forte was production - getting the job out; Fellheimer was more concerned with the aesthetics and concepts, indeed he wrote several articals on railroad station design.
The team owned a five-story office at 155 E. 42nd Street in New York, occupying the top three floors and renting out the rest. Their New York Central ties stemmed from Fellheimer's personal friendship with George A. Harwood, who became Central's chief engineer, electric zone improvements, after the 1907 resignation of William J Wilgus, and, after World War I, engineering assistant to the president. Fellheimer designed two houses for Harwood, who had the utmost confidence in him. Harwood died in 1926, but Fellheimer and Wagner was well established by that time. Buffalo Central Terminal was a great plum for the firm and was immediately followed by its masterpiece, Cincinnati Union Terminal, by which time the firm had about 100 employees.
What a sight it was! New York Central had spent $14 million and created more than a railroad station, rather an enourmous passenger train support complex. What the traveling public utilized was the tip of the iceberg. An observer trying to get his bearings would have noted that the centerpiece of the complex was the station proper, a basically rectangular structure composed of two intersecting barrel vaults. Extending from this mass, like two long arms, were the 450-foot-long train concourse and the 362-foot-long baggage and mail wing. Planted at the northwest corner was the 15-story (the numbering excluded the main, mezzanine, and penthouse floors), 271-foot-high, and 80-foot-square office tower. The station'office building, designed to handle 3200 passengers an hour "conveniently," encompassed approximately 320,000 square feet and was designed for an anticipated Buffalo population of 1.5 million (the figure peaked at 580,132 in 1950, currently is only 357,870 in the city and 1,154,600 in the metro area).
The Fellheimer design was a curious mixture of conservatism and adventure, its overall form little different from the typical 19th century station combining a three to four story base structure with a dominant clock tower at the corner. This popular configuration was modeled after 12th century Romanesque churches, with the campanile becoming the clock tower. At Buffalo the Romanesque arches were given a fresh interpretation by framing them at the sides with square-topped, but tress-like masses - a favourite form of Fellheimer which he used again on a larger scale as the main design element for the front elevation at Cincinnati Union Terminal.
The Terminal's Jupiter-like mass was lightened and its relatively modest height increased by a technique which stemmed from a 1916 New York City zoning law, which decreed that a building's surface had to be held within an angle drawn from an imaginary vertical plane placed at the center of the facing street. The law was enacted to permit more light to reach the street after improving technology had led to higher and higher buildings on crowded sites which made dark canyons of the streets below. The new law spawned a popular style of architecture in which buildings acquired a wedding-cake appearance as their higher floors were stepped back, gaining an illusion of added height.
And the Terminal was influenced by a 1922 international competition held by the Chicago Tribune for its headquarters design. Hundreds of designs were entered. Ironically, the winner was a child of the past, while the second-place entry by Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen pointed toward the future. The sheer cliff-like sides of Saarinen's design were considered a break with tradition, owing no debt to any historic style. Devoid of familiar ornamentation, these slab sides were given life by subtly varying their surface planes to generate bands of vertical protrusions and depressions. Such ornamentation as existed was created by manipulating the masonry coursings to fashion highly geometric motifs. The result was a layered look that cleanly emphasized verticality. American architects went so wild over the great Finn's work that a trend ensued. Fellheimer was captivated and used these elements at Buffalo, saying "The architectural treatment is in sympathy with the recent trent toward rational design, which for lack of a better name may for the time being be designated, 'modern American.'"
Echoes of Saarinen's widely publicized Helsinki Station of 1914 could be heard emanating from the masses and voids of Buffalo's tower and semicircular arches. Helsinki's elaborate, finely crafted stonework belonged to the Expressionist style, which had a fondness for texture and a handcrafted appearance which was usually carried out in brick (and known as the North German brick style). Buffalo Central Terminal's intricate buff-colored brick cladding epitomized this approach.
By 1925, Austrian, French, and German trends in arts and crafts, interior design and architecture, were being adopted in the United States, which more than a decade earlier had embraced Art Nouveau. The new style, Art Deco, was the rage for a decade. Besides a fascination with strong unusual colors and such rarely used materials as veneered plywood, plated metals, and frosted glass, Art Deco was characterized by simplified geometric forms - trapezoids, triangular, and zigzag shapes. Animal, plant, and flower forms were stylized and given a cut-out, two-dimensional appearance. Fellheimer was hesitant to use Art Deco motifs to any extent on the exterior; perhaps he thought it wise on his first big commission to tone down use of something so new. However, on the interior he had far less inhibition and used Art Deco almost extravagantly in the restaurant and women's restroom/lounge.
The Terminal reflected the outlook Fellheimer inherited from his mentor Reed. Like Reed, he was fascinated by pedestrian traffic flow and architectural solutions to its direction and control. Ramps were the key to the workings of the new facility, just as ramps were a central theme of Grade Central Terminal, where Reed had battled Whitney Warren, a proponent of the grand staircase. The base problem of a through-type passenger station - crossing tracks to reach and exit trains - was solved by placing the main floor 21 feet above track level, reached by a main approach drive on a 3.16 per cent grade. Though taken for granted now, Fellheimer said of it: "A pioneer plan dependent upon a fresh study of the best connections between an upper-level entrance and the track platforms." The same idea would be honed to perfection at Cincinnati Union Terminal. Actually, the Kansas City Union Station of 1914 had taken advantage of natural topography to achieve the same result. What was original with Fellheimer, however, was his unintentionally high main floor level and the man-made hill which was created in order to reach it.
As though he had envisioned a gigantic turnstile, Fellheimer set up a lazy-S flow of movement. A passenger entered the Terminal at the base of the tower, walking by a Union News drug store and haberdashery and a lobby of four elevators (one to the top of the tower, one to the 15th floor, and two to the 6th floor only).
Then he entered the Terminal's grandest "room," the 225-foot-long, 66-foot-wide passenger concourse, with a height of 58.5 feet from the floor to vaulted ceiling and 63.5 feet at the domed sections over balconies at either end. Art Deco details were continued throughout: ornamental metal finials in fleur-de-lis patterns; carved marble finials reminiscent of papyrus leaves; lights faceted like crystals, as concerned with geometry as illumination; and terrazzo floor designs in four shades of marble. Yet it all seemed somehow out of place, swallowed up in the overwhelming, monastic, tan-colored volume of the whole. (Here Fellheimer was experimenting cautiously, practicing a style which by Cincinnati Union Terminal he would have fully at his command and be able to use more consistently.) The overwhelming volume was given human scale by a central information booth and clock kiosk, reminiscent of the Golden Clock in GCT.
The high arched tile ceilings became one with the walls as this material continued in an unbroken line, stopping 15 feet above floor level before changing to a more easily maintained marble. The vast and cavernous spaces thus framed had the humbling grandeur of cathedrals, but the immense volume and the hard surfaces could have produced grave acoustical problems. Fellheimer and Wagner attempted to address the issue by setting the foundation pillars on vibration mats made up of layers of asbestos and led, a concept tried at Grand Central Terminal. Ground-transmitted energy generated by trains below was taken up by these shock absorbers.
Further, Guastavino tile was used on the ceilings. This rough-surfaced, porous clay tile of good sound absorbing qualities was the invention of Rafael Guastavino II. The method of placing the tile was the invention of his father, who came to this country from Barcelona in 1881. Relatively inexpensive compared with using individual cut stones, the procedure consisted of constructing wood forms and hanging them from a building's structural steel roof supports. Laborers, working in the ceiling cavity thus created, would place the tile face down on the forms and then back it up with a second layer of mortar and tile, which acted as a binder. When the mortar cured, the mass became one entity and the wood forms were removed. It was a tedious process requiring the highest level of craftsmanship to ensure that the wood forms had the proper curvature. It was the single most time-consuming task during the station's construction, requiring eight months to complete.
To insulate the floor in areas exposed to sounds from below, such as the train concourse, concrete floors were given a lining of two-inch-thick cork.
To the outbound passenger's right, at the end of the "room," were the beautiful bronze grillages and marble ticket counters of 18 ticket windows, manned by 46 employees with phone connections to 22 Pullman reservationists. From the ticket windows one had a short walk to the baggage check room, with its clever spiral-chute connection to the track-level baggage room.
The adjacent waiting room had a Spanish stucco finish throughout, differentiating it from other major areas, where tile was employed. Its high and arched ceiling flattened out at the upper portion, which was painted sky blue with rendered clouds and indirect lighting to create the impression of being opened to the outdoors. If you felt you were in Spain's Alhambra, you were quickly reminded of New York State with every glance at the clocks punctuating each end of the room, flanked by symmetrically placed, plaster, 6-foot-diameter, bas-relief medallions depicting the Statue of Liberty, West Point, the A.H. Smith Memorial Bridge, and Niagara Falls. Despite the sparkle, the waiting room was claustrophobic, with a chapel like aura of detachment.
Accessible from the waiting room was a women's room patterned after the most opulent theatres. Decorative panels done in American Indian-like pattern of red, gold, green, black, and gray were placed regularly along ivory colored walls. Low modern furniture was used throughout. Divans were done in salmon-red leather with gold buttons and had dark, Macassar wood legs. End tables had black marble tops. Four desks in Macassar wood and black marble were provided.
Item: The men's and women's restrooms were the only facilities open to the public which had a view of the train platforms - perhaps a calculated move aimed at discouraging loitering and sightseeing.
Across the passenger concourse and opposite the waiting room was a 100-foot, 10-inch long, 56-foot-deep combination coffee shop/lunch room/dining room restaurant seating 250 persons. The theme was an interlocking series of trapezoids in red, green, black and ivory, decorated with a continuous soffit that contained interior lighting shining up on a blue, 21-foot-high ceiling. Double U-shaped lunch counters had black Carrara glass tops. A black-and-gold colored marble wainscot ran continuously along the side walls, and silver and bronze ornamental grillwork created the half walls which separated the restaurant into it's three sections.
The train concourse, attained from either the passenger concourse or waiting room, was a 44-foot-wide, 450-foot-long grand corridor across the tracks. To the outbound passenger's right, or west, side were seven stairways, each with a bulletin board indicating the departure time and destinations of the train below. To his left (east) were seven other openings, each bringing arriving passengers up 220-foot-long ramps on a 10 per cent grade. (At Cincinnati, Fellheimer would provide ramps for both departing and arriving passengers.) Escalators were not used because of their slowness, expense, and the number required.
The arriving Terminal passenger walked straight ahead along the east side of the building to the exit lobby to hail a cab or be picked up by car. An adjacent stair led down to track (and street) level and into an area designated as the street car waiting room. Its doors were open to open onto a streetcar loop, the culmination of a track scheduled to run south from Broadway along Curtiss Street. But the street railway extension never came. As the Buffalo Courier Express editorialized on opening day, "Unhappily the completion of the terminal finds facilities for transportation of travelers to and from the center of the city as yet undeveloped. The city government has been sadly remiss in this matter. The authorities temporized while work on the terminal went steadily forward. Now that it is completed and open for service, there is a great show of activity on their part."
Instead, public transportation was provided by 195 taxis - 125 from the Van Dyke Taxi Company and 70 from the Yellow Cab Company.
Circulation of mail and baggage was given as much consideration as that of passengers, making use of a similar ramp system for changing levels. From the steel frame, brick-faced 362-foot-long, 60-foot-wide baggage and mail building, electric carts traversed a 28-foot -wide, 628-foot-long subway on a 7 per cent ramp down to a below track level. At a point 250 feet east of the train concourse, a right turn was made and the carts headed south under the tracks. Upon reaching a point beneath the track of his destination, the trucker made another right turn and ascended in a westerly direction up through a passageway below a passenger ramp. The U-shaped route was circuitous but necessary to handle the long horizontal component of the mildly sloped ramps. A round trip at 7 mph took about 10 minutes.
Fourteen passenger tracks (with provision for 10 more) were served by 7 concrete platforms, each 22 feet wide and varying in length from 850 to 1200 feet. Platform tracks were set on concrete slabs 18 inches thick at the edge and 14 inches at the center, the 127-pound rails spiked to short, creosoted timber blocks embedded in the concrete. Platforms were 9 inches high as requested by the operating department to (1) make stepboxes unnecessary but (2) still allow for inspection of equipment. Platforms were covered by butterfly sheds constructed of steel columns with precast concrete roofs these were beautifully rounded at the ends, continuing rounded arch forms used on the station, predating in modernity the streamlined Hudsons of Henry Dryfus.
Train movements were controlled by two 21x110-foot, two-story, brick interlocking plants, Station 48 east of the station and Station 49 located 3250 feet west. The carefully soundproofed structures had suspended ceilings lined, as were the walls, with 3/4-inch perforated cane fiber material. Both plants were connected with each other and three other nearby towers by loudspeakers; soundproofing allowed normal conference-type calls between the train directors. No. 48 had a 432-lever capacity with 312 in use (173 for signals, 28 for check locks, and 131 for switches, derails, and frogs); 49 had a 496-lever capacity, with 382 working (222 for signals, 29 for check locks, and 131 for switches, derails and frogs). The all-electric apparatus was built by General Railway Signal and installed by New York Central forces. Each of the towers was manned by a director and three levermen per 8-hour shift. Together, the two towers handled 1400 train movements every 24 hours, including the adjacent freight activity.
A reporter in one of the towers observed, "The view of the yards at night with the red and green signals flashing through the velvet darkness and steel monsters bellowing through the murk, guided by the flashes of tiny light, is not one to be soon forgotten."
Flanking the station to the west was the American Railway Express Company depot, which contained in its two floors over 100,000 square feet. About one-third of this space was new addition which allowed the agency to move facilities from its Green Street depot near Exchange Street Station and consolidate all express services under one roof. The depot was served by 5000 feet of covered platforms and was the largest facility of its kind in the world.
Immediately to the east of the station was the power plant, prominent because its high stack competed in height with the Terminal's office tower. Heat generated by three coal-fired, 28-foot-high, 623 h.p. boilers manufactured by the Erie City Boiler Company was distributed throughout the station complex. Automatic stokers fed the boilers coal from two railroad gondolas at the rate of 6 tons per hour. The power house contained an electric substation to convert the 25-cycle, 2000-volt power supplied by Buffalo General Electric.
East of the power house, in succession, were a two-story, 12,000-square feet Pullman service building, housing primarily stores and bedding repair rooms; a 2000-square-foot ice house; a brick two-story, coach stop of 30,000 square feet containing inspection pits, drop tables, a traveling crane, a wheel and journal lathe, and upholstery and carpentry shops; and an 11-track coach yard with a 100-car capacity.
Locomotives were to have been serviced by a new shop/roundhouse complex located about 2/3-mile east of the terminal adjacent to the Erie's north-south tracks. But this facility was never constructed, and the Hudsons and Pacifics continued to use the so-called West Shore roundhouse one-half mile northeast of Central Terminal.
As with any large railroad station project, Buffalo Central Terminal was a complicated construction endeavor, requiring the talents of many people from several disciplines: surveying; architecture; railway engineering; civil engineering; construction; structural; mechanical engineering; and electrical engineering. Even the legal and real estate departments of the railroad got a workout, along with the politically astute executives who dealt with the city on site selection.
The original engineering boss for the project was George Watson Kittredge, NYC chief engineer Buffalo and east. He had begun his career with the Central in 1880 as a Big Four assistant engineer, transferring in 1906 to New York City to assume the appointment held until retirement January 1, 1927.
He was replaced by Francis Breakey Freeman, born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1867. A tall, affable man with a ruddy complexion and a brogue, Freeman had worked for railways in Ireland and England (Great Southern, Lancashire & Yorkshire) before emigrating to the US in 1892. After a short stint with a civil engineering firm, he went to work in the Erie's bridge department. In 1900 he joined the Central as a draftsman; by 1909 he was chief engineer of the Boston & Albany, a position he held until assuming Kittredge's job in 1927.
Freeman's work required him to attend to many construction projects at once. On the Terminal project he was general supervisor. He was assisted by Julius Welch Pfau, who began the work as engineer of construction and was assistant chief engineer by its conclusion. Born in Troy, NY in 1876, Pfau began his career with Central in 1900 as a chainman with a survey crew. During 1905-1907 he was employed by the state as a masonry expert on the New York State Barge Canal. Advancement was steady upon his return to the railroad. He wore a toupee to conceal a scalp wound incurred when an overhead, roll-up type industrial door fell on him. Those who worked for him held that this explained a stormy personality which could strike terror into those to whom he directed an order.
Direct on-site supervision was handled by William F. Jordan, principal assistant engineer. Born in Auburn, ME, in 1863, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his first railroad job was as a draftsman for the Burlington & Missouri River. He subsequently worked for the Minnesota & Northwestern and the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh before joining the Central in 1900. One of his first projects was Grand Central. His principal ability lay in his talent for handling field problems as they evolved during construction. He was assisted at Buffalo by MM Manning and LP O'Keefe. And when the work was complete, his office was located in the new station.
Buffalo Central Terminal was built by the Walsh Construction Company, founded in 1899 in Davenport IA, by Patrick Walsh. A pioneer railroad contractor in embankments, grade crossing eliminations, bridges, tunnels, and stations, Walsh's clients included Burlington, Chesapeake & Ohio, Milwaukee, Rock Island, and Wabash as well as Central. Upon the founder's death in 1916, his son, Thomas J Welsh, diversified the firm into such massive engineering works as the New York State Barge Canal and the George Washington Memorial Bridge in New York City.
In 1929 Walsh moved its headquarters to New York City, became heavily involved in public works projects such as the Los Angeles Metropolitan Aqueduct and Grand Coulee Dam in the 1930s, and after World War II would become a partner with another giant station contractor, the George A Fuller Company (Kansas City Union Station; Pennsylvania Station, New York; Michigan Central Station, Detroit; North Western Terminal, Chicago) in constructing the United Nations Building.
Walsh's Buffalo field superintedent was RK Eilenberger, who began his career at 19 and prior to joining Walsh, worked for its biggest competitor, the George A Fuller Company. Prior to BCT, he had been involved in building Midwest hotels and theatres, including the Palace in Chicago.
Steel for Buffalo Central Terminal was supplied and fabricated by Bethlehem Steel. The erectors, Overland Construction Company, Chicago, had been founded in 1916 by WH Lotts; the firm erected Chicago Union Station, many high-rises in the Loop, and bascule bridges along the Chicago River. Upon Lotts' death in 1954, the company was taken over by his son, William L Lotts, and run by him until its liquidation in 1970.
In 1928 their structures arose from the ground and were enclosed. The last rivet on the station was driven in December. However, inside finish work was painstakingly slow because of its complexity and craftsmanship. Vaulted ceilings would take eight months to complete. Buy by May 1929 everything was almost in order. The huge sprawling project looked like an abandoned movie set: pristine, hauntingly empty in its perfection, and completely without people.