Grand Central's Engineer: William J. Wilgus and the Planning of Modern Manhattan

摘要

When the new Grand Central Terminal opened in February 1913, William Wilgus, the former chief engineer of the New York 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 cataloging Wil-gus's engineering accomplishments and near visionary insights into the "perplexing transportation problems" of New York City in the early twentieth century (p. 8).