thoughts on the journey

The City of Denver is quite an enigma. History is closely mingled with the present and the future. This is evident in the urbanscape of the city. A string of beautiful little houses and big houses that tell of a different era altogether. Gaylord Street was my muse today.

While admiring the architecture along with the iconic mountainscape I listened to the last few days of Randi Rhodes. I though about what she said about doing something more meaningful with your life. And not simply pursue money--was the gist of what she was saying with regard to her leaving. I thought you know she's right. We, as a society are addicted to entertainment. Every night I go home, the T.V is on. The radio is on. WE are playing with our cellphones. All the time we sacrifice to our God ENTERTAINMENT. How much time do we waste pursuing our selfish little pleasures. When will we cease to be merely consumers? You have to be productive to humanity. You must create something. I thought of the hours and hours of land coming across on the train. I thought not only of the beauty but the vastness and the beauty of the vastness of the North-American landscape. You feel the pull of the West more that the pull of the east. You feel that Romanticism of Abert Bierstadt must have felt when he painted his famous Sierra Nevadas. You get a sense of what it must have been like for the now infamous Donner Party as you're crossing over Donner's Pass through Oregan. You see the wildness and the vastness of the wilderness that enhances its lure and mystique. You feel the pull like Buck in Call of The Wild. Jack London's foray into the Northwestern wilds. That took you through the cold and forest. You watch all this while you're being conveyed through thousands of miles of winding railroad track dating back from as far as the late 1800s. Little hamlets here and there. Little houses with little chimneys. So cozy! You feel the country. Although in a way it's like you're watching it on T.V in the comfort of the train. Where you can't even open the window to smell the air of the thick luscious forests.

Random stops along the Empire Builder

Union Station Chicago: Empire Builder Sleeping car waiting room

So after the 19 hour journey from N. Y aboard the Lake Shore Ltd. here I am getting ready to board my cabin on the empire builder. This is Amtraks most scenic pittoresque route. As you can see the waiting room is filled with mostly quiet   Aged folks mostly from the West. One sight of a man with a cowboy hat made me realize I wasn't in Kansas or rather the Bronx anymore.

Scenes From the Lake Shore Ltd

So here i am, aboard the Lake Shore ltd Amtrak train on route to Chicago. My ultimate destination is Seattle. I will change trains in Chicago for the Empire Builder.

Berlin Wall

Five sections of the original Berlin wall adorn the courtyard of a swanky Manhattan neighborhood.

Gothic: one of the great cast iron bridges of Central Park.

The Interborough Rapid Transit building on 59th Street

an evocation of ancient Rome, and a tribute to modern American enlightenment. "But for its stacks, it might suggest an art gallery, museum or a public library rather than a power house.", enthused J. C. Bayles of the New York Times on October 30, 1904.

Built in 1904, this magnificent neo-classical structure dominates. Above it one can note smoke stacks belching black smoke so typical of the industrial age in which it was born but what the heck for? Our subway system today seems too modern to be reliant on such an antiquated system to generate power for the trains?  Just observe the building from its north side and it would appear that it is positively breathing. Yes, it is alive. A relic of the industrial age surrounded by 21st century glass and steel towers. But it's beauty is undeniable. Just look at its ornate baroque façade. It seems to be saying: I WAS BUILT AT A TIME WHEN THIS COUNTRY WAS AT ITS BEST. WHEN NOTHING ELSE LIKE ME EXISTED. I WAS THE MARVEL OF A BOOMING YOUNG CITY BURSTING AT THE SEAMS.

The Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) was the private operator of the original underground New York City Subway line that opened in 1904, as well as earlier elevated lines and additional rapid transit lines in New York City. The IRT was purchased by the City in June 1940. The former IRT lines (the numbered lines in the current subway system) are now the A division or IRT Division of the Subway.

Here's a write up from The New York times in 1904:

The New York Times · October, 1904

New Power Plant of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company

One of the most interesting and instructive power plans in the world is the new one recently constructed by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company of this city for the operation of the Subway trains. From this one station is to be derived the power needed to run some 800 trains on the thirteen miles of three ad four track road now built or in the process of construction. This tremendous plant is situated on Eleventh Avenue and extends from Fifty-eighth Street to Fifty-ninth Street, being about 700 feet in depth measured back from the avenue. The skeleton of the building is of steel, but the other loads which will have to be supported are so great that the side walls have been made entirely self-supporting.

The IRT building in its heyday

The steel work is extremely strong, its heavy sections coming in the class of bridge girders rather than ordinary structural shapes. The floors are made of I-beams, connected by plate girders, and the interstices filled with concrete arches. The concrete is reinforced with expanded metal to give it greater stiffness and tenacity. The floors have been designed to stand safely under the following maximum loads: Two hundred pounds per square foot on all flat parts of the roof; 500 pounds in the engine room, and 300 pounds in the boiler house. In the latter part of the building, in the parts directly in front of the boilers, where the wear will be greatest, heavy cast-iron plates with rough, checkered surfaces are made into the floor. These plates extend across the entire front of the boiler, and are three feet wide.

Most of the columns are built up of plates and channels, the latter being 12 inches deep and the former 18 inches wide. The wall columns are of the "box" type of plate and angle construction.

As the layout of the boiler room, putting all the boilers on one floor required that exceptional care be taken to economize space as far as possible, the novel expedient was adopted of raising the the stacks and building them on steel legs and platforms instead of solidly on the ground, as has heretofore been almost the universal practice. These platforms are about the level of the roof of the building, saving thereby a large amount of space in the boiler room and the economizer room, which is on the floor above. The platforms on which the stacks rest are extremely heavy, being made up of 24-inch I-beams, on which the brickwork is directly placed. The beams are supported by a bracing made up of plate girders eight feet deep. The columns supporting this weight are of box pattern, made up of angles and plates, and are about 10 by 20 inches outside. These columns are stiffened by girders and braces, and are practically separate from the building proper.

 But for its stacks, it might suggest an art museum or public library rather than a power house. The unsightliness to which we are accustomed in buildings of this character usually represents an economy of thousands of dollars secured at a cost of millions in the depreciation of adjacent property and contiguous neighborhoods. -- J.C. BAYLES.












   In its heyday, the building boasted 6 smokestacks! Today, the last remaining smokestack hasn't been used in 16 years and the building has been acquired by Con Edison. There are now efforts by the Parks Dept. to make the building a historical landmark, turning it into a museum.