American Experience: Grand Central (21 of 24)

American Experience: Grand Central

It was William K.Vanderbilt, the grandson of the Commodore, who looked at this and said, "No, this isn't what we had in mind."
While he had been withdrawing from the railroad business, he was still on the board of directors, and he began to criticize the selection of the Reed & Stem building.
And the railroad forces Reed & Stem and Warren and his partner to form a combined architectural firm.
But really, it's to bring Whitney Warren into the design process.
PRIAL: Warren is an aristocratic, rather arrogant and forthright gentleman who was trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and he saw this as the door opening for him to take over.
But Reed & Stem did not have that same idea.

So it was never a very happy marriage-- extremely contentious from the very beginning.
What resulted, however, we like to say, is far superior than either of the firms could have done on their own.
MORTON: Every detail of the new station's design was fought over, with the New York Central Railroad acting as final arbiter.
Some of Reed & Stem's original design survived the process.
Ramps still moved suburban commuters from train to street.
Park Avenue was elevated to allow traffic to flow around the terminal building.
But in the end, it was Whitney Warren's vision that came to define Grand Central.