THANKS

THANKS

Exhibitions are collecting and collective efforts. Our history of Park Avenue drew on the expertise of many individuals from across academic and professional disciplines to whom we owe thanks. From scholars and collectors, architects, engineers, and model makers, authors and archivists, interns and architecture students, we are grateful for your knowledge and talents.

The design and construction of Grand Central Terminal have inspired many excellent and beautifully-illustrated histories, especially on the occasion of the station’s major restoration and revitalization, completed in 2000, and its centennial celebration in 2013. Among these, two books by historian Kurt Schlichting, Grand Central Terminal: Railroads, Architecture and Engineering in New York and Grand Central’s Engineer: William J. Wilgus and the Planning of Modern Manhattan, were the most valuable studies for our focus on Park Avenue. Schlichting makes the case for the key role of William Wilgus in both the brilliant engineering of the electrification and double-decking of the tracks and railyard and in creating the concept of “air rights” that would finance the project. Park Avenue owes its existence, in one sense, to William J. Wilgus. 

The other, more heralded architect of Grand Central was Whitney Warren of the firm Warren & Wetmore, which, despite its lion’s share of credit for the terminal design, had no serious monograph until the book by Peter Pennoyer and Anne Walker, The Architecture of Warren & Wetmore. Their beautiful study documents the many – indeed the majority – of buildings within the Terminal City district that were designed by the firm. Likewise, New York’s resident expert on apartment-building history, Andrew Alpern, was an invaluable resource to our project, as well as a generous collector and donor. For the exhibition, Alpern gifted a rare album of photographs and legal documents to the Museum that figure prominently in our case displays on the early years of Terminal City.

Gathering images for the exhibition was one of the most absorbing and rewarding aspects of our research. There are many rich digital archives online that any researcher can access. We used and highly recommend the New York Public Library, the NYC Municipal Archives, the New York Transit Museum, the National Museum of American History, the Library of Congress, and the Museum of the City of New York. For their assistance in acquiring digital files, we thank Kenneth Cobb (Municipal Archives); Polly Desjarlais, Ashley Swinnerton, Amy Raffel, and Amy Boyle (New York Transit Museum); Margaret Smithglass and Shelley Hayreh (Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library); Marisa Jefferson and Aryn Galzier (The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at University of Texas at Austin)

 

 

as well as Alice Le Campion (Swann Galleries) and the Howard Sochurek Estate; Christopher LaBarre (George H. LaBarre Galleries Inc.); and the staff of the New York Central System Historical Society. We especially thank collector Brian Walls for lending his large color lithograph of the cross-section of the Waldorf Astoria, one of the great, historic images of that amazing hotel, now gloriously restored by SOM. 

We are also indebted to the support of architecture, engineering, and development firms who provided models of their buildings and shared their knowledge and expertise. These include: Jeremy Dworken, Patrick Delahoy, Gaby Somarriba Rocha, Katy Harris, and Mayoor Jagiwan of Foster + Partners, as well as James Shea of JPMorgan Chase; David Levinson and Dara Rubens of L&L Holding Company; Roman Viñoly and Raymond Lee of Rafael Viñoly Architects; Silvian Marcus of WSP; Ed DePaola and Andy Mueller-Lust of Severud Consulting Engineers; Peter Pennoyer, Anne Walker, and Will Barker of Peter Pennoyer Architects; Dan Shannon, Georgia Shomber, and Carmen Johnson of MdeAS Architects; and Frank Mahan and Amy Garlock of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. 

Other architectural models displayed, including the 3D-printed Waldorf Astoria and New York Central Building, were created and loaned by Pavlo Salapata of Exact Scale Models in Canada and by Karl Szilagi, a New York model hobbyist, whose Pan Am Building came from his studio in the Bronx. The massing models, scaled to the land map that covers our central table, were created by the Museum’s architecture-student interns, who are listed in the staff credits below, and 3D-printed by a team of students from NYIT, under the tutelage of Professor Matthias Altwicker: Baghdad Numi, Zainab Chaudhry, and Vensee Shaileshbhai Asodariya.

Curators

Carol Willis, Founding Director, with Daniel J Borrero, Head of Programs & Operations

The Skyscraper Museum Team

Graphics: Selin Ciftci & Imari Monroe; Videos: Ni Marqueti; Research and support: Virginia Alvares Affonso, Alistair Barkus, Pauline Barsegyan, Stphanie Montalti, Clara Moy, Amelia Mullins, Steven Shi, Korbin Vera, Alan Yang, and Kaleo Zhu

Reprographics: Special thanks to A. Estéban & Company

Installation: C.J. Hill