Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Conquering Gotham: A Gilded Age Epic: The Construction of Penn Station and Its Tunnels
    Conquering Gotham: A Gilded Age Epic: The Construction of Penn Station and Its Tunnels
    Conquering Gotham: A Gilded Age Epic: The Construction of Penn Station and Its Tunnels
    Audiobook11 hours

    Conquering Gotham: A Gilded Age Epic: The Construction of Penn Station and Its Tunnels

    Written by Jill Jonnes

    Narrated by David Drummond

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The demolition of Penn Station in 1963 destroyed not just a soaring neoclassical edifice but also a building that commemorated one of the last century's great engineering feats-the construction of railroad tunnels into New York City. Now, in this gripping narrative, Jill Jonnes tells this fascinating story-a high-stakes drama that pitted the money and will of the nation's mightiest railroad against the corruption of Tammany Hall, the unruly forces of nature, and the machinations of labor agitators.

    In 1901, the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Alexander Cassatt, determined that it was technically feasible to build a system of tunnels connecting Manhattan to New Jersey and Long Island. Confronted by payoff-hungry politicians, brutal underground working conditions, and disastrous blowouts and explosions, it would take him nearly a decade to make Penn Station and its tunnels a reality. Set against the bustling backdrop of Gilded Age New York, Conquering Gotham will enthrall fans of David McCullough's The Great Bridge and Ron Chernow's Titan.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMay 28, 2007
    ISBN9781400174362
    Conquering Gotham: A Gilded Age Epic: The Construction of Penn Station and Its Tunnels

    More audiobooks from Jill Jonnes

    Related to Conquering Gotham

    Related audiobooks

    History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Maine's Penobscot Bay

      Aug 4, 2020

      Maine's Penobscot Bay
      2 min read

    • Article

      Goodbye to All That

      Dec 2, 2018

      Goodbye to All That
      10 min read

    • Article

      Lawsuit Over 'Professor and the Madman' Deepens

      Sep 19, 2017

      LOS ANGELES - The legal battle over the Mel Gibson movie "The Professor and the Madman" has grown messier, with a new complaint filed Tuesday by director Farhad Safinia alleging copyright infringement and defamation against Voltage Pictures, one of t

      2 min read

    • Article

      Olivia De Havilland Dies At 104, Starred In 'Gone With The Wind'

      Jul 26, 2020

      Olivia de Havilland, the last remaining star from the 1939 epic film "Gone With the Wind" and a two-time Academy Award winner who for decades was seen as the essence of Hollywood royalty, has died at her residence in Paris. She was 104. De Havilland,

      7 min read

    • Article

      Binding the Republic Together

      Sep 1, 2023

      Binding the Republic Together
      3 min read

    • Article

      Tracking Progress

      Mar 26, 2019

      Tracking Progress
      2 min read

    • Article

      Watery Waymaking

      Sep 24, 2019

      Watery Waymaking
      13 min read

    • Article

      The Pioneers Set Sail

      Jul 9, 2020

      The Pioneers Set Sail
      7 min read

    • Article

      Tunnel Vision

      Apr 14, 2022

      Tunnel Vision
      5 min read

    • Article

      Paved With Promises

      Sep 24, 2019

      Paved With Promises
      1 min read

    • Article

      The Pioneers Set Sail

      Jul 28, 2020

      The Pioneers Set Sail
      7 min read

    • Article

      Correcting History: On C Pam Zhang’s ‘How Much of These Hills Is Gold’

      Sep 23, 2020

      We need many more novels like this one: novels that breathe life into people who have gone unseen too long. The post Correcting History: On C Pam Zhang’s ‘How Much of These Hills Is Gold’ appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Famous For Being Indianapolis: How cities are like Kim Kardashian.

      Jan 12, 2017

      When Kim Kardashian was 4 years old, a University of California economist named Moshe Adler wrote a six-page paper explaining the means by which she would eventually attain worldwide renown. Published in the The American Economic Review, “Stardom and

      10 min read

    • Article

      The Borders Of Night

      Apr 23, 2019

      The Borders Of Night
      4 min read

    • Article

      'Northland' Is An Entertaining Trip Along America's 4,000-mile Northern Border

      Jul 3, 2018

      “You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone,” sang the Canadian musician Joni Mitchell, and she might have been referring to the toy border that used to exist between her homeland and the United States. Howdy neighbor, may I see your license? Well

      3 min read

    • Article

      Iron Empires

      Sep 3, 2020

      Iron Empires
      2 min read

    • Article

      'Barons Of The Sea' Chronicles The Race To Build The Perfect Clipper Ship

      Jul 17, 2018

      Clipper ships are the dream floating before the eyes of all the characters in Steven Ujifusa's fast-paced and entrancing new book.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Touring With The GRAY LINE

      Aug 29, 2022

      Touring With The GRAY LINE
      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Conquering Gotham

    4/5

    44 ratings4 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Engaging history of the construction of New York City’s Penn Station and the monumental challenges, physical and political, that had to be overcome. The technical points are put across with a minimum of jargon, and one grasps the points easily. The choice of illustrations is also good; too often, books like this skimp on them. The author also explains why Penn Station failed, a point that sentimentalists often overlook. One oddity is repeated references to the “Journal American” newspaper, which is anachronistic, since it wasn’t created until much later. Recommended, especially for railroad and NYC buffs.
    • 5/5
      Wonderful history of one the the greatest buildings ever created in America. The tragic, pointless destruction of Pennsylvania Station in the 1960's will always be rememberd as one of the saddest chapters in architectural history. The preservation of historic buildings movement was sparked by the razing of Pennsylvania Station and led to the saving of Grand Central Terminal later in the 1970's. The folly of the American trend to destroy such treasures can be seen in the current movement to recreate Penn Station in the Old Post Office building, located ajacent to the current Penn Station
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this. It was of a proper length for what it covered, plenty of background bio of the people involved and not overly technical in the building specifics. The author is a pleasant find, I have another book of hers in my TBR which will quickly move toward the top.
    • 4/5
      Sometimes confusing, but otherwise interesting recounting of the battle the Pennsylvania Railroad had in getting into Manhattan (Gotham). Conquering Gotham included conquering Carnegie, Tammany, Belmont and civil engineering challenges. Creating an incredible work of art at Penn Station, New York lost an opulence impossible to recapture by the demolition of Charles McKim's and Stanford White's original Penn