The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (86 page)

In 1869, the Harlem Railroad began to build the continent's largest railroad station, the Grand Central Depot. The station was located on the north side of Forty-second Street, well above the built-up portion of New York, because of legal prohibitions on the use of steam locomotives below that point. Vanderbilt personally paid for much of the construction. This photograph shows the arched supports for the vast train shed, or “car house.”
New York Central System Historical Society

This engraving of Grand Central, completed in 1871, views it from the south, as most New Yorkers saw it. The depot anchored the rapid development of this district, and turned Forty-second Street into a major crosstown artery. Note the entrance on the far right for horse-drawn streetcars that rolled up Fourth Avenue from downtown. The depot was later rebuilt as Grand Central Station, and finally replaced by Grand Central Terminal on the same location.
New York Central System Historical Society

The northern entrance of the Grand Central car house, shown here, opened onto Fourth Avenue. Because of complaints about the trains running on the surface of Fourth Avenue, Vanderbilt agreed to sink the tracks in an open cut. The cut was later covered over, and Fourth blossomed into Park Avenue.
New York Central System Historical Society

This view shows the interior of Grand Central's car house, beneath the enormous arched glass roof. Note the horse-drawn streetcars on the far right, which entered the station through a southern entrance.
New York Central System Historical Society

An express train for Chicago departs Grand Central. During the 1870s, the New York Central and the Pennsylvania competed to run the fastest train between New York and Chicago. The Pennsylvania, with a more direct route, usually won. But the Central possessed a nearly level route, by far the most economical.
New York Central System Historical Society

Four giant railroads, called the trunk lines, dominated traffic between the West and the Atlantic seaboard. Vanderbilt and his son William made the New York Central & Hudson River into the most profitable. A key strength, advertised here, was the unprecedented four-track line they built between Albany and Buffalo, at a time when many railroads had only one set of tracks. The four-track plan was Vanderbilt's brainchild.
Library of Congress

Vanderbilt helped lift harness racing to social prominence in the 1850s, with his expensive horses and match races on the roads of rural upper Manhattan. The rising generation of Wall Street men chased the Commodore on Bloomingdale Road or Harlem Lane, shown here. Even after Vanderbilt (center-left foreground, with top hat and white cravat) turned eighty, he raced his expensive trotters on an almost daily basis.
Library of Congress

Vanderbilt spent
$14,000
on Mountain Boy, his finest horse and most prized possession, shown at right, racing its most famous rival, Lady Thorn. Mountain Boy began to dominate American harness racing in 1867 and became a national celebrity. The horse died in the epizootic of 1872, a loss that deeply affected Vanderbilt.
Library of Congress

Starting in the 1830s, Vanderbilt went to the fashionable resort of Saratoga Springs every summer. This photograph shows him (seated at right, with crossed legs and top hat) on the veranda of the Congress Hall hotel in the early 1870s. He took part in Saratoga's highly social environment, playing whist and attending races.
New York Public Library

Vanderbilt, shown here at about the age of eighty, impressed observers with his erect posture, physical energy, and youthful appearance. He acquired dignity with age, even winning praise for his courtly manners and fastidious dress.
Library of Congress

Tennessee Claflin became Vanderbilt's magnetic healer, spiritualist medium, and possibly mistress. In 1870, she and her sister Victoria Woodhull claimed to have established the first female-run brokerage house on Wall Street with Vanderbilt's backing. There is no evidence that they conducted any trades or had Vanderbilt's support.
Library of Congress