'Mad Men' notes: The numbing horror of the New Haven line

The train gang: Grand Central Terminal, 1961, photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt (LIFE images)


WARNING The article contains a couple spoilers about last night's 'Mad Men' on AMC. If you're a fan of the show, come back once you're watched the episode. But these posts are about a specific element of New York history from the 1960s and can be read even by those who don't watch the show at all. You can find other articles in this series here.

Oh, the mundane ritual of the daily commute! Of all the conformities of modern living, what is it in particular about the commute along the New Haven line -- from Grand Central to points of suburbia along the south shore of Connecticut -- that must drive the perpetually frustrated Pete Campbell to the edge of insanity?

In past 'Mad Men' episodes, we've seen the eager and ambitious adman strive for the trappings of '60s urban success. He's achieved a certain degree of material status, from a beaming, pregnant wife to a small but lovely home in Connecticut, equipped with a monstrous (some might say coffin-shaped) hi-fi stereo console. But the banality of a regular commute, robbed of privacy and forced into polite chatter -- with the same insufferable people, day in, day out -- has forced Campbell into taking driver's education courses with teenagers.

The New Haven line has been a popular transportation route almost since the advent of the railroad itself. First laid and operated in 1848, Appleton's was proclaiming a decade later that the shoreline railroad was "the most expeditious way between New York and Boston," linking the Connecticut city with Williams Bridge in the Bronx (pictured at left, from 1865, courtesy NYPL). From there, a connecting track, shared with the Harlem Railroad, took trains directly down to the train depot at 27th Street and Fourth Avenue. When city laws forced the depot up to 42nd Street, that old depot became a storage shed and, later, the first Madison Square Garden.

Few urban professionals attempted daily commutes to and from New York until the early 20th century, when post-war lifestyles, affordable automobiles and an expensive and overcrowded city facilitated an exodus to the surrounding areas. By 1950, the suburbs were such an entrenched place -- a lifestyle unto themselves, with unique social requirements -- that people even began speaking of the exurbs, communities even further outside the chain of traditional suburbia. "[T]he suburbs are the first 25 miles out; the 'exurbs' are the next 25 miles out," according to author Irving Lewis Allen, and initially appealed to the most wealthy professionals from "advertising, broadcasting and publishing."

We can thank city planners like Robert Moses for much of this change, obsessed as he was with highway building. But new roads alone couldn't facilitate the move to suburbia. Mass transit was required to provide a convenient and cost-effective alternative for the 'second wave' suburbanites -- those aspiring professionals wishing the emulate the lifestyle behaviors of their bosses without the paychecks to secure it. People, say, like Pete Campbell.

Above: A whimsical graphic from a 1966 New Haven Railroad timetable attempts to distract its passengers.

Unfortunately, the massively unprofitable New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, no longer just a long-distance passenger train service, was never fully capable of handling the thousands of commuters traveling to and from the city. Once considered 'profitable, clean and punctual' according to Robert Caro, the line was bankrupt by the mid-1960s, operating overcrowded, less-than-comfortable trains solely on federal money by 1965. Some considered it worse than even the crippled, dysfunctional Long Island Railroad.

The New Haven was such an undesirable property that the newly merged New York Central Railroad and Pennsylvania Railroad (aka Penn Central) was literally forced to take possession of the line in 1968 by the Interstate Commerce Commission. New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller was especially concerned that a deterioration of the New Haven line would create an traffic burden which would reverberate through the entire northern New York City-Westchester County corridor.

Oh, things would only get worse for the New York area railroads in the 1970s! So I hope Pete's taking copious notes in his driver's education classes and that those gruesome Signal 30 films are hitting home.

Red Hook, Brooklyn: A rich seafaring history, organized crime and the isolation of a beleaguered neighborhood

PODCAST Red Hook, Brooklyn, the neighborhood called by the Dutch 'Roode Hoek' for its red soil, became a key port during the 19th century, a stopping point for vessels carry a vast array of raw goods from the interior of the United States along the Erie Canal. In particular, two manmade harbors were among the greatest developments in Brooklyn history, stepping in when Manhattan's own decaying wharves became too overcrowded.

With these basins came a mix of ethnicities to Brooklyn, and along with new styles of row houses came the usual assortment of vices -- saloons and brothels along Hamilton Avenue. This fostered the development of crime along the docks, and Red Hook soon witnessed firsthand the opening salvos of 20th Century organized crime.

How did the history-rich, nautical neighborhood go from a booming center of employment to one of the worst neighborhoods in the United States by the 1990s? And can some surprising twists of fate from the last twenty years help Red Hook return to its glory days?

Featuring: Revolutionary War forts, shantytowns, Vaseline factories, famous gangsters, the gateway to Hell, and cheap Swedish furniture!

You can tune into it below, download it for FREE from iTunes or other podcasting services, or get it straight from our satellite site.

Or listen to it here:
The Bowery Boys: Red Hook: Brooklyn on the Waterfront

Notes, clarifications, sources, and additional information will be posted next week. Photo above: Taken on Van Brunt street, 1/11/2012

 The Atlantic Docks, illustration taken from Booth's History of New York. (care of NYPL)

Modern living, circa 1939. The Red Hook Houses at their debut. Although the housing development cleared away a great many dilapidated homes -- following a common model of urban redevelopment -- the uninspired uniformity would put a dent in the neighborhood's original character. (Courtesy LOC)

The Red Hook Play Center opened in 1936, the final of 11 swimming pools Robert Moses built during his early years as parks commissioner. Its Art Moderne style made it a beautiful if curious addition to the neighborhood.

The Erie Basin, a clutter of vessels and piers, is strangely beautiful from overhead in relation to the Manhattan skyline. (Pic courtesy Wired NY)

The crisis of organized crime and corruption within the longshoreman's union along the Brooklyn waterfront was an inspiration for many writers, including Arthur Miller (below) in his unproduced screenplay 'The Hook' -- referring both to the neighborhood and the longshoreman's "ever-present baling hook". Later, Elia Kazan and screenwriter Budd Schulberg found similar inspiration for the Oscar winning film 'On The Waterfront', loosely basing events on situations that took place along the entire New York and Brooklyn waterfront. (The film was made in Hoboken, but there are of course famous shots of the Manhattan skyline.)

Soooo, about that new HBO Robert Moses movie.....

You've probably heard by now that Oliver Stone is preparing to make a film version of Robert Caro's 'The Power Broker', the iconic biography of New York's influential city planner Robert Moses. Several people have emailed us for our reaction to Moses's big-screen debut. (Well, small screen actually. It's an HBO film.) The 'master builder' is a regular foil in our podcasts. Our 100th episode is devoted to Moses' influence on the city.

But a movie? I'm cautiously optimistic to mildly apprehensive, as anybody should be when a classic book is adapted for the screen. 'The Power Broker' is over 1,100 pages long. For comparison sake, The Lord of the Rings is 1,216 pages, and director Peter Jackson stretched that over three long, epic films. The Caro book also charts about seven decades or so. Will the man's career -- not to mention the history of 20th century New York -- acceptably fit into a single movie?

And this presumably wouldn't be a normal bio pic, because 'The Power Broker' isn't a normal bio. The book defined Moses in the public consciousness; it both sullied and mythologized him, during his lifetime. Caro's screed is part of the Robert Moses story now. People either support its view that Moses did more harm than good to New York City, or they rebel against it.

Now take that provocative text and hand it over to a director, born and raised in New York, who has proven, time and again, to create extraordinary cinema doused in an unashamed political point of view. Stone is fearless, if not consistent; after all, his last two forays into New York were 'World Trade Center' and the sequel to 'Wall Street', films as ambitious as they were mildly received. The combination of Caro's angst and Stone's audacity will certainly be combustible.

Why now? I suspect one element that will appeal to modern audiences is the image of Moses as a man who could get things done, a phrase that Caro applies as a double-edged slogan. Moses's agile political maneuvers and his use of funds (first from the federal government, then from various public authorities) to sculpt grand projects makes the stranglehold of modern politics seem truly anemic.

If HBO does a strict adaptation, don't expect to see Jane Jacobs. She appears nowhere in the book. But I suspect they'll insert a new section into the film, as the Robert Moses vs. Jane Jacobs trope is impossible to resist. Can't you already picture a scene with young Jacobs (perhaps played by Laura Linney or Robin Wright) leading a protest against LOMAX with picketers in Washington Square? Although if they really want to put the parks commissioner against a feisty female preservationist, there's plenty of material regarding his duels in the press with Eleanor Roosevelt.

On the subject of casting, I've heard the name Frank Langella tossed around for the lead role. But he's in his 70s. The most fiery and interesting scenes -- the most filmic ones -- take place with Robert Moses in his early to mid 40s. Revisit the scene with Moses scouring the beaches of the Long Island south shore, imagining a great public beach. What tall, brawny, 40ish actor fits the bill?

I'm almost more fascinated in seeing who gets cast as the two pivotal mayors of the book -- Fiorello LaGuardia and John Lindsay. Realistically, is there any human being (excepting Danny Devito) that fits the unusual physical requirements of LaGuardia?

But perhaps the most interesting depiction will be of New York itself, as we'll certainly be greeted with the construction of mighty projects like the Triborough Bridge and devastating neighborhood killers like the Cross Bronx Expressway. How will the film convey a public uprising against Moses-style urban growth that in reality took decades to effectively organize?

I do hope the movie indulges in a little fantasy as well, depicting the city of Moses's dreams, with lower Manhattan cut through with elevated highways, New York Harbor cleaved with a bridge from Battery to Brooklyn, and miles of glorious parking lots. After all, who doesn't love a good horror movie?