WilliamJ. Wilgus and Engineering Projects to Improve the Port of New York, 1900—1930 OSEF W. KONVITZ In an essay entitled “History and Imagination,” Hugh Trevor-Roper wrote that “history is not merely what happened; it is what happened in the context of what might have happened.” Urging historians to place themselves before the alternatives of the past, to see problems coming as contemporaries did, Trevor-Roper hoped we might “re store to the past its lost uncertainties,” reopening, “if only for an instant, the doors which the/azf accompli has closed. . . This perspective is appropriate to the study of plans to restructure the New York metropolitan region through large-scale civil engi neering in the hrst three decades of the 20th century. William J. Wil gus, the author of the most important and innovative proposals, was among the hrst to realize that transportation facilities and govern mental structures had to be transformed radically to meet current and anticipated needs. His proposals, grounded in a vision of the city’s future, received the support of engineers and of civic and commercial leaders and were incorporated into long-term plans by the Port of New York Authority. These plans were never executed, however, and, perhaps for that reason, they have been neglected by historians. Yet these plans—which were designed to lower freight costs, reallocate waterfront land use, relieve congestion on city streets and in the har bor, expand shipping capacity, rationalize railroad routes, and unify management of the port—remain ofinterest for several reasons. They Dr. Konvitz is professor of history at Michigan State University, East Lansing, where he teaches European history since 1500 and urban history. He is engaged in a study of port cities in France, the United States, and Great Britain during both world wars, and this article presents a portion of that research. Dean William Powers of Michigan Technological University provided an opportunity to the author to present an earlier version, and Mark Rose gave it a close critical reading. The author also appreciates the comments of the Technology and Culture referees. 'Hugh Trevor-Roper, “History and Imagination,” Times Literary Supplement, July 25, 1980, pp. 833 — 35; quote from p. 835.©1989 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X/89/3002-0004$01.00 398 Engineering Projects to Improve the Port of New York 399 point to widely shared assumptions about the city’s problems and prospects. They highlight contemporary assessments of the feasibility of large-scale civil engineering works. They document an early effort to automate the movement of freight and to introduce container trans port. And they illuminate the career of Wilgus himself. The career of William J. Wilgus (1865—1949) can be separated into two parts. First, he served the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad as chief engineer of construction, maintenance of way, and terminal expansion (after 1899) and as vice-president with responsi bility for electrification of the Central’s lines and for construction of Grand Central Terminal (1903—7). He resigned from the railroad in 1907 to establish a practice as a consulting engineer, which lasted until 1931. It is this phase of his professional life that is least familiar. Wilgus chaired the advisory board of engineers for the rail tunnel under the Detroit River (1905—10). In World War I he was Deputy DirectorGeneral of Transportation for the American Expeditionary Force in France. Throughout the war, General Pershing relied on Wilgus for advice on technical matters. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) awarded Wilgus the Rowland Prize in 1909 and the Wellington Prize in 1942; the Institute of Civil Engineers (U.K.) awarded him the Telford Gold Medal in 1911. As a consulting engineer, he combined work for individual railroad companies with efforts—from which he did not stand to gain materially—to restructure the Port of New York. He brought to that task everything he had learned about transpor tation planning at home and abroad. Yet Wilgus, once one of the most famous civil engineers on both sides of the Atlantic, is virtually un known today. Although he made his papers available for scholarly use, historians of technology have neglected his...
Search from 250 M+ research papersSearch from 250 M+ research papers
Oct 1, 2024
Jing Yang + 5
Open Access