Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt (Shipping and Railroad Tycoon)
Overview
On the north side of East 42nd Street, at the Park Avenue intersection, stands one of New York’s most admired buildings: Grand Central Terminal. Once the capitol of the New York Central Railroad empire, it remains the city’s glittering gate for tens of thousands of travelers each day. Over the entrance looms a larger-than-life bronze statue of the man who made it possible, Cornelius Vanderbilt.
The memorial is fitting, even though the Commodore (as Vanderbilt was unofficially but universally titled) never knew the building his image now guards. He amassed the New York Central Railroad system between New York and Chicago in the 1860s and ’70s, and constructed Grand Central Depot, the original incarnation of the modern Terminal. It’s appropriate, too, that his statue looks toward Wall Street, which he dominated during much of its formative period. Over the course of a 66-year career, he helped to drive the transportation revolution, magnified the California gold rush, pioneered the modern business corporation, and contributed to the birth of big business in America. One of the wealthiest men in history (worth an estimated $100 million at his death in 1877), he was highly controversial, sparking a public debate over opportunity, equality, and the role of government that continues to this day.
His career can be divided into his many years as a manager and entrepreneur of steamboat lines in the Northeast; his decade as a mogul of ocean-going steamships; and his final years as a railroad tycoon.
Steamboats
Vanderbilt was born on Staten Island, New York, on May 27, 1794. He died in Manhattan on January 4, 1877, just a few miles to the north but a world away from the circumstances of his birth.
Vanderbilt’s parents were of humble Dutch and English background, but they took part in the regional marketplace centered on the city of New York, just across the harbor on the southern end of
Overview
On the north side of East 42nd Street, at the Park Avenue intersection, stands one of New York’s most admired buildings: Grand Central Terminal. Once the capitol of the New York Central Railroad empire, it remains the city’s glittering gate for tens of thousands of travelers each day. Over the entrance looms a larger-than-life bronze statue of the man who made it possible, Cornelius Vanderbilt.
The memorial is fitting, even though the Commodore (as Vanderbilt was unofficially but universally titled) never knew the building his image now guards. He amassed the New York Central Railroad system between New York and Chicago in the 1860s and ’70s, and constructed Grand Central Depot, the original incarnation of the modern Terminal. It’s appropriate, too, that his statue looks toward Wall Street, which he dominated during much of its formative period. Over the course of a 66-year career, he helped to drive the transportation revolution, magnified the California gold rush, pioneered the modern business corporation, and contributed to the birth of big business in America. One of the wealthiest men in history (worth an estimated $100 million at his death in 1877), he was highly controversial, sparking a public debate over opportunity, equality, and the role of government that continues to this day.
His career can be divided into his many years as a manager and entrepreneur of steamboat lines in the Northeast; his decade as a mogul of ocean-going steamships; and his final years as a railroad tycoon.
Steamboats
Vanderbilt was born on Staten Island, New York, on May 27, 1794. He died in Manhattan on January 4, 1877, just a few miles to the north but a world away from the circumstances of his birth.
Vanderbilt’s parents were of humble Dutch and English background, but they took part in the regional marketplace centered on the city of New York, just across the harbor on the southern end of