Re: Chelsea Livery
Dear Editor:
For nearly three years, I have been following the news
concerning the livery in Chelsea, a site I visited in the 1990s as the author of Great American Railroad Stations.
This 570-page book was commissioned by the National Trust for Historic
Preservation and published by John Wiley & Sons. The foreword was
written by the late U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was
responsible for the massive restoration and adaptive use of Union
Station in Washington, D.C.
My
extensive articles about historic transportation and adaptive use of
railroad stations have appeared in numerous scholarly publications. In
addition, I am the principal interviewee in two hour-long documentary
films produced for The History Channels: one on the renowned Grand
Central
Terminal and the other on Manhattan’s original Pennsylvania Station.
For Great American Railroad Stations, which
covers every state in the country, I conducted direct investigations
and held consultations with hundreds of historians, architects,
entrepreneurs, transportation specialists, librarians, and state
historic preservation officers. The book has an extensive essay on the
social and architectural history of the building type. It then profiles
more than 700 extant depots (of all sizes), the most significant in the
country. One of these is the Chelsea railroad station.
Among
the criteria for a station to be considered, “context” was extremely
important. Is the station still in its original location? Are the tracks
still there? Do trains still run on these tracks? And—very relevant to
Chelsea—do any railroad-related buildings survive in the vicinity of the
station? Such auxiliary buildings tell the story of a station and
vastly increase its historical and educational significance. Few places
retain them. Chelsea is extraordinary and, in my view, literally unique
in retaining not only the first hotel but also the livery. In my
research, I uncovered no equivalent situation. An extremely limited
number of railroad hotels remain; I know of no liveries whatsoever. A
livery was an integral and critical part of a railroad station complex
in the 19th and early
20th centuries. The loss of this building would affect not only
Chelsea, but also the history of everyday life in the United States.
Sincerely,
Janet Greenstein Potter
8425 Navajo St.
Philadelphia, PA
19118
(215) 247-1836
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