Conquering Gotham: Building Penn Station and Its Tunnels

“Superb. [A] first-rate narrative” (The Wall Street Journal) about the controversial construction of New York’s beloved
original Penn Station and its tunnels, from the author of Eiffel's Tower and Urban Forests

As bestselling books like Ron Chernow's Titan and David McCullough's The Great Bridge affirm, readers are fascinated
with the grand personalities and schemes that populated New York at the close of the nineteenth century. Conquering
Gotham re- creates the riveting struggle waged by the great Pennsylvania Railroad to build Penn Station and the
monumental system of tunnels that would connect water-bound Manhattan to the rest of the continent by rail. Historian
Jill Jonnes tells a ravishing tale of snarling plutocrats, engineering feats, and backroom politicking packed with the
most colorful figures of Gilded Age New York.

Conquering Gotham will be featured in an upcoming episdoe of PBS's American Experience.