and
The old Michigan Central Depot was built shortly after the turn of the century. Some 50 years later when both freight and passenger railroading were already starting to slip, my grandfather, a New York Central employee, got me a job with the company. When I worked there as a clerk in the mid sixties the entire building, 13 floors and several sub basements, were all still in-service. I worked variously on a couple of the middle floors for over two years. I was to return to the depot many times over the course of my railroad career -- which resumed again in 1973 -- and from which I recently retired.
When my son was little he would hear me say, "I'm off to the depot." He thought I was saying, deep hole, and that name stuck for a long time. "Dad, I want to go with you to the deep hole!"
The Michigan Central Depot in Detroit - thanks to D. Kerr for sending this picture of the depot in its prime.
From the angle of this picture, taken only a few years ago, it still looks pretty majestic. In sad fact, it has deteriorated
steadily and heavily, and vandalism has taken it's toll.
Vandals have broken nearly every window over the entire 13 floors. That, and the onslaught of the weather, has caused
massive damage and deterioration to the inside of the building.
When I started in the depot there was a meat processing plant - stock holding pens, slaughterhouse and all, adjacent to the
property. Coming to work on certain days when the wind was blowing just right could be a very rude awakening.
Still, the grand majesty of the interior -- the huge waiting rooms and Concourse -- the vaulted ceilings, quickly
put the olfactory memory aside. The thing about buildings with great halls was this; there was no other place
that you could fill with three to 500 people and not feel the slightest bit cramped or crowded by all that humanity.
The concourse as it appeared in 1913~~
The waiting room was the largest of all the magnificent spaces - in my lifetime I never saw it with more than a
couple hundred souls occupying the benches. It could easily have held three or four times that.
In 1913~~ showing maybe half the room~~
The middle floors were huge expanses occupied not by cubicles or offices, but by hundreds of desks. It was open
and airy, well lit and well ventilated with high ceilings. More important to a young man: most of the desks were occupied
by women. The men had gone off to the second world war and never returned.
My first job as a railroad clerk was book stuffer. The New York Central, the depot's then current tenant and my employer, was slow to get away from keeping paper records. When other businesses were beginning to use punch cards and computers the NYC had yet to go to microfilm. This worked to my advantage since my job was to shuffle a lot of paper. The railroad billed for its services by boxcar load (a CL, or carload for short) which was tallied on a waybill. There were also LCL (less than a carload) bills, and they had to be handled, that is to say, stuffed in a book, too.
As you might imagine, the standing joke when approaching the new guy went something like, "Do you stuff books? Good, stuff this!" Other and more important clerks than I tallied all the waybills and determined how much to charge each railroad or shipper. This was in the days before adding machines or calculators.
A machine called a
comptometer was the tool of choice for doing sums. It took several fingers on each hand to push in the various buttons.
Then, while keeping them depressed, the operator had to count the repetitions to herself while repeatedly thumping the
keys down on the machine. Cranking that handle on the side then produced a total. It was something to watch. Background
office noise was the low hum of human voices punctuated by the sound of dozens of comptometers. Each comptometer sounded
like someone playing drums on the bottom of a coffee can and then throwing their keys on the floor. When the operators
were quite through, the well handled waybills came to me for final disposition. At that time there were hundreds of
railroads all over the country, if not thousands. Some very small; some very large. Each railroad was known by its
initials, as the New York Central was the NYC, the Acheson Topeka and Santa Fe the ATSF, and so forth and so on.
Huge books the size of giant unabridged dictionaries -- that's what I stuffed. A large railroad might have hundreds if not thousands of books with its initials stenciled on the spine. Additional numerals gave a clue as to what series of waybills had gone into each book. I would sort my waybills into order by railroad and number. Then I would make a rough list of which books I would be needing and march myself to the elevator.
In those days I knew each elevator operator by name and within a few weeks they knew mine. I didn't have to tell them
where I wanted to go - they knew -- I was going all the way up. Here are elevators opening onto the 13th, or top floor.
This top floor of the depot was a cavernous and dimly lit area. It was filled from end to end with row upon row of metal bookcases each towering up some 20 odd feet to the two-story ceiling. These shelves held the books that needed stuffing. Scattered amongst the shelves were wheeled ladders which allowed us book stuffers to reach our desired quarry. Also scattered about were wheeled baskets in which to carry these huge tomes in quantities of more than two or three. They looked amazingly like the forerunners to today's shopping carts.
When I had a suitable load in my basket I would head back to the elevator, push the call button and eventually return to my work area. When I was new and diligent I might make a couple trips each morning and afternoon. As I became more experienced I began to see the folly of that particular program, and could generally make two trips a day and still seem to be effectively busy to my boss. In fact, once one had the boss's trust and confidence, it might be possible to carry the waybills upstairs -- and do the stuffing there -- rather than lug the heavy books to one's desk. A further test of my stuffing abilities was this: my boss had secretly written down the numbers of waybills that I had stuffed. He would then, a few days later, ask me to retrieve said bill. If I hadn't been able to do so, it would indicate that I didn't have the proper diligence and concentration to be a reliable book stuffer. Having been forewarned of this ploy, I filed carefully, and was able to relocate my bills when asked. The railroad actually depended on this manual filing system for over a hundred years.
The cavernous upper floor, where I whiled away many a pleasant afternoon amongst the books and pigeons.
Yes. Literally hundreds of pigeons roosted high in the bookcases. The nature and geometry of pigeon defecation being what it is, very little guano actually landed on the books themselves. However, general ambulation amongst the stacks required a sharp eye. Once my fellow book stuffers and I realized the extent of the pigeon problem we went on the offensive. Assuming the mantle of Great White Hunter, we secreted weapons in the form of paper clips and rubber bands, into our pockets prior to each elevator trip to the hunting grounds. With books open and waybills (and weapons) at hand, we stuffed away, keeping one alert eye on the high places.
Pigeons are fearless. At least they certainly had no fear of us, wobbling and pecking along in plain sight, up there on the top shelves. And for good reason, in that none of our shots even came close. Soon however, with diligence, practice and a limitless supply of ammunition, we began to make the occasional score -- bouncing a bent paperclip projectile off an unsuspecting pigeon. Although the pigeons must have found this somewhat of a nuisance, it was at best a minor one. They remained fearless, or perhaps stupid.
It was time to up the ante. A friend knew where to obtain rubber bands of a much higher caliber (the mail room), and heavy duty paper clips. This gave a weapon not unlike a Whamo slingshot, when stretched between one's thumb and forefinger. After allowing for the heavier projectile we soon began striking pigeons telling blows. Now, a wing hit ("I winged 'im!") could force a bird out of the air, off a shelf and to the floor. A head or neck shot meant - death. We were in new territory.
Our projectiles were created by unfolding industrial size paper clips until only one hook remained, which was slipped over the rubber band. The 'tail' was perhaps 3 1/2 or 4 inches long and provided more or less balanced flight. The nature of injury sustained by the pigeons was of the type known as: blunt force trauma. It was my friend, Tom, that first hit a pigeon in the head. Somehow we knew by the way it fell (like a rock) that its injuries might be mortal. As we stood looking down at what we were beginning to understand was a corpse, we grinned crooked grins, not quite looking each other in the eye. Somehow, the hunt had been more fun than the kill.
We decided some sort of ceremony was indicated. A decent burial. This presented a problem, being on the 13th floor. Evenly spaced along the walls, up close to the ceiling were small ventilation windows -- about two feet by two feet square. The grates were missing from many of these, which probably explained the pigeon population in the first place. We decided that the next best thing to a proper burial would be a last flight, out the ventilation hole. Tom slipped his rubber band around the pigeon, effectively turning it into a feathery football. Taking the quarterback's stance and careful aim he threw the bomb. Since the window was 20 feet up and at least that far away the dull thud of football hitting wall didn't come as a real surprise.
I laughed at him and his poor aim and he immediately challenged me to do any better. However, I was very reluctant to handle the football. Tom was merciless and degrading, impugning everything from my manhood to my dignity. I resolved to give it one try and promptly threw a perfect spiral right out the window. Touchdown!
I'll bet you couldn't do that again in a million years, allowed Tom. The question was moot in that neither of us felt like anymore pigeon hunting. Tom however, chagrined by my superior shot, continued to harp about how it had been pure luck and certainly not skill. I wasn't really arguing this point but eventually felt compelled to defend my talent, lucky shot or not. All right, watch this! I took my trusty number two pencil and by some miracle it followed the pigeon. Like they say, the look on Tom's face was priceless.
Head shaking, hands on hips, he circled around on one foot, muttering something about - I can't believe it. Well, neither could I! But I was certainly willing to make the most of my upper hand at the moment. How'd you like that! Pretty good, wouldn't you say?
Now things began to get serious. I could see by the look in Tom's eye that he was desperate to salvage some dignity. This assumption was borne out by his next challenge -- I'll bet you can't do that again. You're right, I couldn't do that again in a million years. I'll bet you $20. No way, Tom, it'd be like me reaching in my pocket and just handing you a $20 bill. Which was, incidentally, quite a bit of money in the early 60s. I don't think I made $20 a day.
I'll give you odds. What kind of odds? Two to one. Sorry, Tom, you know and I know how lucky I was to make that shot at all - let alone twice. We better think about heading back downstairs. . .
Five to one.
Now, I really didn't think I could throw another object out the window. But on the very slim chance that I could, why, I'd be $100 richer. On the other hand I couldn't afford to lose $20. Sorry, Tom, still no go. I started packing up my unfiled papers. I can't afford to lose $20, Tom. What about 10? I'll give you 10 to one on a 10. You're on.
I was out of missiles. Tom, give me your pencil. I don't have a pencil. What have you been writing with? A pen. Give it to me. No way, it's a Cross pen my dad gave me. It's worth a lot of money and has my name on it and everything. So what? You don't think I'm really going to make that shot do you? Good point -- here.
Right out the window, went Tom's Cross ink pen. I've never shown such quarterbacking skills before or since, but that day I couldn't lose.
To his credit Tom settled up over the next few paydays with only gentle reminders on my part. I gained a certain amount of notoriety as the fellow who threw Tom's gold pen out the window from the 13th floor. We kept the matter of the pigeons to ourselves. Believe it or not, we actually found Tom's pen later that day, lying on the ground 13 floors below - not 5 feet from the pigeon. To both our credits we never shot at pigeons again, even though our paper clip/rubber band handheld slingshot was probably the best office made weapon since the blow guns we'd fashioned out of cardboard hanger tubes at Hughes Hatcher Harry Suffrin when I worked in the boys department.
'Nother story. . .