. Charles Follen McKim; a study of his life and work. noise, no dirt, no confusion. Youare in an even larger room than the main waiting-room, a room as light as out of doors, for it is really acourt covered with glass. The steel structure supporting this glass roof is again devoid of ornamentation orembellishment of any sort, but wonderfully impress^ive from the supreme beauty of line and function likethe lean, lithe frame of a young athlete stripped ofevery ounce of superfluous flesh. From this concourseone descends by very easy steps to a platform on thelevel of the floor of the cars, which
. Charles Follen McKim; a study of his life and work. noise, no dirt, no confusion. Youare in an even larger room than the main waiting-room, a room as light as out of doors, for it is really acourt covered with glass. The steel structure supporting this glass roof is again devoid of ornamentation orembellishment of any sort, but wonderfully impress^ive from the supreme beauty of line and function likethe lean, lithe frame of a young athlete stripped ofevery ounce of superfluous flesh. From this concourseone descends by very easy steps to a platform on thelevel of the floor of the cars, which are entered with-out the usual steep platform steps. It is all so simple,so serene, so beautiful, that even when once seatedin the train it is hard to realize that one has beenthrough that which, at the time of its completion, wasthe largest railway station in the world. Did McKim,whose health had for some years been failing, and whofelt that he was near the end of his period of active ser-vice, see before him more clearly the vision of the great 84. THE PENNSYLVANIA TERMINALorderly, simple civilization of which he had alwaysdreamed, and for the realization of which he had sodevotedly and unselfishly worked ? I think it musthave been so. This was a type of what the civiliza^tion of to-morrow already demands, calmness, order,beauty. All these are to be found embodied and glo-rified in the Pennsylvania Station, a mighty portal, aperpetual gateway to a great modern city. Lift upyour heads, oh, ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye ever-lasting doors. These inspired words come to onesmind when gazing upon this poem in stone, the off-spring of modern science and modern art. CHAPTER VIII THE AMERICAN ACADEMY AT ROME McKims interest in everything that helped youngmen to fit themselves for the practice of architecturewas second only to his interest in architecture itselfOne can readily imagine that when he first visitedItaly his enthusiasm and delight over the buildings ofantiquity which h
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