The Today Show this morning featured a story about the abandoned train siding located under New York City’s historic Waldorf Astoria hotel, a section of rail known as "Track 61". (View HERE)
Because American news shows are largely "info-tainment" this story was presented as a piece of espionage: this site has been secret for decades—hidden from the public; never discussed; "hush-hush"; and these assertions are partly true. What is a partial truth?
Invariably a "partial truth" is a narrative about disability. The "track 61" feature this morning is no exception.
The rail siding beneath the Waldorf was built for wealthy hotel guests in order that they might arrive directly at their lodgings without having to leave their private railroad cars.
During President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration this private section of track was converted to an accessible rail platform, complete with a freight elevator that could accommodate the president’s automobile.
President Roosevelt could in effect depart his rail car by using his wheelchair; transfer to his Pierce Arrow convertible; drive the car aboard the elevator and then roll out onto the streets of Manhattan.
Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin appeared briefly during the Today Show segment and pointed out that the president didn’t want the public to know that he couldn’t walk. This is partially true.
F.D.R. was in fact "out of the closet" about the fact that he had polio. He championed the search for a cure for the disease and promoted the rehabilitation facilities at Warm Springs, Georgia. The Roosevelt’s played a major role founding "The March of Dimes". Yet despite his public acknowledgement that he had an illness, F.D.R. felt that it was imperative that the public imagined that he could stand on his own.
Nothing would have been more politically damaging for F.D.R. than to be seen being lifted in and out of his car or being helped to his feet by the secret service.
The president mastered the art of shuffling forward while wearing painful iron leg braces that held him severely upright. He used the prodigious strength in his upper body to move these metal leggings forward.
The crucial component in this ruse was that the president would never be seen needing assistance.
The "Track 61" site was one of many special rail platforms constructed in order to stage manage the president’s arrivals and departures.
This is a story within a story within…
The rail siding beneath the hotel wasn’t a secret. The elevator that could lift the presidential car was a secret.
The siding has remained hidden from public view because subsequent presidents have reserved the option to exit the hotel through this underground egress.
In the meantime, New York City has fought long and hard to prevent people with disabilities from having easy access to the subway system. How sad to realize that we’ve known how to do this since the forties. How sad to sense that at least in part this secret might well have been furthered by a city that didn’t want to invest in disability accessible subways.
As they say in New York: "I’m just sayin’"
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 