and elaborately decorated rooms. This level was the train floor because the railroad entered the station via elevated tracks. They immediately noticed the airy and spacious feeling of the well-lit, two-story general waiting room: eighty feet by fifty-two feet, with large windows, a skylight, polished hardwood wainscoting and details, and painted plaster walls. A large map of the Pennsylvania system dominated the north end. The room had padded benches, and opened onto smaller spaces containing a confectionery store, a newsstand, a package room, and a telegraph office. Although Smith and his friend would have liked to have explored more of the new station, train time was approaching. They went through one of the two arched openings into the train lobby, where they found their departure track clearly indicated above the gate. To reach their train, they showed their tickets to the uniformed attendant at the gate. As they approached their train, they noted how—unlike at Ninth and Green—even the train shed seemed bright, because of the many glass panels in the roof. As a guide to the city observed: “The [four train sheds] of this great station [create] a wide, lofty apartment.”22
On this visit, Smith did not have time to take in all of the station’s amenities, but he would return often and have many opportunities to explore the remainder of the building. A few years later, on a Sunday morning, he boarded the wrong horse-drawn street car and missed his train to the suburbs. With an hour to kill until the next departure, he may have visited some of the areas of Broad Street Station he had rushed by on his first trip. This time, after buying his ticket and ascending the main stairs into the general waiting room, he may have walked to (but not through) the ladies’ waiting room. The ladies’ waiting room was not quite as large as the main one but was similarly furnished and decorated. A guide to the city noted: “The ladies’ waiting-room is a magnificent apartment, having tall, Gothic-arched windows, set with ornamental glass, a hardwood paneled ceiling, and a great, cheery, open fire-place, ornamented with tiles. It is very comfortably furnished with settees, rockers and easy-chairs and rugs.” Both rooms were well lit, by natural light during the day and by electric lamps (backed up by gas fixtures) at night. The reason Smith could not go through the ladies’ waiting room was that it and the adjoining ladies’ retiring room were guarded by a railroad matron. Smith could wander into the restaurant, however. Here he found both a lunch counter and a dining room (which had a small section reserved for women). He walked through them and returned to the general waiting room. If truly bored, he may have explored the separate arriving and departing baggage areas or used the elevators to reach the third floor, where he could find the barber shop and the bathing facilities for male travelers.23
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