March 5, 2021 • 13 mins
Holly and Tracy talk about what a jerk Cornelius Vanderbilt was, trivia about the Grand Central story, and Tracy’s first visit to Grand Central Terminal. Then they discuss the myriad levels of confusion possible regarding names in the story of Zoe and Theodora.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, A production
of I Heart Radio. Happy Friday, Everybody. I'm Holly Fry
and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Uh So we talked about
Grand Central Terminal this week, Tracy, We sure did. There's
so much about this that I couldn't really put in
(00:25):
the episode. One. Cornelius Vanderbilt, Yeah, what a jerk. You know.
It's like the kind family friendly way I will put it.
But uh, there's a famous quote by him that comes
up every time you read anything about him, which is
that when he was in one of his long ongoing
feuds with another business person, he would say to them,
(00:48):
I won't sue you because the courts take too long.
I'll ruin you, and which he did. I mean, we
talked about it, you know, pretty askingly, like he would
just create scenarios where other companies could not survive and
then say, well, I'll step out of this industry if
(01:08):
you'll just pay me every month for ever to not
make more money here. Um. He also, oh, there's some
I did not go down the rabbit hole too far
because it was infuriating. He was just deeply misogynist, and
you know, talked about how he didn't really care about
his daughters because they weren't as important to him as
his sons. And it's interesting because you'll also sometimes see
(01:31):
discussions of his wife being really important to the business,
and she ran business on her own, And I don't
have a good sense of what their relationship was, but
I do have a good sense that Cornelia's Vanderbilt was
a jerk. Yeah. There's also though lots of um fun
trivia that comes with that story that doesn't necessarily fit
(01:53):
into that narrative. For example, um, when they built Grand
Central Depot, that meant that New York and Harlem station,
which had existed prior and was one of the ones
they were using, were no longer needed, and Vanderbilt sold
it to P. T. Barnum, And that is where P. T.
(02:16):
Barnum set up the first iteration of Madison Square Garden huh,
which is just a cool New York trivia thing. Yeah. Um,
we mentioned in the episode that when they rebuilt Grand
Central Terminal, it didn't have stairs. Everything was ramps, which
is cool for a variety of reasons, Like I really
(02:39):
really love there's a particular piece of writing that's like
marketing writing about the new terminal and how you know,
even toddlers can handle transitioning from one place to the
other without it being a problem. But the best, at
least in terms of making me giggle, phrase of it
was that there were the ramps were available for women
(03:01):
trailing along and preposterous train like a ridiculous dress on.
Don't worry there are no steps. Yeah, although I one
would travel in along and preposterous train. I know travel
has changed a great deal. You used to dress up
for it, But that just made me laugh and laugh
(03:25):
and laugh. It's also really interesting because the guiding principle
of Vanderbilt was, even though he did philanthropy kind of
later in his life after his first wife died and
his second wife encouraged him to do so, he was
pretty open about I don't care about the people or
the community. I'm in it for the benefit of the business.
(03:45):
In everything he did, and even after he was out
of the picture, that was still in many ways like
the driver of things where people be like, no, no,
this is gonna be cool and create a community, but
it's really good for the business. Is you know one
of those things that anyone that's worked for any corporation
I'm sure has had similar ethical discussion right about really
(04:08):
what is driving any of their innovation or plans? Um.
It just made me laugh. The one thing that's also
interesting in this we talked about how the neighborhood around
Grand Central just rocketed in terms of value, and as
an interesting juxtaposition, Penn Station did not have the same
(04:28):
instant effect on its neighborhood. Just an interesting little factoid.
Well that's connected to my Grand Central story. I said,
I was going to tell um, which is that my
preferred way of getting to New York from Massachusetts is
on a train because even though like if you fly
from Boston to New York, your your time spent in
(04:50):
the air is way shorter than the train trip, but
like door to door, it's effectively the same. In the
train is in my opinion, more comfortable, uh, just some
more fun trip. I like to watch things out the window, etcetera. Um,
But the Amtrak trains until very recently all came into
(05:12):
Penn Station and departed from Penn Station, and Penn Station
is just kind of dark and dingy, and it's just
not a fun or pretty place to hang out. And
I've had two trips to New York on the train
that were significantly delayed because of a problem. One time
it was a tree fell onto the track, and one
(05:32):
time it was a derailment that happened right outside of
New York. And on that derailment trip, we had to
go through a whole process of switching on to other
trains and then finishing our trip into New York on
a Metro North train that came into Grand Central instead
of Penn Station. And I remember getting off of the
(05:53):
train after this many many hours longer than normal trip.
I was very tired, and it was a work trip,
so I had somewhere I needed to be, and I
kind of made my way out from immediately after getting
off of the train, and then I walked into like
the Grand Central terminal area, and I was like, how
(06:15):
can I come into and out of this station all
the time every time? It's very pretty. It's so and
I sadly did not have time to like really appreciate
it because I needed, you know, I needed to get
to my hotel and get to our work dinner or
whatever it was that was on the schedule. Um, they
have moved the Amtrak lobby like a brand new thing
(06:37):
just opened literally a month ago, and I haven't seen
it in person yet because of course we are not
taking trips to New York right now. Um, but yeah,
I still remember just being like so exhausted and so tired,
and even like Amtrak had really tried so hard to
keep everybody informed of what was going on and to
keep us as comfortable as possible, but it was still
a frustrating trip. And I just remember suddenly being like,
(07:02):
what is this beauty? All recome to me? Ah? And
then you get to see that statue of Cornelius Vanderbilt
that everybody panmed because he say he looks wooden and weird. Yeah,
that's a lot of money on the statue. One of
our episodes on the show this week was about Zoe
(07:23):
and Theodora. Uh. Yeah, So I don't remember how Zoe
and Theodore made their way onto my list, but at
some point I ran across some you know, mentioned about
Zoe and Theodora as having been empresses together. Um. One
(07:43):
of the things that's a little challenging, as I alluded
to in the show, is that a lot of the
names are the same and over and over and over,
and I don't know if they're identically the same in Greek,
but the Anglicized versions of them are the same, and
so they were. As I was doing my research, the
(08:08):
thing that I often do is I go and I
bookmark a whole bunch of stuff. I grab a bunch
of stuff that then I'm going to go through later.
And as I was going through the things I had
already gathered together, I would be like, oh, this is
not the same Theodora. In fact, this is not the
same Joey. I got deeply confused trying to confirm sort
(08:30):
of the progression of the imperial dynasty and who followed
who um, because there was a different Theo Fano and
close enough to this particular family that I got so lost.
I was like, wait, just wait, she wasn't married to him.
I was about to draw a family tree when I
(08:53):
realized I was just looking at a different person with
the same name. Yeah. I think that's always the pit
all in doing any particularly as you go back to
more ancient times, any royal family, because it is name
after name after name following in the lineage as part
of just the way they managed their their ruling. I'm
(09:16):
going to be honest, it is one of the reasons
why Royalty episodes are like not at the top of
my interest a lot of the time, because I'll just
be like, why, why is it another Michael other names.
I will say that after doing um a season of
(09:38):
Lady Poisoners on Criminalia, I'm like, oh, yeah, Zoe was
poisoning people left and right. I'm convinced of it. It's
certain everyone poisoning everyone all the time. Yeah. Yeah, So
there is the entirety of an English language version of
the Chronographia UM at Fordham University and their medieval source
(10:00):
UM that you know, if you want to have a
read of that to see for yourself how sometimes dramatic
and sometimes self centered that account is. There were times
where I was just like, people describe you as a historian,
but like, this does not read as a historical count
at all. This reads almost like you're writing a treatment
(10:21):
for an opera, like a particularly dramatic opera. Is there
any other kind We're gonna write a boring opera about
Zoe and Theodora. I don't think that would work out.
There was just too much, too much potential murdering and
banishing people and possibly tonsuring their hair and the blindings
(10:44):
a lot of blindings and castrations. Yes, that's not that's
not cool. No, that's not cool. Everybody cool. Um it
It is the as we said, the veracity of these
account we know you have to kind of question a little,
(11:05):
but it does also put in kind of sharp focus
just the cruelty of the manner in which power has
always been seized and maintained. Yeah. Yeah, the the series
with Zoe's husband's coming to the throne and then immediately
banishing her, I was like, that's pattern now, yeah, constantly banishing. Um.
(11:31):
One of the things that I like to talk about
in episodes in general is like what somebody's impact or
legacy was, And that was really hard with Zey and Theodora,
like because they were at the very end of an
imperial dynasty and then afterwards there was this period of
just chaos, uh, with so many so much turnover and
(11:52):
who was supposed to be ruling in the immediate years
and decades afterward. That I was like, wow, I feel
like this episode just has a big in the middle
at an end and that just kind of stops stories over. Uh. Yeah,
I mean that's valid, right, we did everything that they
may have worked towards kind of got thrown out the
(12:13):
window by constant challenges after the fact. So again, poisons.
I believe in my soul perfumes. Bring me herbs. That'll
be cool there for perfumes. Come on, Yeah, we all
know better, but it was the poison lab. They're in
(12:37):
the Embassis quarters. If you would like to write to us,
send us it out. Were History podcast at I heart
radio dot com. And this is Friday. I hope whatever
is happening your weekend, it's going pretty well for you. Uh.
If you're off, have a great time off you're working.
I hope everyone is nice to you. Stuff you missed
(13:01):
in History Class is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the iHeart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, A production
of I Heart Radio. Happy Friday, Everybody. I'm Holly Fry
and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Uh So we talked about
Grand Central Terminal this week, Tracy, We sure did. There's
so much about this that I couldn't really put in
(00:25):
the episode. One. Cornelius Vanderbilt, Yeah, what a jerk. You know.
It's like the kind family friendly way I will put it.
But uh, there's a famous quote by him that comes
up every time you read anything about him, which is
that when he was in one of his long ongoing
feuds with another business person, he would say to them,
(00:48):
I won't sue you because the courts take too long.
I'll ruin you, and which he did. I mean, we
talked about it, you know, pretty askingly, like he would
just create scenarios where other companies could not survive and
then say, well, I'll step out of this industry if
(01:08):
you'll just pay me every month for ever to not
make more money here. Um. He also, oh, there's some
I did not go down the rabbit hole too far
because it was infuriating. He was just deeply misogynist, and
you know, talked about how he didn't really care about
his daughters because they weren't as important to him as
his sons. And it's interesting because you'll also sometimes see
(01:31):
discussions of his wife being really important to the business,
and she ran business on her own, And I don't
have a good sense of what their relationship was, but
I do have a good sense that Cornelia's Vanderbilt was
a jerk. Yeah. There's also though lots of um fun
trivia that comes with that story that doesn't necessarily fit
(01:53):
into that narrative. For example, um, when they built Grand
Central Depot, that meant that New York and Harlem station,
which had existed prior and was one of the ones
they were using, were no longer needed, and Vanderbilt sold
it to P. T. Barnum, And that is where P. T.
(02:16):
Barnum set up the first iteration of Madison Square Garden huh,
which is just a cool New York trivia thing. Yeah. Um,
we mentioned in the episode that when they rebuilt Grand
Central Terminal, it didn't have stairs. Everything was ramps, which
is cool for a variety of reasons, Like I really
(02:39):
really love there's a particular piece of writing that's like
marketing writing about the new terminal and how you know,
even toddlers can handle transitioning from one place to the
other without it being a problem. But the best, at
least in terms of making me giggle, phrase of it
was that there were the ramps were available for women
(03:01):
trailing along and preposterous train like a ridiculous dress on.
Don't worry there are no steps. Yeah, although I one
would travel in along and preposterous train. I know travel
has changed a great deal. You used to dress up
for it, But that just made me laugh and laugh
(03:25):
and laugh. It's also really interesting because the guiding principle
of Vanderbilt was, even though he did philanthropy kind of
later in his life after his first wife died and
his second wife encouraged him to do so, he was
pretty open about I don't care about the people or
the community. I'm in it for the benefit of the business.
(03:45):
In everything he did, and even after he was out
of the picture, that was still in many ways like
the driver of things where people be like, no, no,
this is gonna be cool and create a community, but
it's really good for the business. Is you know one
of those things that anyone that's worked for any corporation
I'm sure has had similar ethical discussion right about really
(04:08):
what is driving any of their innovation or plans? Um.
It just made me laugh. The one thing that's also
interesting in this we talked about how the neighborhood around
Grand Central just rocketed in terms of value, and as
an interesting juxtaposition, Penn Station did not have the same
(04:28):
instant effect on its neighborhood. Just an interesting little factoid.
Well that's connected to my Grand Central story. I said,
I was going to tell um, which is that my
preferred way of getting to New York from Massachusetts is
on a train because even though like if you fly
from Boston to New York, your your time spent in
(04:50):
the air is way shorter than the train trip, but
like door to door, it's effectively the same. In the
train is in my opinion, more comfortable, uh, just some
more fun trip. I like to watch things out the window, etcetera. Um,
But the Amtrak trains until very recently all came into
(05:12):
Penn Station and departed from Penn Station, and Penn Station
is just kind of dark and dingy, and it's just
not a fun or pretty place to hang out. And
I've had two trips to New York on the train
that were significantly delayed because of a problem. One time
it was a tree fell onto the track, and one
(05:32):
time it was a derailment that happened right outside of
New York. And on that derailment trip, we had to
go through a whole process of switching on to other
trains and then finishing our trip into New York on
a Metro North train that came into Grand Central instead
of Penn Station. And I remember getting off of the
(05:53):
train after this many many hours longer than normal trip.
I was very tired, and it was a work trip,
so I had somewhere I needed to be, and I
kind of made my way out from immediately after getting
off of the train, and then I walked into like
the Grand Central terminal area, and I was like, how
(06:15):
can I come into and out of this station all
the time every time? It's very pretty. It's so and
I sadly did not have time to like really appreciate
it because I needed, you know, I needed to get
to my hotel and get to our work dinner or
whatever it was that was on the schedule. Um, they
have moved the Amtrak lobby like a brand new thing
(06:37):
just opened literally a month ago, and I haven't seen
it in person yet because of course we are not
taking trips to New York right now. Um, but yeah,
I still remember just being like so exhausted and so tired,
and even like Amtrak had really tried so hard to
keep everybody informed of what was going on and to
keep us as comfortable as possible, but it was still
a frustrating trip. And I just remember suddenly being like,
(07:02):
what is this beauty? All recome to me? Ah? And
then you get to see that statue of Cornelius Vanderbilt
that everybody panmed because he say he looks wooden and weird. Yeah,
that's a lot of money on the statue. One of
our episodes on the show this week was about Zoe
(07:23):
and Theodora. Uh. Yeah, So I don't remember how Zoe
and Theodore made their way onto my list, but at
some point I ran across some you know, mentioned about
Zoe and Theodora as having been empresses together. Um. One
(07:43):
of the things that's a little challenging, as I alluded
to in the show, is that a lot of the
names are the same and over and over and over,
and I don't know if they're identically the same in Greek,
but the Anglicized versions of them are the same, and
so they were. As I was doing my research, the
(08:08):
thing that I often do is I go and I
bookmark a whole bunch of stuff. I grab a bunch
of stuff that then I'm going to go through later.
And as I was going through the things I had
already gathered together, I would be like, oh, this is
not the same Theodora. In fact, this is not the
same Joey. I got deeply confused trying to confirm sort
(08:30):
of the progression of the imperial dynasty and who followed
who um, because there was a different Theo Fano and
close enough to this particular family that I got so lost.
I was like, wait, just wait, she wasn't married to him.
I was about to draw a family tree when I
(08:53):
realized I was just looking at a different person with
the same name. Yeah. I think that's always the pit
all in doing any particularly as you go back to
more ancient times, any royal family, because it is name
after name after name following in the lineage as part
of just the way they managed their their ruling. I'm
(09:16):
going to be honest, it is one of the reasons
why Royalty episodes are like not at the top of
my interest a lot of the time, because I'll just
be like, why, why is it another Michael other names.
I will say that after doing um a season of
(09:38):
Lady Poisoners on Criminalia, I'm like, oh, yeah, Zoe was
poisoning people left and right. I'm convinced of it. It's
certain everyone poisoning everyone all the time. Yeah. Yeah, So
there is the entirety of an English language version of
the Chronographia UM at Fordham University and their medieval source
(10:00):
UM that you know, if you want to have a
read of that to see for yourself how sometimes dramatic
and sometimes self centered that account is. There were times
where I was just like, people describe you as a historian,
but like, this does not read as a historical count
at all. This reads almost like you're writing a treatment
(10:21):
for an opera, like a particularly dramatic opera. Is there
any other kind We're gonna write a boring opera about
Zoe and Theodora. I don't think that would work out.
There was just too much, too much potential murdering and
banishing people and possibly tonsuring their hair and the blindings
(10:44):
a lot of blindings and castrations. Yes, that's not that's
not cool. No, that's not cool. Everybody cool. Um it
It is the as we said, the veracity of these
account we know you have to kind of question a little,
(11:05):
but it does also put in kind of sharp focus
just the cruelty of the manner in which power has
always been seized and maintained. Yeah. Yeah, the the series
with Zoe's husband's coming to the throne and then immediately
banishing her, I was like, that's pattern now, yeah, constantly banishing. Um.
(11:31):
One of the things that I like to talk about
in episodes in general is like what somebody's impact or
legacy was, And that was really hard with Zey and Theodora,
like because they were at the very end of an
imperial dynasty and then afterwards there was this period of
just chaos, uh, with so many so much turnover and
(11:52):
who was supposed to be ruling in the immediate years
and decades afterward. That I was like, wow, I feel
like this episode just has a big in the middle
at an end and that just kind of stops stories over. Uh. Yeah,
I mean that's valid, right, we did everything that they
may have worked towards kind of got thrown out the
(12:13):
window by constant challenges after the fact. So again, poisons.
I believe in my soul perfumes. Bring me herbs. That'll
be cool there for perfumes. Come on, Yeah, we all
know better, but it was the poison lab. They're in
(12:37):
the Embassis quarters. If you would like to write to us,
send us it out. Were History podcast at I heart
radio dot com. And this is Friday. I hope whatever
is happening your weekend, it's going pretty well for you. Uh.
If you're off, have a great time off you're working.
I hope everyone is nice to you. Stuff you missed
(13:01):
in History Class is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the iHeart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
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Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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