Shed Art - Terra Cottas - Karl Bitter? - Broad Street Station

First I heard of these city terra-cottas in the old Broad Street Station. Sounds a bit like it has the makings of an urban legend. 

I have not seen any references until now in much research on the Internet on Bitter. Not to say that sketches and photos do not exist but they likely are still unscanned/imaged in libraries or dedicated art archives on the subject.

Queen City Discovery


Is this the source of your story? Any other clippings? etc.


In terms of further research the likely place to find data would be search on Stephens, Armstrong and Conklin and later Armstrong and Conklin as famous Philadelphia terra cotta makers and under that old spelling, not necessarily terracotta. That and unpublished Karl Bitters archives wherever they may exist. 


The Clay Worker

This article make its sound that the Bitter bas reliefs on ten American cities would be finished and installed after the opening day of the newly expanded renovated Broad Street Station. That would mean to me less newspaper articles on the subject.

That duplicate terra cotta panels may have been installed in PRR stations around the country, along with panels put in BSS. Terra Cotta is a product that can be duplicated in mass etc. 

That the Cincinnatti panel could have survived the 1923 fire and then be placed in the Cincinnati train station sounds like an internal corporate thing on which little published material is likely available. 

An interesting tangent to the whole old BSS story btw.