If you think this street honors American Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt (1844-1926), you’re close: it’s for her brother Alexander Johnston Cassatt (1839-1906). Why him? Because he was president of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1902, when this street was born on William Carlson‘s “Pasadena Villa” development, and Carlson liked to name his streets after railroad barons (see also: Collis, Harriman, and Randolph avenues). The Cassatts were a Pittsburgh clan who relocated to Philadelphia during Alexander’s and Mary’s childhood. In 1861, while his sister was studying painting, Cassatt joined the “Pennsy” as a low-level civil engineer. He had risen to the rank of first vice president – no mean feat, as the Pennsy was the largest corporation on Earth at the time – when he took an early retirement in 1882. The company lured him back in 1899 with the offer of its presidency, whereupon Cassatt embarked upon a bold new plan that would change American history: tunneling under the Hudson River so that the Pennsy could reach Manhattan directly. NYC’s Penn Station opened in 1910, four years after the death of the man who urged it into existence.
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