Chapter 1The Third Level

p. 1

Show this slide in the first five minutes of Period 1. Tell the students only that the story is told by a man named Charley, who says there is a third level in Grand Central Station. Have the students write the question on the next slide on a slip, and keep the slips with you; they come back in Period 5.

pp. 1–7

• pp. 1–2: Charley’s claim, the psychiatrist friend’s explanation, stamp collecting
• pp. 2–4: the way to the subway that night, the corridor, the third level and 1894
• pp. 4–5: the Galesburg tickets, the clerk’s refusal, the old-style money
• pp. 5–6: Sam Weiner, the first-day cover, Sam’s letter, the last line
• pp. 6–7: the seven questions of Reading with Insight

The story has no separate parts or headings; this division is our own sorting, made for the periods. Do not open what the last line says until the end of Period 4.

“THE presidents of the New York Central and the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroads will swear on a stack of timetables that there are only two. But I say there are three, because I’ve been on the third level of the Grand Central Station.”

Textbook, p. 1

These are the first two sentences of the story. Read them aloud and stress been. To swear on a stack of timetables means to promise very firmly that something is true. Ask: How many levels do the railroad presidents say Grand Central Station has, and how many does Charley say?

Sample answer — The presidents say there are only two. Charley says there are three, because he has been on the third level.

p. 1

Ask: What does Charley’s psychiatrist friend say about the third level?

Sample answer — He says it is “a waking-dream wish fulfillment”.

• About Charley: “He said I was unhappy.”
• The reason: The modern world is “full of insecurity, fear, war, worry and all the rest of it”, and Charley just wants to escape.

Charley replies, “Well, who doesn’t?”

pp. 1–2

• His friends say: “My stamp collecting, for example; that’s a ‘temporary refuge from reality.’”
• Charley first says “Well, maybe”, and then talks about his grandfather
• “things were pretty nice and peaceful in his day, from all I hear, and he started my collection.”
• “President Roosevelt collected stamps too, you know.”

The book does not give President Roosevelt’s full name; do not add it either. Ask: Does Charley agree with his friends?

Sample answer — Only partly. He says “Well, maybe”, and then argues back.

• His grandfather: “my grandfather didn’t need any refuge from reality”.
• The old days: “things were pretty nice and peaceful in his day, from all I hear”.

So he only half-agrees: a hobby his grandfather started in peaceful days need not mean escape.

p. 1

• “What does the third level refer to?”
• Think in pairs for two minutes, then put the answer on the board

Listen to three or four answers, then have the full answer built on the board. The students add the point about 1894 in their notebooks after Period 2.

Sample answer — The third level refers to a level of Grand Central Station below the two known levels, where Charley says he has been.

• What it is: Charley reaches it by chance through a corridor, and there it is still 1894.
• What the psychiatrist says: It is “a waking-dream wish fulfillment”, a way of escaping the worries of the modern world.

So it can be read as Charley’s wish to escape into a peaceful past.

p. 2

• “One night last summer I worked late at the office.”
• He had to get home early, and the subway is faster than the bus
• “I’m just an ordinary guy named Charley, thirty-one years old”
• “I wasn’t trying to escape from anything; I just wanted to get home to Louisa, my wife.”

Tell the students that the incident starts here; on page 1 Charley was telling the argument that came after it. Ask: Why did Charley go to Grand Central that night? Was he trying to escape?

Sample answer — He went there to take the subway home, because it is faster than the bus. He says he was not trying to escape from anything; he just wanted to get home to Louisa, his wife.

pp. 2–3

Ask: How did Charley get lost?

Sample answer — He went down to the first level and then to the second level, turned into an arched doorway heading for the subway, and got lost. He says this is easy to do there: once he got into a tunnel about a mile long and came out in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel.

“Sometimes I think Grand Central is growing like a tree, pushing out new corridors and staircases like roots.”

Textbook, p. 2

This is Charley’s own thinking; it is what makes the reader accept that there could be a way in the station that nobody knows. Ask: What idea does Charley keep from his psychiatrist friend?

Sample answer — That for many people “Grand Central has been an exit, a way of escape”, and that maybe this is how his tunnel came to be. He says, “But I never told my psychiatrist friend about that idea.”

pp. 3–4

Stop at each thing and ask the students to underline its name in the book; the meanings are in the glossary. Ask: What did Charley see that told him he was in an older time?

Sample answer — The things and the people around him were from the past.

• Things: brass spittoons on the floor, open-flame gaslights, and a very small Currier & Ives locomotive.
• People: a man with a gold watch, a derby hat, a black four-button suit and a big, black, handlebar mustache.
• Everyone: “everyone in the station was dressed like eighteen-ninety-something”.

Charley says, “And then I knew.”

p. 4

• A newsboy has a newspaper: The World, which “hasn’t been published for years”
• “The lead story said something about President Cleveland.”
• “I’ve found that front page since, in the Public Library files, and it was printed June 11, 1894.”

Stop at since: Charley looked up the date later in the Public Library, not that night. The World is the name of the newspaper. Ask: When was the newspaper that Charley saw printed?

Sample answer — June 11, 1894. Charley found that front page later, in the Public Library files.

“I could buy tickets that would take Louisa and me anywhere in the United States we wanted to go. In the year 1894.”

Textbook, p. 4

Time and space meet most clearly in this line; it comes back in Period 5. Ask: Where did Charley want to go?

Sample answer — He wanted two tickets to Galesburg, Illinois, for Louisa and himself.

p. 4

• “Have you ever been there?” Here Charley asks the reader directly
• big old frame houses, huge lawns, tremendous trees
• “summer evenings were twice as long”
• “with the fire-flies all around, in a peaceful world”
• the First World War “still twenty years off”; World War II “over forty years in the future”

Ask: Why did Charley want to go to Galesburg in 1894?

Sample answer — For Charley, Galesburg in 1894 was a calm and happy place.

• The evenings: summer evenings were “twice as long”, and people sat out on their lawns, with the fire-flies all around, “in a peaceful world”.
• The wars: the First World War was “still twenty years off”, and World War II “over forty years in the future”.

So he wanted to be back in that peaceful time: “I wanted two tickets for that.”

p. 4

• Charley had the money for two coach tickets, one way
• The clerk: “That ain’t money, mister”
• “if you’re trying to skin me, you won’t get very far”
• “Of course the money was old-style bills, half again as big as the money we use nowadays, and different-looking.”
• “There’s nothing nice about jail, even in 1894.”

Ain’t is the spoken form of isn’t, and skin me means to cheat me. Half again as big means one and a half times as big, not double. Ask: Did Charley buy the tickets?

Sample answer — No. The clerk refused his money and thought Charley was trying to cheat him, so Charley turned away and got out fast.

p. 5

Draw the students’ attention to I suppose: Charley is not sure himself which way he came back. The $800 is Sam’s, in the next part; Charley’s is $300. Ask: Did Charley find the third level again?

Sample answer — No. He has “never again found the corridor”, although he has tried often enough. Louisa was worried, so after a while he stopped and went back to his stamps.

p. 5

• “But now we’re both looking, every weekend, because now we have proof that the third level is still there.”
• “My friend Sam Weiner disappeared!”
• “Sam’s a city boy”; Charley used to tell him about Galesburg, where Charley went to school
• “And that’s where he is, all right. In 1894.”

Charley gives the result first, the proof, and tells the story of the evidence afterwards. Ask: Why does Charley think Sam Weiner is in Galesburg?

Sample answer — Because Sam disappeared, and Galesburg was the place Sam liked to hear about. Sam is a city boy, and he always said he liked the sound of the place.

p. 5

• “Well, do you know what a first-day cover is?”
• on the first day a new stamp is sold, collectors use it to mail envelopes to their own addresses
• “the postmark proves the date”
• “They’re never opened; you just put blank paper in the envelope.”

If you have an old envelope with a postmark, show it. Ask: What is a first-day cover?

Sample answer — An envelope that stamp collectors mail to themselves on the first day a new stamp is sold; “the postmark proves the date”. It is never opened; there is only blank paper inside.

p. 5

Keep the two dates apart: June 11, 1894 is the newspaper’s, July 18, 1894 is the postmark of this envelope. The envelope did not reach Charley’s house by post; it was sent to his grandfather’s address and stayed in his collection.

p. 5

• “Would Charley ever go back to the ticket-counter on the third level to buy tickets to Galesburg for himself and his wife?”
• Think in pairs for two minutes, then put the answer on the board

Sample answer — Charley wants to go back, but he has never found the corridor again.

• He prepares: The next day he draws three hundred dollars and buys old-style currency.
• He fails: He never finds the corridor again, though he has “tried often enough”.
• He keeps hoping: After Sam’s letter, he and Louisa look for it every weekend.

So he would go back if he found the third level again; the story leaves this open.

“I got to wishing that you were right. Then I got to believing you were right. And, Charley, it’s true; I found the third level!”

Textbook, p. 6

The letter is from 941 Willard Street, Galesburg, Illinois, and is dated July 18, 1894. Read it slowly, and remind the students that the paper inside a first-day cover is always blank. Ask, as Reading with Insight question 2 is printed: “What do you infer from Sam’s letter to Charley?”

Sample answer — Sam’s letter tells us that Sam has found the third level and is living happily in Galesburg in 1894.

• Sam has escaped: The letter is dated July 18, 1894, and Sam writes that he has been there two weeks.
• He is happy: Someone is playing a piano at the Daly’s, people are singing on the front porch, and he is invited over for lemonade.
• He invites them: He asks Charley and Louisa to keep looking for the third level: “It’s worth it, believe me!”
• It is proof: The letter came in a first-day cover mailed to Charley’s grandfather in Galesburg, and its postmark proves the date.

So the letter suggests that even the psychiatrist wanted to escape the modern world; the last line tells us who he is.

“His old business? Why, Sam was my psychiatrist.”

Textbook, p. 6

Show this slide at the very end of Period 4. Just before it, Charley tells us that Sam bought eight hundred dollars’ worth of old-style currency. By Charley’s reckoning, that is enough for Sam to start a hay, feed and grain business, because “he certainly can’t go back to his old business”. Ask: Who was Sam Weiner?

Sample answer — Charley’s friend, who was also his psychiatrist: “Why, Sam was my psychiatrist.” On page 1, Charley’s psychiatrist friend called the third level “a waking-dream wish fulfillment”; now Sam writes that he is there himself. This is the irony of the ending.

pp. 1, 5–6

Hand back the first-day slips from Period 1. The story does not decide; do not decide either. Each student writes a new answer under the old two lines, with one line for each side.

Sample answer — The story does not decide; it gives lines for both readings.

• It may be real: Charley says, “now we have proof that the third level is still there”, and Sam’s letter, postmarked July 18, 1894, says, “I found the third level!”
• It may be only in his mind: The psychiatrist friend calls it “a waking-dream wish fulfillment”, and Charley has “never again found the corridor”.

A good answer gives a line for each side and then says which reading the student finds stronger, and why.

pp. 1–5

Give each pair one theme; the pair first looks for its line on its own, then matches it against this table. Then ask question 1 aloud, as printed: “Do you think that the third level was a medium of escape for Charley? Why?”

Sample answer — Yes, the third level was Charley’s medium of escape from the worries of modern life.

• The psychiatrist’s view: His psychiatrist friend calls it “a waking-dream wish fulfillment” and says Charley wants to escape a world “full of insecurity, fear, war, worry and all the rest of it”.
• What he finds there: On the third level it is 1894. Galesburg, Illinois, in 1894 is “a peaceful world”, with long summer evenings and the First World War still twenty years off.
• What he does: He tries to buy two tickets to Galesburg for himself and Louisa. Later he draws three hundred dollars, nearly all he and Louisa have, to buy old-style currency.

Charley says he was not trying to escape that night, but his longing to go back shows that the third level is his way out of the present.

pp. 1–6

• First-person narrator: Charley tells it in the first person (‘I’) and talks like a friend: “Well, do you know what a first-day cover is?”
• An open question: “But I’ve never again found the corridor that leads to the third level at Grand Central Station, although I’ve tried often enough.”
• The first-day cover as proof: “the postmark proves the date”
• A twist ending: “His old business? Why, Sam was my psychiatrist.”

Ask: Why does Charley keep asking the reader questions?

Sample answer — He talks to the reader as he would to a friend, so even a strange story starts to sound believable.

pp. 1, 6

If an answer has to quote the story, have the words on the right written.

Sample answer — People find many ways to overcome worry and stress.

• Ways: hobbies, music, games and exercise, family and friends, travel, and dreams of a peaceful past.
• In the story: Charley’s stamp collecting is called a “temporary refuge from reality”.
• A balance: Escape gives only short relief; the lasting way is to face our problems and keep a balance between work and rest.

pp. 2–6

• “Do you see an intersection of time and space in the story?”
• One place, two times: Grand Central Station, and 1894 on its third level
• A letter across time: the letter of July 18, 1894 reaches Charley in his own time

Sample answer — Yes, in the story time and space meet and cross each other.

• One place, two times: Grand Central Station is an ordinary station in Charley’s own time, but on its third level it is 1894.
• Travel in both: From the ticket window there, Charley could buy tickets to any place in the United States, but in the year 1894.
• A letter across time: Sam’s letter, dated July 18, 1894, reaches Charley in his own time, in the collection his grandfather started.
• A person across time: Sam disappears from Charley’s world and lives in Galesburg in 1894.

Thus the story joins the present and the past in one place.

pp. 1, 5, 6–7 · the key points are our own

The full sample answers are in the last section of the revision notes and in the teacher guide. The suggested outline for the written test is in Period 6 of the lesson plan.

pp. 1, 3–6

• Has the sentence of question 3 come in as a line from the story?
• Have June 11, 1894 (the newspaper) and July 18, 1894 (the postmark, Sam’s letter) got mixed up?
• Has the answer said that Charley bought the tickets, that Sam and the psychiatrist are two people, or that the third level is certainly real?
• Is every quotation in the book’s spelling: fulfillment, mustache, centre, fire-flies?

Have the students exchange notebooks and check each other’s answer with these four points. On the third level, either side is right if it comes with a line from the book.

“But now we’re both looking, every weekend, because now we have proof that the third level is still there.”

Textbook, p. 5

This proof is Sam’s letter; but Charley never finds the corridor again. The story leaves this decision to the reader. The last slip: Which one line from the story will you remember, and why?