Grand Central Terminal, NYC

GRAND

CENTRAL

March 16, 2005

A day like any other at

Grand Central Terminal

Grand Central Terminal Schedule: 1913: New York City is reputed to be “the City that never sleeps”, perhaps so. On 2 February at 12:01am Grand Central Station officially opened even though construction was not yet complete. Within 24 hours 150,000 had visited.

With transit hubs comes development, as it is true today, it was true then. By the end of 1927 warehouses in the area gave way to hotels and “skyscrapers”, changing the city forever.

Since 2 August, 1967, Grand Central Terminal has been an official landmark with legal protections against demolition. But that didn’t stop efforts to “modernize” and expand including an effort by UGP Properties, Inc who had acquired a lease from Penn Central, to build a 55-story tower above Grand Central, effectively obscuring the facade while “preserving” it. New York

City blocked the plans and Penn Central filed suit. Nearly a decade later in December of 1976 Grand Central Terminal became a national historic landmark.

In Grand Central’s heydays the Terminal was a prosperous place with an art leery, art school, newsreel movie theatre, a rail history museum and countless cultural events. Changing times and changing tastes were not economically kind to the Terminal and by the time it had been made a national landmark it was in need of major repairs and restorations.

Metro-North became the operator of the Terminal. Using a total of $595 million they contracted out a plan to deal with all the issues of deferred maintenance and future needs.

For a more on Grand Central Terminal: Grand by Design Travel + Leisure Architectural Digest NY Times

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