Grand Central Terminal

Grand Central Terminal serves some 67 million passengers a year, more than any other Metro-North station.[2][12] At morning rush hour, a train arrives at the terminal every 58 seconds.[13]

Three of Metro-North's five main lines terminate at Grand Central:[14]

• Harlem Line to Wassaic, New York
• Hudson Line to Poughkeepsie, New York (Amtrak connection to Albany)
• New Haven Line to New Haven, Connecticut (Amtrak connection to Hartford, Springfield, Boston; Shore Line East to New London)
  • New Canaan Branch to New Canaan, Connecticut
  • Danbury Branch to Danbury, Connecticut
  • Waterbury Branch to Waterbury, Connecticut

Through these lines, the terminal serves Metro-North commuters traveling to and from the Bronx in New York City; Westchester, Putnam, and Dutchess counties in New York; and Fairfield and New Haven counties in Connecticut.[14]

The New York City Subway's adjacent Grand Central–42nd Street station serves the following routes:[11]

• 4, ​5, ​6, and <6> trains (IRT Lexington Avenue Line), situated diagonally under the Pershing Square Building/110 East 42nd Street, 42nd Street, and Grand Hyatt New York
• 7 and <7>​ trains (IRT Flushing Line), under 42nd Street between Park Avenue and west of Third Avenue
• S train (42nd Street Shuttle), under 42nd Street between Madison Avenue and Vanderbilt Avenue

These MTA Regional Bus Operations buses stop near Grand Central:[1][15]

• NYCT Bus:
  • M1, M2, M3, M4 and Q32 local buses at Madison Avenue (northbound) and Fifth Avenue (southbound)
  • X27, X28, X37, X38, SIM4C, SIM6, SIM8, SIM8X, SIM11, SIM22, SIM25, SIM26, SIM30, SIM31 and SIM33C express buses at Madison Avenue (northbound)
  • X27, X28, X37, X38, SIM4C, SIM8, SIM8X, SIM25, SIM31 and SIM33C express buses at Fifth Avenue (southbound)
  • M42 local bus at 42nd Street
  • M101, M102 and M103 local buses at Third Avenue (northbound) and Lexington Avenue (southbound)
  • X27, X28, X63, X64 and X68 express buses at Third Avenue (northbound)
  • SIM6, SIM11, SIM22 and SIM26 express buses at Lexington Avenue (southbound)
• MTA Bus:
  • BxM3, BxM4, BxM6, BxM7, BxM8, BxM9, BxM10, BxM18, BM1, BM2, BM3, BM4 and BM5 express buses at Madison Avenue (northbound) and Fifth Avenue (southbound)
  • BxM1 express bus at Lexington Avenue (southbound)
  • BxM1, QM21, QM31, QM32, QM34, QM35, QM36, QM40, QM42 and QM44 express buses at Third Avenue (northbound)
  • SIM23 and SIM24 express buses at Madison Avenue (northbound) and Fifth Avenue (southbound)

The 20th Century Limited at Grand Central Terminal, c. 1952

The terminal and its predecessors were designed for intercity service, which operated from the first station building's completion in 1871 until Amtrak ceased operations in the terminal in 1991. Through transfers, passengers could connect to all major lines in the United States, including the Canadian, the Empire Builder, the San Francisco Zephyr, the Southwest Limited, the Crescent, and the Sunset Limited under Amtrak. Destinations included San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver, New Orleans, Chicago, and Montreal.[16] Another notable former train was New York Central's 20th Century Limited, a luxury service that operated to Chicago's LaSalle Street Station between 1902 and 1967 and was among the most famous trains of its time.[17][18]

From 1971 to 1991, all Amtrak trains using the intrastate Empire Corridor to Niagara Falls terminated at Grand Central; interstate Northeast Corridor trains used Penn Station.[19] Notable Amtrak services at Grand Central included the Lake Shore, Empire Service, Adirondack, Niagara Rainbow, Maple Leaf, and Empire State Express.[20][21][22]

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to bring Long Island Rail Road commuter trains to the new Grand Central Madison station beneath Grand Central as part of its East Side Access project.[23] The project will connect the terminal to the railroad's Main Line,[24] which connects to all of the LIRR's branches and almost all of its stations.[25] As of October 2021, service is expected to begin in December 2022.[26][27]

Midday pedestrian traffic in the Main Concourse

The Main Concourse is located on the upper platform level of Grand Central, in the geographical center of the station building. The 35,000-square-foot (3,300 m²) concourse[32] leads directly to most of the terminal's upper-level tracks, although some are accessed from passageways near the concourse.[33] The Main Concourse is usually filled with bustling crowds and is often used as a meeting place.[34] At the center of the concourse is an information booth topped with a four-sided brass clock, one of Grand Central's most recognizable icons.[35] The terminal's main departure boards are located at the south end of the space. The boards have been replaced numerous times since their initial installation in 1967.[36][37][38]

Floor plan of the main level of the terminal

Graybar Passage

In their design for the station's interior, Reed & Stem created a circulation system that allowed passengers alighting from trains to enter the Main Concourse, then leave through various passages that branch from it.[39] Among these are the north–south 42nd Street Passage and Shuttle Passage, which run south to 42nd Street; and three east–west passageways — the Grand Central Market, the Graybar Passage, and the Lexington Passage — that run about 240 feet (73 m) east to Lexington Avenue by 43rd Street.[33][40] Several passages run north of the terminal, including the north–south 45th Street Passage, which leads to 45th Street and Madison Avenue,[41] and the network of tunnels in Grand Central North, which lead to exits at every street from 45th to 48th Street.[33]

Each of the east–west passageways runs through a different building. The northernmost is the Graybar Passage,[33] built on the first floor of the Graybar Building in 1926.[42] Its walls and seven large transverse arches are made of coursed ashlar travertine, and the floor is terrazzo. The ceiling is composed of seven groin vaults, each of which has an ornamental bronze chandelier. The first two vaults, as viewed from leaving Grand Central, are painted with cumulus clouds, while the third contains a 1927 mural by Edward Trumbull depicting American transportation.[43][44]

Grand Central Market's interior and its Lexington Avenue facade between the Grand Hyatt New York and Graybar Building

The middle passageway houses Grand Central Market, a cluster of food shops.[33][45] The site was originally a segment of 43rd Street which became the terminal's first service dock in 1913.[46] In 1975, a Greenwich Savings Bank branch was built in the space,[47][48] which was converted into the marketplace in 1998, and involved installing a new limestone facade on the building.[49] The building's second story, whose balcony overlooks the market and 43rd Street, was to house a restaurant, but is instead used for storage.[40][50]

The southernmost of the three, the Lexington Passage, was originally known as the Commodore Passage after the Commodore Hotel, which it ran through.[40] When the hotel was renamed the Grand Hyatt, the passage was likewise renamed. The passage acquired its current name during the terminal's renovation in the 1990s.[49]

The Shuttle Passage, on the west side of the terminal, connects the Main Concourse to Grand Central's subway station. The terminal was originally configured with two parallel passages, later simplified into one wide passageway.[46]

The Oyster Bar ramps shown c. 1913. They were completely restored in 1998 with one change – lower walls on the pedestrian overpass.

Ramps include the Vanderbilt Avenue ramp and the Oyster Bar ramps. The Vanderbilt Avenue or Kitty Kelly ramp leads from the corner of Vanderbilt Avenue and 42nd Street down into the Shuttle Passage. The ramp was likewise restored in 1998; originally and currently its space was two stories high. Most of the space was built upon, becoming the Kitty Kelly women's shoe store, and later operating as Federal Express.[51]

The Oyster Bar ramps lead down from the Main Concourse to the Oyster Bar and Dining Concourse.[33] They span a total of 302 ft (92 m) from east to west under an 84 ft (26 m) ceiling.[52] The ramps were partially covered by expanded main-floor ticket offices from 1927 until the terminal's restoration in 1998. A pedestrian overpass spans over the ramps, leading from Vanderbilt Hall to the Main Concourse. The bridge has been visible since 1998, restoring the original appearance with one minor change – the bridge now has a low balustrade, replacing an eight-foot-high solid wall that blocked views between the two levels.[51] The underside of the bridge is covered with Guastavino tiling.[53] The bridge's arches create a whispering gallery: a person standing in one corner can hear another speaking softly in the diagonally opposite corner.[54][55]

Grand Central North is a network of four tunnels that allow people to walk between the station building (which sits between 42nd and 44th Street) and exits at 45th, 46th, 47th, and 48th Street.[56] The 1,000-foot (300 m) Northwest Passage and 1,200-foot (370 m) Northeast Passage run parallel to the tracks on the upper level, while two shorter cross-passages run perpendicular to the tracks.[57][58] The 47th Street cross-passage runs between the upper and lower tracks, 30 feet (9.1 m) below street level; it provides access to upper-level tracks. The 45th Street cross-passage runs under the lower tracks, 50 feet (15 m) below street level. Converted from a corridor built to transport luggage and mail,[58] it provides access to lower-level tracks. The cross-passages are connected to the platforms via 37 stairs, six elevators, and five escalators.[59]

The tunnels' street-level entrances, each enclosed by a freestanding glass structure,[58] sit at the northeast corner of East 47th Street and Madison Avenue (Northwest Passage), northeast corner of East 48th Street and Park Avenue (Northeast Passage), on the east and west sides of 230 Park Avenue (Helmsley Building) between 45th and 46th streets, and (since 2012) on the south side of 47th Street between Park and Lexington avenues.[60] Pedestrians can also take an elevator to the 47th Street passage from the north side of East 47th Street, between Madison and Vanderbilt avenues; this entrance adjoined the former 270 Park Avenue.[61]

Proposals for these tunnels had been discussed since at least the 1970s. The MTA approved preliminary plans in 1983,[62] gave final approval in 1991,[63] and began construction in 1994.[57] Dubbed the North End Access Project, the work was to be completed in 1997 at a cost of $64.5 million,[63] but it was slowed by the incomplete nature of the building's original blueprints and by previously undiscovered groundwater beneath East 45th Street.[57] The passageways opened on August 18, 1999, at a final cost of $75 million.[57]

The project entailed enclosing existing passageways with glazed-terrazzo walls. The Northeast Passage's walls have blue-green accents while the Northwest Passage's walls have red accents. The ceilings are 8 to 10 feet (2.4 to 3.0 m) high.[64] The cross-passages' ceilings are blue-green, the same color as the Main Concourse, and have recessed lighting that is arranged to resemble the Main Concourse's constellations. Originally, Grand Central North had no restrooms or air-conditioning.[59] The passages contain an MTA Arts & Design mosaic installation by Ellen Driscoll, an artist from Brooklyn.[57]

The entrances to Grand Central North were originally open from 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. During weekends and holidays, the 47th and 48th Street entrances were open on 9 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., while the two entrances to the Helmsley Building were closed.[59] About 30,000 people used it on a typical weekday, but only about 6,000 people used it on a typical weekend.[65] As part of the 2005–2008 Financial Plan, the MTA proposed closing the passageways on weekends, citing low usage and the need to save money.[65][66] Since summer 2006, Grand Central North has been closed on weekends.[67]

Vanderbilt Hall, c. 1913

The Tournament of Champions squash championship in 2012

Vanderbilt Hall is an event space on the south side of the terminal, between the main entrance to the and the Main Concourse to its north. Its west side houses a food hall.[33] The space is lit by Beaux-Arts chandeliers, each with 132 bulbs on four tiers.[68]

It was formerly the main waiting room for the terminal, used particularly by intercity travelers. The space featured double-sided oak benches and could seat 700 people.[69] When intercity service ceased at Grand Central in 1991, the room began to be used by several hundred homeless people. Terminal management responded first by removing the room's benches, then by closing the space entirely.[N 4] In 1998, the hall was renovated and renamed Vanderbilt Hall after the family that built and owned the station.[40] It is used for the annual Christmas Market,[71] as well as for special exhibitions and private events.[72] From 2016 to 2020, the west half of the hall held the Great Northern Food Hall, an upscale Nordic-themed food court with five pavilions. The food hall was the first long-term tenant of the space; the terminal's landmark status prevents permanent installations.[73][74] In 2022, City Winery signed a lease for the space.[75][76]

Since 1999, Vanderbilt Hall has hosted the annual Tournament of Champions squash championship.[77] Each January, tournament officials construct a free-standing glass-enclosed 21-by-32-foot (6.4 by 9.8 m) squash court. Like a theatre in the round, spectators sit on three sides of the court.[78]

South of Vanderbilt Hall is the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Foyer, which leads south to the main entrance on 42nd Street.[79][80] A men's smoking room and women's waiting room were formerly located on the west and east sides of Vanderbilt Hall, respectively.[73] In 2016, the men's room was renovated into Agern, an 85-seat Nordic-themed fine dining and Michelin-starred restaurant operated by Noma co-founder Claus Meyer,[81] who also ran the food hall.[73] Both venues permanently closed in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic.[74]

Newsstand in the Biltmore Room, 2017

The Biltmore Room is a 64-by-80-foot (20 by 24 m) marble hall[82] northwest of the Main Concourse that serves as an entrance to tracks 39 through 42.[33] Completed in 1915[83] directly beneath the New York Biltmore Hotel,[82] it originally served as a waiting room for intercity trains known formally as the incoming train room and colloquially as the "Kissing Room".[83]

As the station's passenger traffic declined in mid-century, the room fell into neglect. In 1982 and 1983, the room was damaged during the construction that converted the Biltmore Hotel into the Bank of America Plaza. In 1985, Giorgio Cavaglieri was hired to restore the room, which at the time had cracked marble and makeshift lighting. During that era, a series of lockers was still located within the Biltmore Room.[84] Later, the room held a newsstand, flower stand, and shoe shine booths.[83][85] In 2015, the MTA awarded a contract to refurbish the Biltmore Room into an arrival area for Long Island Rail Road passengers as part of the East Side Access project.[86] As part of the project, the room's booths and stands are being replaced by a pair of escalators and an elevator to the deep-level LIRR concourse.[83][85]

The room's blackboard displayed the arrival and departure times of New York Central trains until 1967,[36] when a mechanical board was installed in the Main Concourse.[82]

Doorway and front desk

Ticketed waiting area

The Station Master's Office, located near Track 36, has Grand Central's only dedicated waiting room. The space has benches, restrooms, and a floral mixed-media mural on three of its walls. The room's benches were previously located in the former waiting room, now known as Vanderbilt Hall. Since 2008, the area has offered free Wi-Fi.[87]

Central Cellars interior; the theater projection window is at the top left

One of the retail areas of the Graybar Passage, currently occupied by wine-and-liquor store Central Cellars, was formerly the Grand Central Theatre or Terminal Newsreel Theatre.[88][89] Opened in 1937 with 25-cent admission, the theater showed short films, cartoons, and newsreels[90] from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.[91][92] Designed by Tony Sarg, it had 242 stadium-style seats and a standing-room section with armchairs. A small bar sat near the entrance.[93] The theater's interior had simple pine walls spaced out to eliminate echos, along with an inglenook, a fireplace, and an illuminated clock for the convenience of travelers. The walls of the lobby, dubbed the "appointment lounge", were covered with world maps; the ceiling had an astronomical mural painted by Sarg.[88] The New York Times reported a cost of $125,000 for the theater's construction, which was attributed to construction of an elevator between the theater and the suburban concourse as well as air conditioning and apparatuses for people hard of hearing.[92]

The theater stopped showing newsreels by 1968[94] but continued operating until around 1979, when it was gutted for retail space.[91] A renovation in the early 2000s removed a false ceiling, revealing the theater's projection window and its astronomical mural, which proved similar in colors and style to the Main Concourse ceiling.[90]

Dining Concourse food stalls and track entrances

One of several public seating areas

Access to the lower-level tracks is provided by the Dining Concourse, located below the Main Concourse and connected to it by numerous stairs, ramps, and escalators. For decades, it was called the Suburban Concourse because it handled commuter rail trains.[29] Today, it has central seating and lounge areas, surrounded by restaurants and food vendors.[33] The shared public seating in the concourse was designed resembling Pullman traincars.[40] These areas are frequented by the homeless, and as a result, in the mid-2010s the MTA created two areas with private seating for dining customers.[95]

The terminal's late-1990s renovation added stands and restaurants to the concourse, and installed escalators to link it to the main concourse level.[40] The MTA also spent $2.2 million to install two circular terrazzo designs by David Rockwell and Beyer Blinder Belle, each 45 feet in diameter, over the concourse's original terrazzo floor.[96] Since 2015, part of the Dining Concourse has been closed for the construction of stairways and escalators to the new LIRR terminal being built as part of East Side Access.[97]

A small square-framed clock is installed in the ceiling near Tracks 108 and 109. It was manufactured at an unknown time by the Self Winding Clock Company, which made several others in the terminal. The clock hung inside the gate at Track 19 until 2011, when it was moved so it would not be blocked by lights added during upper-level platform improvements.[98]

MTA Police and lost-and-found offices

Metro-North's lost-and-found bureau sits near Track 100 at the far east end of the Dining Concourse. Incoming items are sorted according to function and date: for instance, there are separate bins for hats, gloves, belts, and ties.[99][100] The sorting system was computerized in the 1990s.[101] Lost items are kept for up to 90 days before being donated or auctioned off.[55][102]

As early as 1920, the bureau received between 15,000 and 18,000 items a year.[103] By 2002, the bureau was collecting "3,000 coats and jackets; 2,500 cellphones; 2,000 sets of keys; 1,500 wallets, purses and ID's [sic]; and 1,100 umbrellas" a year.[101] By 2007, it was collecting 20,000 items a year, 60% of which were eventually claimed.[102] In 2013, the bureau reported an 80% return rate, among the highest in the world for a transit agency.[104][55]

Some of the more unusual items collected by the bureau include fake teeth, prosthetic body parts, legal documents, diamond pouches, live animals, and a $100,000 violin.[100][102] One story has it that a woman purposely left her unfaithful husband's ashes on a Metro-North train before collecting them three weeks later.[55][102] In 1996, some of the lost-and-found items were displayed at an art exhibition.[105]

Floor plan of the Dining Level

Entrance to the Oyster Bar

The Campbell Bar

Grand Central Terminal contains restaurants such as the Grand Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant and various fast food outlets surrounding the Dining Concourse. There are also delis, bakeries, a gourmet and fresh food market, and an annex of the New York Transit Museum.[106][107] The 40-plus retail stores include newsstands and chain stores, including a Starbucks coffee shop, a Rite Aid pharmacy, and an Apple Store.[33][108] The Oyster Bar, the oldest business in the terminal, sits next to the Dining Concourse and below Vanderbilt Hall.[33][73]

An elegantly restored cocktail lounge, the Campbell, sits just south of the 43rd Street/Vanderbilt Avenue entrance. A mix of commuters and tourists access it from the street or the balcony level.[33] The space was once the office of 1920s tycoon John W. Campbell, who decorated it to resemble the galleried hall of a 13th-century Florentine palace.[109][110] In 1999, it opened as a bar, the Campbell Apartment; a new owner renovated and renamed it the Campbell in 2017.[111]

The Vanderbilt Tennis Club's court

From 1939 to 1964, CBS Television occupied a large portion of the terminal building, particularly in a third-floor space above Vanderbilt Hall.[112][113] The CBS offices, called "The Annex",[113] contained two "program control" facilities (43 and 44); network master control; facilities for local station WCBS-TV;[112][113][114] and, after World War II, two 700,000-square-foot (65,000 m²) production studios (41 and 42).[115] The total space measured 225 ft × 60 ft × 40 ft (69 m × 18 m × 12 m).[116] Broadcasts were transmitted from an antenna atop the nearby Chrysler Building installed by order of CBS chief executive William S. Paley,[114][115] and were also shown on a large screen in the Main Concourse.[115] In 1958, CBS opened the world's first major videotape operations facility in Grand Central. Located in a former rehearsal room on the seventh floor, the facility used 14 Ampex VR-1000 videotape recorders.[112][113]

Douglas Edwards with the News broadcast from Grand Central for several years, covering John Glenn's 1962 Mercury-Atlas 6 space flight and other events. Edward R. Murrow's See It Now originated there, including his famous broadcasts on Senator Joseph McCarthy, which were recreated in George Clooney's movie Good Night, and Good Luck, although the film incorrectly implies that CBS News and corporate offices were in the same building. The long-running panel show What's My Line? was first broadcast from Grand Central, as were The Goldbergs and Mama. CBS eventually moved its operations to the CBS Broadcast Center on 57th Street.[112][113][115]

In 1966, the vacated studio space was converted into the Vanderbilt Athletic Club, a sports club named for the hall just below.[112][113][117][118] Founded by Geza A. Gazdag, an athlete and Olympic coach who fled Hungary amid its 1956 revolution,[119] its two tennis courts were once deemed the most expensive place to play the game—$58 an hour—until financial recessions forced the club to lower the hourly fee to $40.[120] Club amenities included a 65-by-30-foot (19.8 m × 9.1 m) nylon ski slope, a health club facility and sauna, and spaces for golf, fencing, gymnastics, and ballet practice.[121][122] Gazdag's business was evicted from Grand Central in 1976, amid a lease dispute.[123] In 1984, the club was purchased by real estate magnate Donald Trump, who discovered it while renovating the terminal's exterior.[124] In 2009, the MTA planned a new conductor lounge in the space, and terminated Trump's lease that year. It divided the space into three floors, with the lounge on the original third floor. A single tennis court was added on the new fourth floor in 2010, along with two practice alleys on the new fifth floor. Trump found the new space too small to release, and so the current Vanderbilt Tennis Club operates independent of Trump.[113]

Grand Central Terminal's 48-acre (19 ha) basements are among the largest in the city.[125] Basement spaces include M42, which has AC-to-DC converters to power the track's third rails,[126][127] as well as Carey's Hole, a former retail storage space and present-day employee lounge and dormitory.[128]

Rotary converter relics in the M42 basement

Grand Central Terminal contains an underground sub-basement known as M42. Its electrical substation is divided into substation 1T, which provides 16,500 kilowatts (22,100 hp) for third-rail power, and substation 1L, which provides 8,000 kilowatts (11,000 hp) for other lighting and power.[126] The substation—the world's largest at the time—was built about 100 feet (30 m) under the Graybar Building at a cost of $3 million, and opened February 16, 1930.[126][129] It occupies a four-story space with an area of 250 by 50 feet (76 by 15 m).[126][127]

1913 map showing the space beneath Carey's barbershop

Another part of the basement is known as Carey's Hole. The two-story section is directly beneath the Shuttle Passage and adjacent spaces. In 1913, when the terminal opened, J. P. Carey opened a barbershop adjacent to and one level below the terminal's waiting room (now Vanderbilt Hall). Carey's business expanded to include a laundry service, shoe store, and haberdashery. In 1921, Carey also ran a limousine service using Packard cars, and in the 1930s, he added regular car and bus service to the city's airports as they opened. Carey would store his merchandise in an unfinished, underground area of the terminal, which railroad employees and maintenance staff began calling "Carey's Hole". The name has remained even as the space has been used for different purposes, including currently as a lounge and dormitory for railroad employees.[128]

c. 1909 layout of the upper-level mainline tracks (top) and lower-level suburban tracks (bottom), showing balloon loops

The terminal holds the Guinness World Record for having the most platforms of any railroad station:[130] 28, which support 44 platform numbers. All are island platforms except one side platform.[131] Odd-numbered tracks are usually on the east side of the platform; even-numbered tracks on the west side. As of 2016, there are 67 tracks, of which 43 are in regular passenger use, serving Metro-North.[132][133] At its opening, the train shed contained 123 tracks, including duplicate track numbers and storage tracks,[133] with a combined length of 19.5 miles (31.4 km).[134]

The tracks slope down as they exit the station to the north, to help departing trains accelerate and arriving ones slow down.[135] Because of the size of the rail yards, Park Avenue and its side streets from 43rd to 59th Streets are raised on viaducts, and the surrounding blocks were covered over by various buildings.[136]

At its busiest, the terminal is served by an arriving train every 58 seconds.[104]

Grand Central track map
Metro-North upper level
Park Avenue Tunnel to Harlem–125th Street 59th Street (unused) to lower level to lower level 65 63 61 59 56 54 52 Mail/baggage platforms 64 60 55 53 51 92 90 93 91 82 94 83 42 40 38 36 34 32 29 27 25 23 20 18 16 14 11 9 7 5 3 1 41 39 37 35 33 30 28 26 24 21 19 17 15 13 10 8 6 4 2 Grand Central
Metro-North lower level
to upper level to upper level 185 184 182 180 183 141 160 138 136 134 137 135 133 132 131 125 115 113 111 107 123 114 112 110 109 108 106 105 104 103 102 101 200
LIRR upper & lower level (future)
63rd Street Tunnel to Woodside to lower level to upper level 204 202 304 302 203 201 303 301 Storage tracks continue 1,700 feet (520 m) Storage tracks continue 1,700 feet (520 m)
Key & notes
Passenger service tracks Yard/storage tracks Map not to scale. Sources:[137][138] For further details on the Metro-North track layout north of 59th Street, see Park Avenue main line#Line description.[139]

The upper Metro-North level has 42 numbered tracks. Twenty-nine serve passenger platforms; these are numbered 11 to 42, east to west.[134][137] Tracks 12, 22, and 31 do not exist, and appear to have been removed.[140] To the east of the upper platforms sits the East Yard: ten storage tracks numbered 1 through 10 from east to west.[133][137] A balloon loop runs from Tracks 38–42 on the far west side of the station, around the other tracks, and back to storage Tracks 1–3 at the far east side of the station;[137] this allows trains to turn around more easily.[141][142]

North of the East Yard is the Lex Yard, a secondary storage yard under the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.[137] The yard formerly served the power plant for Grand Central Terminal.[143] Its twelve tracks are numbered 51 through 65 from east to west (track numbers 57, 58, and 62 do not exist). Two private loading platforms, which cannot be used for passenger service, sit between tracks 53 and 54 and between tracks 61 and 63.[137] Track 61 is known for being a private track for United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt; part of the original design of the Waldorf Astoria,[144] it was mentioned in The New York Times in 1929 and first used in 1938 by John J. Pershing, a top U.S. general during World War I.[145] Roosevelt would travel into the city using his personal train, pull into Track 61, and take a specially designed elevator to the surface.[146] It has been used occasionally since Roosevelt's death.[147][148] The upper level also contains 22 more storage sidings.[134][137]

Baggage car mistakenly identified as Franklin D. Roosevelt's personal car, on display at the Danbury Railway Museum

Track 63 held MNCW #002, a baggage car, for about 20 to 30 years. The railcar's location near Roosevelt's Track 61 led former tour guide Dan Brucker and others to falsely claim that this was the president's personal train car used for transporting his limousine. The baggage car was moved to the Danbury Railway Museum in 2019.[149][150]

The lower Metro-North level has 27 tracks numbered 100 to 126, east to west.[133][137][151] Two were originally intended for mail trains and two were for baggage handling.[28][29] Today, only Tracks 102–112 and 114–115 are used for passenger service. The lower-level balloon loop, whose curve was much sharper than that of the upper-level loop and could only handle electric multiple units used on commuter lines[152] was removed at an unknown date.[133] Tracks 116–125 were demolished to make room for the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) concourse being built under the Metro-North station as part of the East Side Access project.[153]

The upper and lower levels have different track layouts and, as such, are supported by different sets of columns. The upper level is supported by ultra-strong columns, some of which can carry over 7 million foot-pounds force (9,500,000 J).[154]

The LIRR terminal being built as part of East Side Access will add four platforms and eight tracks numbered 201–204 and 301–304 in two 100-foot-deep (30 m) double-decked caverns below the Metro-North station.[155] The new LIRR station will have four tracks and two platforms in each of the two caverns, with each cavern containing two tracks and one platform on each level. A mezzanine will sit on a center level between the LIRR's two track levels.[156][157]

Upper floors of the terminal primarily hold MTA offices, including the fifth-floor office of the terminal's director, overlooking the Main Concourse.[158] The seventh floor contains Metro-North's situation room for handling emergencies, as well as the offices of the Fleet Department.[54]

Grand Central Terminal has a single Operations Control Center, where controllers monitor the track interlockings with computers. Completed in 1993,[159] the center is operated by a crew of about 24 people.[160] The terminal was originally built with five signal control centers, labeled A, B, C, F, and U, that collectively controlled all of the track interlockings around the terminal. Each switch was electrically controlled by a lever in one of the signal towers, where lights illuminated on track maps to show which switches were in use.[152][161] As trains passed a given tower, the signal controllers reported the train's engine and timetable numbers, direction, track number, and the exact time.[162]

Tower U controlled the interlocking between 48th and 58th streets; Tower C, the storage spurs; and Tower F, the turning loops. A four-story underground tower at 49th Street housed the largest of the signal towers: Tower A, which handled the upper-level interlockings via 400 levers, and Tower B, which handled the lower-level interlockings with 362 levers.[163][164][165][152][166] The towers housed offices for the stationmaster, yardmaster, car-maintenance crew, electrical crew, and track-maintenance crew. There were also break rooms for conductors, train engineers, and engine men.[161][165] After Tower B was destroyed in a fire in 1986, the signal towers were consolidated into the modern control center.[167]

Hospital room in the terminal, 1915

During the terminal's construction, an "accident room" was set up to treat worker injuries in a wrecking car in the terminal's rail yard. Later on, a small hospital was established in the temporary station building on Lexington Avenue to care for injured workers. The arrangement was satisfactory, leading to the creation of a permanent hospital, the Grand Central Emergency Hospital, in Grand Central Terminal in 1911. The hospital was used for every employee injury as well as for passengers. In 1915, it had two physicians who treated a monthly average of 125 new cases per month and 450 dressings.[168] The space had four rooms: Room A (the waiting room), Room B (the operating room), Room C (a private office), and Room D (for resting patients).[169] The hospital was open at least until 1963; a Journal News article that year noted that the hospital treated minor to moderate ailments and was open every day between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.[170]

Located on an upper floor above the Apple Store, the Williamson Library is a meeting space and research center for the New York Railroad Enthusiasts.[171][172] Upon its founding in 1937, the association was granted use of the space in perpetuity by Frederick Ely Williamson, once president of the New York Central Railroad as well as a rail enthusiast and member of the association.[171] Today, it contains about 3,000 books, newspapers, films, photographs, and other documents about railroads, along with artifacts, including part of a 20th Century Limited red carpet.[172] The library is only accessible through secure areas, making it little known to the public and not included in tours of the terminal's hidden attributes.[172] The association holds monthly meetings in the space, open to new visitors for free, and allows research visits by appointment.[173][174]

Another library, the Frank Julian Sprague Memorial Library of the Electric Railroaders Association, was created in the terminal in 1979. The library has about 500,000 publications and slides, focusing on electric rail and trolley lines.[174] A large amount of these works were donated to the New York Transit Museum in 2013.[175]

The station and its rail yard have steel frames. The building also uses large steel columns designed to hold the weight of a 20-story office building, which was to be built when additional room was required.[187][188]

The facade and structure of the terminal building primarily use granite. Because granite emits radiation,[189] people who work full-time in the station receive an average dose of 525 mrem/year, more than permitted in nuclear power facilities.[190][191] The base of the exterior is Stony Creek granite, while the upper portion is of Indiana limestone, from Bedford, Indiana.[192]

The interiors use several varieties of stone, including imitation Caen stone for the Main Concourse; cream-colored Botticino marble for the interior decorations; and pink Tennessee marble for the floors of the Main Concourse, Biltmore Room,[43] and Vanderbilt Hall,[73] as well as the two staircases in the Main Concourse.[35][39][193] Real Caen stone was judged too expensive, so the builders mixed plaster, sand, lime, and Portland cement.[35] Most of the remaining masonry is made from concrete.[192] Guastavino tiling, a fireproof tile-and-cement vault pattern patented by Rafael Guastavino, is used in various spaces.[31][53]

The south facade features a set of three arched windows, with the Glory of Commerce sculpture at the top-center and the Vanderbilt statue at the bottom-center.

In designing the facade of Grand Central, the architects wanted to make the building seem like a gateway to the city.[194] The south facade, facing 42nd Street, is the front side of the terminal building, and contains large arched windows.[195] The central window resembles a triumphal arch.[194][196] There are two pairs of columns on either side of the central window. The columns are of the Corinthian order, and are partially attached to the granite walls behind them, though they are detached from one another.[195] The facade was also designed to complement that of the New York Public Library Main Branch, another Beaux-Arts edifice located on nearby Fifth Avenue.[196]

The facade includes several large works of art. At the top of the south facade is a 13-foot-wide (4.0 m) clock.[197] The clock is surrounded by the Glory of Commerce sculptural group, a 48-foot-wide (15 m) work by Jules-Félix Coutan, which includes representations of Minerva, Hercules, and Mercury.[180][198] At its unveiling in 1914, the work was considered the largest sculptural group in the world.[198] Below these works, facing the Park Avenue Viaduct, is an 1869 statue of Cornelius Vanderbilt, longtime owner of New York Central. Sculpted by Ernst Plassmann,[199] the 8.5-foot (2.6 m) bronze is the last remnant[200] of a 150-foot bronze relief installed at the Hudson River Railroad depot at St. John's Park;[201] it was moved to Grand Central Terminal in 1929.[202]

The Main Concourse, on the terminal's upper platform level, is located in the geographical center of the station building. The cavernous concourse measures 275 ft (84 m) long by 120 ft (37 m) wide by 125 ft (38 m) high;[54][203][204]^: 74 a total of about 35,000 square feet (3,300 m²).[32] Its vastness was meant to evoke the terminal's "grand" status.[30]

Frieze displaying the terminal's original logo

Many parts of the terminal are adorned with sculpted oak leaves and acorns, nuts of the oak tree. Cornelius Vanderbilt chose the acorn as the symbol of the Vanderbilt family, and adopted the saying "Great oaks from little acorns grow" as the family motto.[73][203] Among these decorations is a brass acorn finial atop the four-sided clock in the center of the Main Concourse.[104][90] Other acorn or oak leaf decorations include carved wreaths under the Main Concourse's west stairs; sculptures above the lunettes in the Main Concourse; metalwork above the elevators; reliefs above the train gates; and the electric chandeliers in the Main Waiting Room and Main Concourse.[205] These decorations were designed by Salières.[205]

The overlapping letters "G", "C", and "T" are sculpted into multiple places in the terminal, including in friezes atop several windows above the terminal's ticket office. The symbol was designed with the "T" resembling an upside-down anchor, intended as a reference to Cornelius Vanderbilt's commercial beginnings in shipping and ferry businesses.[206] In 2017, the MTA based its new logo for the terminal on the engraved design; MTA officials said its black and gold colors have long been associated with the terminal. The spur of the letter "G" has a depiction of a railroad spike.[207] The 2017 logo succeeded one created by the firm Pentagram for the terminal's centennial in 2013. It depicted the Main Concourse's ball clock set to 7:13, or 19:13 using a 24-hour clock, referencing the terminal's completion in 1913. Both logos omit the word "terminal" in its name, in recognition to how most people refer to the building.[208]

Among the buildings modeled on Grand Central's design is the Poughkeepsie station, a Metro-North and Amtrak station in Poughkeepsie, New York. It was also designed by Warren and Wetmore and opened in 1918.[209][210] Additionally, Union Station in Utica, New York was partially designed after Grand Central.[211]

Illustration showing the viaduct as it approaches and wraps around Grand Central, 1944

The Park Avenue Viaduct is an elevated road that carries Park Avenue around the terminal building and the MetLife Building and through the Helmsley Building — three buildings that lie across the line of the avenue. The viaduct rises from street level on 40th Street south of Grand Central, splits into eastern (northbound) and western (southbound) legs above the terminal building's main entrance,[212] and continues north around the station building, directly above portions of its main level. The legs of the viaduct pass around the MetLife Building, into the Helmsley Building, and return to street level at 46th Street.[213]

The viaduct was built to facilitate traffic along 42nd Street[214] and along Park Avenue, which at the time was New York City's only discontinuous major north–south avenue.[215] When the western leg of the viaduct was completed in 1919,[216] it served both directions of traffic, and also served as a second level for picking up and dropping off passengers. After an eastern leg for northbound traffic was added in 1928, the western leg was used for southbound traffic only.[214] A sidewalk, accessible from the Grand Hyatt hotel, runs along the section of the viaduct that is parallel to 42nd Street.[217]

Grand Central Post Office Annex in 1988

Grand Central Terminal has a post office at 450 Lexington Avenue, originally built from 1906 to 1909,[10][28] though with a high-rise tower built atop it in 1992.[218] The architecture of the original post office building matches that of the terminal, as the structures were designed by the same architects.[219] The post office building expanded into a second building, also built by Warren & Wetmore, and directly north of the original structure, in 1915.[219][220] The building, then known as the Railroad Mail Service Building and today known as 237 Park Avenue, has been extensively renovated since its opening.[221] From the beginning, Grand Central's post office buildings were designed to handle massive volumes of mail, though they were not as large as the James A. Farley Building, the post office that was built with the original Penn Station.[222]

The terminal complex also originally included a six-story building for baggage handling just north of the main station building. Departing passengers unloaded their luggage from taxis or personal vehicles on the Park Avenue Viaduct, and elevators brought it to the baggage passageways (now part of Grand Central North), where trucks brought the luggage to the respective platforms. The process was reversed for arriving passengers.[28][105] Biltmore Hotel guests arriving at Grand Central could get baggage delivered to their rooms.[28] The baggage building was later converted to an office building, and was demolished in 1961[223][224] to make way for the MetLife Building.[28]

Passageway to the subway; the ramp at right leads to street level

The terminal's subway station, Grand Central–42nd Street, serves three lines: the IRT Lexington Avenue Line (serving the 4, ​5, ​6, and <6> trains), the IRT Flushing Line (serving the 7 and <7>​ trains), and the IRT 42nd Street Shuttle to Times Square.[11] Originally built by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT),[225][226] the lines are operated by the MTA as part of the New York City Subway.[227][228]

The Main Concourse is connected to the subway platforms' mezzanine via the Shuttle Passage.[33][227] The platforms can also be reached from the 42nd Street Passage via stairs, escalators, and an elevator to the fare control area for the Lexington Avenue and Flushing Lines.[228]

The 42nd Street Shuttle platforms, located just below ground level, opened in 1904 as an express stop on the original IRT subway.[225] The Lexington Avenue Line's platforms, which were opened in 1918 when the original IRT subway platforms were converted to shuttle use,[229] run underneath the southeastern corner of the station building at a 45-degree angle, to the east of and at a lower level than the shuttle platforms.[230] The Flushing Line platform opened in 1915;[231] it is deeper than the Lexington Avenue Line's platforms because it is part of the Steinway Tunnel, a former streetcar tunnel that descends under the East River to the east of Grand Central.[226][231] There was also a fourth line connected to Grand Central Terminal: a spur of the IRT Third Avenue elevated,[226] which stopped at Grand Central starting in 1878;[232] it was made obsolete by the subway's opening, and closed in 1923.[233]

During the terminal's construction, there were proposals to allow commuter trains to pass through Grand Central and continue into the subway tracks. However, these plans were deemed impractical because commuter trains would have been too large to fit within the subway tunnels.[226]

Grand Central Depot

Grand Central Terminal arose from a need to build a central station for the Hudson River Railroad, the New York and Harlem Railroad, and the New York and New Haven Railroad in modern-day Midtown Manhattan.[234][235][236] The Harlem Railroad originally ran as a steam railroad on street level along Fourth Avenue (now Park Avenue),[237][238][239][240] while the New Haven Railroad ran along the Harlem's tracks in Manhattan per a trackage agreement.[237][238][239] The business magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt bought the Hudson River and New York Central Railroads in 1867, and merged them two years later.[239][240][241] Vanderbilt developed a proposal to unite the three separate railroads at a single central station, replacing the separate and adjacent stations that created chaos in baggage transfer.[234]