Grand Central Terminal (or station) is truly magnificent and breathtaking.  It should be experienced both at rush hour with its huge crowds of subway and Metro North railroad passengers and at a quieter time of the day.  Its Beau Art design was created for the New York Central Railroad corporation (hence its name) by the architectural firm of Reed and Stem and Warren and Wetmore.  The terminal has massive marble stairways, 75-foot windows, a ceiling with a zodiac mural of stars, a whispering gallery (located in the dining concourse where low arches carry sounds), and a secret passage (an underground tunnel used by U.S. Presidents to go directly to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel where they stay when visiting NYC). Grand Central Terminal is magically turned into a big ballroom where everyone is dancing in the film, The Fisher King (1991).  Look closely at the glass windows and towers in the bottom photo; they are actually catwalks “designed by Whitney Warren to maximize the daylight entering the terminal.”  Within these seven-story glass towers are offices used by railroad employees.   

It’s unbelievable that New Yorkers, led by former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, would have to fight to prevent Grand Central for being destroyed in 1967. The railroad wanted to demolish the terminal and replace it with office buildings.  The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated Grand Central Terminal as a landmark and it was saved.  [The Commission was established in 1965 following the demolition of the architecturally distinguished train station, Pennsylvania Station, a great loss to the City and nation.  The beauty of Penn Station was documented by the American photographer Berenice Abbott in her exquisite black and white photographs of the station which are some of her best known works.  Abbott’s photographs of New York City for the Federal Arts Project (from 1934-58) are published in a collection called Changing New York.]