Grand Central Terminal - New York's Great Gateway

[bak]

Marcel Breuer's Proposed Tower
http://www.thecityreview.com/byard1.gif
Image from thecityreview.com

Thank God the preservation movement was dedicated to preserving Grand Central as an active railroad terminal! *This proposal is the better of two, as Breuer also drafted one that completely obliterated the facade! *

[bak]

Hmmm...my original post for this topic seems to have been wiped out, so I'll try to redo it. *It went something like this...

"Whoa! *Our forum and all its historic posts were wiped out! *Thank God New York's grand railroad gatway didn't suffer the same fate and looks great after a recent renovation! *Lets get this forum going again!"

The Exterior
http://ostpxweb.ost.dot.gov/policy/dtna2/Awards_HTML/images/H-79-Grand-01.gif
Image from www.ostpxweb.ost.dot.gov
http://www.savorysojourns.com/photos/grand_central.jpg
Image from savorysojourns.com

The Interior
http://www.squashpics.com/toc2001/images/toc25.jpg
Image from squashpics.com

One of my NYC favorites! *Post more thoughts/pictures, please!

[Edward]

The view on Bear Stearns World Headquarters (http://www.wirednewyork.com/skyscrapers/383madison/default.htm) and Grand Central Terminal from Park Avenue. On the right is the Metlife Building (http://www.wirednewyork.com/metlife.htm).

http://www.wirednewyork.com/skyscrapers/383madison/images/bear_stearns_metlife.jpg

[Giovanni]

Grand Central Terminal is a beauty! *I hope no tower is built over it. *What are some people thinking?

[dbhstockton]

Interestingly enough guys, Grand Central was designed and engineered with the intention that a skyscraper be built over it at some point in the future, unlike Penn Station (the builders of Penn Station wanted a hotel *on top, but the architect convinced the oweber of the railroad against it, for the sake of beauty). *Thus the lack of any skylights over the main concourse and the robustness of the four corners. *There are some very old renderings of it capped by a classy hotel (don't ask me to find them). *I don't advocate building anything on top of it, I just like to think of how thoroughly innovative and incredibly far-sighted a work of urban engineering Grand Central was. * Unfortunately, I don't think anyone today could come up with something compelling enough to put on top of Grand Central.

[tugrul]

You mean like this?

http://www.thecityreview.com/byard3.gif

"There have been many plans to erect an office tower over Grand Central Terminal in New York: Reed & Stem designed an office tower as part of the original plan, left, and I. M. Pei created the spectacular design at right for the same site in 1956."

For completeness, Emery Roth's design linked from greatgridlock.net (http://www.greatgridlock.net/NYC/nyc3.html#54):

http://www.washington.edu/ark2/images/mlc_images/USA258.JPG

[dbhstockton]

That's it! *This forum is great. *You rock.

[Eugenius]

How typical that Emery Roth would come up with an unsightly box...

[Agglomeration]

Who knows, maybe if that Emery Roth box had been built instead of the Metlife Building, the view to the terminal would have been a lot less impeding.

[Stern]

Im a big Pan-Am fan, its juxtaposition all the better.

[RovingRube]

The Grand Central Partnerships offers a free tour of the terminal every Friday at 12:30 PM, led by Justin Ferate. *The below is excerpted from my site page entitled "The day the ICBM put a hole in Grand Central" (http://www.rovingrube.com/Archives/20011125.htm)

"Mr. Ferate has given this tour for years. He typically asks attendees if they taken it before, and the tours vary accordingly (on his other Justin-led tours around the city, the Rube has seen the itinerary instantly change depending on what stairway the group happens to exit the subway from). In Grand Central, he may take you across the precarious-looking glass floors high up inside the tall windows at back of this picture, or he may sit down on the floor to demonstrate that it is proportioned and patterned like graph paper, and that's why you don't see people bumping into each other like they do on the sidewalks.

Or, he may tell you about the time back in the 60's, when, in a patriotic display of our military might, they brought in a nuclear missile (OK, probably it had a dummy warhead) and set it up in the middle of the concourse, but then had to punch a hole in the ceiling to be able to stand it upright."

[NYatKNIGHT]

I had no idea they did that.

[Kris]

June 26, 2003

25 Years Ago, Landmarks Law Stopped a Skyscraper

By DAVID W. DUNLAP

NEW YORK CITY'S landmarks law took effect in 1965 but gained its real power 25 years ago today.

That was when the United States Supreme Court ruled, 6 to 3, that the city had the constitutional authority to regulate landmarks even when it meant — as it did at Grand Central Terminal — that an owner was prevented from developing its property as allowed by zoning, thereby suffering a financial loss to create a public benefit.

"This was the first time that the High Court had ratified landmarks as an exercise of the police power analogous to zoning," said Leonard J. Koerner, now the chief assistant corporation counsel, who argued the city's case.

Without the power upheld by the decision in Penn Central Transportation Company v. City of New York, "thousands of historic buildings that stamp a place as special would be gone," said Jerold S. Kayden, an associate professor at Harvard, who is writing a book on the subject. "Acres of crucial wetlands would be filled. Coastlines and lakefronts would be over-developed."

And the sunlight that so brightened the terminal concourse yesterday would have been blocked.

What is striking is not that a quarter century has passed since the Penn Central decision, but that the constitutionality of the landmarks law was under a serious cloud so recently. Two of the dissenting justices, William H. Rehnquist and John Paul Stevens, still serve on the court.

And the current owner of the Grand Central air rights, Carl H. Lindner's American Financial Group, still has 1,264,364 square feet of unused development potential on its hands.

In 1968, Penn Central, which owned the terminal, struck a deal with the developer Morris Saady to build a skyscraper on top of the landmark and pay Penn Central at least $3 million a year.

That plan was rejected by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which said that "to balance a 55-story office tower above a flamboyant Beaux-Arts facade seems nothing more than an aesthetic joke."

Penn Central returned with plans for a 59-story tower that would have obliterated the south facade. The commission responded: "To protect a landmark, one does not tear it down. To perpetuate its architectural features, one does not strip them off."

To Penn Central, this amounted to a taking of property by the government without just compensation, which the Fifth Amendment forbids. Justice Rehnquist agreed.

"Penn Central is prevented from further developing its property basically because too good a job was done in designing and building it," he wrote. "The City of New York, because of its unadorned admiration for the design, has decided that the owners of the building must preserve it unchanged for the benefit of sightseeing New Yorkers and tourists."

"A multimillion dollar loss has been imposed," Justice Rehnquist wrote. "It is exactly this imposition of general costs on a few individuals at which the `taking' protection is directed."

The majority believed otherwise.

"It is, of course, true that the landmarks law has a more severe impact on some landowners than on others, but that in itself does not mean that the law effects a `taking,' " Justice William J. Brennan Jr. wrote for himself and five other justices, all of whom are now dead. "Legislation designed to promote the general welfare commonly burdens some more than others."

Landmark designation permitted Penn Central "to use the property precisely as it has been used for the past 65 years: as a railroad terminal," he wrote.

AS for air rights — the development potential represented by the difference between the size of the existing terminal and the largest building that zoning would allow on the site — Justice Brennan said Penn Central's ability to use those rights had "not been abrogated," since they were made transferable.

Daniel M. Gribbon, senior counsel at Covington & Burling, who argued the case for Penn Central, said yesterday that the "decision opened new avenues on regulatory takings but didn't really resolve anything."

The rights are now owned by American Financial of Cincinnati, whose founder, chairman and principal shareholder, Mr. Lindner, is also chief executive of the Cincinnati Reds and former chairman of Chiquita Brands International.

Until the city created a special subdistrict in 1992 to expand the sites eligible to receive Grand Central air rights, only one new development had used them: the Altria building at 120 Park Avenue.

Since then, 285,866 square feet of air rights were transferred to the Bear Stearns building at 383 Madison Avenue; 67,679 square feet to the CIBC World Markets building at 300 Madison Avenue; and 19,582 square feet to 360 Madison Avenue. An application is pending to transfer 38,225 square feet to 340 Madison Avenue, said Edith Hsu-Chen of the City Planning Department's Manhattan office.

Based on recent sales, American Financial puts a value of about $50 million to $60 million on the unused air rights. But thinking about the compensation issue, Mr. Gribbon said, "That's not the same thing as cash."


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Stern]

And the current owner of the Grand Central air rights, Carl H. Lindner's American Financial Group, still has 1,264,364 square feet of unused development potential on its hands.

This would allow for a more appropriate arrangement. Air Rights intensify the canyon effect by alignments of height and relief.

[DominicanoNYC]

I don't like the late 60s and early 70s because a lot of the historical architecture in NYC was stripped of it's greatness(or destroyed). It's a good thing they didn'y do anything to Grand Central.

[dbhstockton]

Those two posts of mine were my first in this forum. *How young and naive I was! *Yes, 10:40 am on October 18, 2002. *I remember it well...

[Kris]

You mean we don't rock?

[dbhstockton]

I suppose the thrill is gone. *These things happen; My relationship with this forum has matured over the years.

[ablarc]

DominicanoNYC,

The mid-sixties were the pits if you were a beaux-arts building trying to survive. Within a two year period, 1965-66, the following atrocities occurred:

1. Penn Station, the greatest of all beaux-arts buildings on any continent, was demolished in a shocking act of vandalism and shortsighted greed to make way for Madison Square Garden and a dull slab of high rise by Charles Luckman.

2. The Singer Building, Woolworth's rival for title of greatest of all beaux-arts skyscrapers and once the world's tallest high-rise, was taken down for a gloomy tombstone flattop by SOM. Tallest building ever demolished prior to WTC.

3. At Grand Army Plaza, the huge and jolly Savoy Plaza Hotel, which used to make such a harmony of pyramidal roofs with its smaller Gallic colleague, the Plaza, was replaced by the streamlined banality of Stone's General Motors Building, now Trump's. That corner of Central Park has never recovered.

4. Times Square's landmark beaux-arts New York Times Tower was scraped down to the skeleton and reclad in improved modern marble clothing of astonishing Miami Beach banality.

5. Times Square's vast and mansarded Astor Hotel, the most Parisian of New York's buildings, was pulled down to be replaced by that tailfinned monstrosity, Astor Plaza. Kahn and Jacobs are the perpetrators here. *

At any point in history, architects reserve their special hatred for the immediately preceding style, against which they are generally reacting or revolting for aesthetic and business reasons. If a competent building can survive the attacks of the immediately subsequent stylistic trend, its survival is generally assured. People will come to recognize it for what it is: an irreplaceable historic document of an era.

In the mid-Sixties, architects were so committed to heroic and revolutionary Modernism that they did not even recognize such buildings as Penn Station as architecture. Giedion omitted them entirely from his version of architectural history, and Gropius regarded them as works of the Devil. It is ironic that Gropius' New York masterpiece, the stark and austere lobby of the (former) Pan Am Building has itself succumbed to total stylistic bowdlerization to today's version of midbrow kitsch. I'll bet the construction crew carting off the Albers over the escalators didn't even know it was art.

Of course, in twenty years, when they are threatening the Astor Plaza's fins with a re-do, I guess I'll be there defending them.

[dbhstockton]

Well done, ablarc.

[emmeka]

Breuer's just looks like he used the project as an excuse to build a huge building.

I have seen most of these pictures before and I think that compared to most, the met life building was the best Idea. Plus it makes a great photo when you look down park avenue.

[Kris]

July 6, 2004

Got the Time? At Grand Central, It Has Never Been That Simple

By MICHAEL LUO

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/07/05/nyregion/06clock.jpg
Readings on different displays of the 15-year-old master clock at Grand Central Terminal sometimes drift out of synchronization.

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/07/05/nyregion/06clock2.jpg
With upgrades, four faces of the big clock will finally tell one time.

For years, they have maddened riders. Above information booths, on walls and on platforms, there they are — a babel of different times on different clocks in a place that depends mightily on people knowing the right time.

Several times a day, riders troop into the stationmaster's office in Grand Central Terminal to complain. Even the four faces of the signature brass clock above the information booth in the main concourse, irate riders often point out, are different.

The culprit is not the clocks themselves but something that resembles a giant filing cabinet, tucked away in a closet above one of the Beaux-Arts terminal's platforms. It is a 15-year-old master clock system, with dials in the middle and two digital displays.

It connects each day at 3 a.m. by short wave radio signal with the National Institute of Standards and Technology's atomic clock in Boulder, Colo., and then sends electrical impulses to the terminal's 20-some historic clocks.

The problem is, the electromechanical devices in the terminal's master clock system that are sending these signals are becoming increasingly unreliable, making the clocks inaccurate. What's more, the time displayed on video monitors throughout the terminal is controlled by a different system, not tied to the atomic clock at all.

Now, however, officials at Metro-North Railroad, the keepers of the clocks in Grand Central, are setting out to improve things for the 700,000 people who depart or arrive daily on 550 commuter trains and countless subways. Next month, they will install a new $59,000 master clock that will synchronize every second of every day by satellite with the Boulder atomic clock to ensure accuracy up to a fraction of a nanosecond, which is a billionth of a second.

With the new system will come devices that will be entirely electronic and will not, like the current equipment, use mechanical parts to send pulses to the historic clocks. Then all the older, separate systems will be done away with, unifying time in the terminal for the first time in its 91-year history.

In other words, if you are late, don't blame the clocks.

"We will have a dependable clock system that everyone knows is dependable," said Steve Stroh, superintendent of electrical maintenance at Grand Central.

Mr. Stroh has had the unenviable task of shepherding the current system through its recent changes. Digital clocks in the rail operations center are tied directly to the master clock, and so provide accurate time for those who run the railroad.

But several times a week, Mr. Stroh walks around the brass clock above the information booth, checking to make sure the faces show the same time. He insists that many riders' complaints come from the fact that the time looks different when the clocks' hands are seen from different angles. Sure enough, a series of inspections by a visitor proves his point.

But Mr. Stroh admits there are also plenty of times when the clocks have, well, plenty of times.

"You come in here and think you have a couple of minutes but run down and find the train's just not there," said Andrew Flint, 26, waiting by the historic clock in the main concourse to catch a train to New Haven on Friday.

Besides the problems with the master clock system, the historic clock's motors are also wearing out, Mr. Stroh explained. A few months ago, he sent one face's motor back to its manufacturer in Switzerland to be repaired.

As part of all the upgrades, new motors will be ordered for all four clock faces, along with a spare motor in case one breaks. Digital clocks will also be added to platforms, replacing old L.E.D. clocks that were taken down recently because they depended on the same unreliable pulse system.

Time has always been crucial to the running of railroads. Indeed, timekeeping, as it is known today, was essentially invented out of necessity in the late 1800's by a collection of railroads, including the New York Central, a predecessor of Metro-North.

Before the railroads, time was a local matter, set in each town according to the sun. Therefore, noon in Cincinnati, for example, would be slightly different from noon in Cleveland. But this was obviously a problem for railroads. Coordination of traffic on the tracks, as well as schedules for picking up passengers, depended on a standardized time system.

"A train could leave Syracuse at 12 o'clock and come into Utica, and it would still be 12 o'clock," said Pierce Haviland, a Metro-North employee who is also a railroad historian. "That wasn't working."

At first, railroad managers set up 100 different railroad time zones, but that proved too complicated. Finally, on Nov. 18, 1883, four standard time zones — Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific — were adopted by the railroads. At noon on that day, the time was transmitted by telegraph from the United States Naval Observatory in Washington to all the railroads in the United States and Canada. Twice a day thereafter, railroad clocks were resynchronized with the Naval Observatory's clock.

However, it was not until 1918, when Congress passed the Standard Time Act, that the railroads' time zones became the standard for everyone in the United States.

"They didn't invent time, obviously," said Mr. Haviland. "But as far as standard time and time zones, they certainly mandated the need for it, and they were the first adopters."

In recent years, more and more transportation hubs, along with telecommunications companies, radio and television stations and utilities, have begun upgrading to satellite-based technology. Such technology allows them to synchronize with one of the country's official atomic clocks down to the nanosecond.

The term "atomic clock" is often misunderstood, said Michael Newman, a spokesman for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which provides the official time for the United States. It is not nuclear-powered, but simply a timekeeping device that uses the regular vibrations of a specific atom to keep time in somewhat the same way that a clock pendulum's movements mark the passage of time.

Most, if not all, airports in the country now depend on a system similar to the one Metro-North will be adopting, tied to Boulder's atomic clock. Railroad stations, however, have been slower to follow.

In November, Penn Station upgraded to a system that connects to the atomic clock, according to officials at Amtrak, which owns the station. Previously, the station relied on a more haphazard system that required someone to actually call up a place that had an atomic clock to check that the station's clocks were synchronized correctly. The station's clocks would then be adjusted by computer.

Faced with conflicting information, veterans of Grand Central have learned to employ their own systems to keep track of time.

"I never look at the clocks because I don't trust them," said David Turner, 23, a student at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie who often takes trains in and out of the city on weekends. "I just use the clock on my phone."

Many Metro-North workers do not trust the clocks either. Train conductors use their own wristwatches to decide when to leave, said Dan Brucker, a spokesman for the railroad, although they are required to synchronize their watches periodically with either the video monitors or the operations center.

The railroad prides itself on a reported on-time performance of better than 95 percent. But for anyone who has ever been frustrated by a late train, there is now the obvious question: Which clock are they using?

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[rusaru]

hy, i have to model the grand central terminal in 3d. i have found some usefull images via google. but nothing from the back. so need to know how the grand central terminal looks from the back (metlife b. site). can anybody help me?

[rusaru]

its not to urgent. i have the hole august to complete a series of important ny landmarks ... and this building is the first one i cant find all i need.

[czsz]

Grand Central- New York's Gateway...for Westchester and Connecticut. Shame it can only rarely be experienced by anyone else in the region (unless they're in the mood for sightseeing) or for that matter, other cities. If only it could be an intercity station...

[stache]

It was intercity until about ten years ago -

[czsz]

To where? Montreal?

[JMGarcia]

To where? Montreal?

All Amtrak upstate, and also Montreal, routes used to leave from Grand Central. They were stopped when the tracks down through Riverdale and the west side were rehabbed and the connection into Penn was upgraded.

[ryan]

When I took the nerdy tour at grand central (stumbled into it on my way out of work) the guide said that the entire upstairs concourse was designed to service intercity service (the vanderbilt room was arriving trains, and the main room was departing) and that only the lower level was for commuters.

[ManhattanKnight]

Historically, Grand Central was used by the New York Central and the New Haven Railroads, back before the creation of Amtrak and MetroNorth. New York Central's tracks went up the Hudson to Albany and from there ran east to Boston and west to Cleveland, Chicago and St. Louis. The New Haven ran through New Haven up to Boston. Penn Station was served by the Pennsylvania Railroad, whose tracks went south to Philadelphia and Washington and west to Chicago and St. Louis through Pittsburgh.

[TonyO]

NY Times
August 31, 2005

At Grand Central, Business Is Booming

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/08/31/business/terminal.184.jpg
Diners at Junior's enjoy lunch.

By CLAIRE WILSON
Having to close up shop for a couple of years while Grand Central Terminal was being renovated turned out to be a fortunate turn of events for Scott Stein, owner of Grand Central Optical, which had been doing business in a corridor just off Lexington Avenue since 1964. During the renovation, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which owns the station, moved the optical shop temporarily to a ground-floor shop in its nearby Madison Avenue headquarters.

When the work on the renovation of the terminal was completed, Mr. Stein decided to keep both stores open. Seven years after the terminal officially reopened in 1998, the 500-square-foot Grand Central store outpaces the 1,100-square-foot second shop, which has since moved to another nearby Madison Avenue address, by a wide margin.

"My return is 70 percent higher in Grand Central," said Mr. Stein, whose family also operated Grand Central Jewelers in the terminal between 1923 and the mid-1990's.

Average annual rents for 500 square feet, the most common size in the terminal, run about $250 a square foot, although Mr. Stein, as a longtime tenant, pays slightly less than that.

With the rents on the two shops comparable, he said, the success of the Grand Central location is attributable not only to higher traffic but also to a marked change in shopping habits of the 700,000 commuters who pass through daily, along with the tourists and enormous pool of office workers from surrounding blocks. Clearly, they find the atmosphere much more conducive to lingering and spending money.

Before the renovation it was dingy at best, defined by a Nedick's with the paint peeling from the ceiling, a 99-cent store and services for commuters like shoeshine stands. "Before, they were just going to the train, but now they are leaving extra time to buy things and seem happy to shop there," Mr. Stein said. "It's a whole different mind-set."

Mr. Stein is one of about 90 retailers, food merchants and restaurateurs doing brisk business in Grand Central Terminal since it reopened.

The space is 100 percent leased, and five kiosks were recently added to Graybar Passage, a hallway that links to Lexington Avenue, as an experiment in response to demand from small vendors, according to Paul Kastner, director of marketing for Grand Central's commercial space and vice president of Jones Lang LaSalle, which manages the nontransportation business in the terminal for the M.T.A.

Many small retailers like Grand Central Optical are concentrated in 500-square-foot spaces along the Lexington Passage, which is parallel to Graybar. The other tenants include 22 restaurants like Junior's, Dishes and the recently arrived Ciao Bella Gelateria in the lower-level dining concourse; most offer only take-out service. Thirteen high-end food specialty retailers like Murray's Cheese and the Pescatore Seafood Company operate within the area called the Grand Central Market, and there are also full-service restaurants like Cipriani Dolci and the Oyster Bar and Restaurant.

Chain retailers in larger interior spaces include Hudson News and a Rite Aid drugstore, and Kenneth Cole is one of a number of clothing stores outside along 42nd Street. There is also a seasonal sidewalk cafe set up in the former taxi bay on the Vanderbilt Avenue side of the terminal.

Vanderbilt Hall, a cavernous room on street level on the 42nd Street side, is rented out for special events like the annual Holiday Fair, with 72 merchants, or the recent introduction of supersize M&M's.

Annual revenue per square foot in Grand Central Market, where rents run about $200 a square foot, is about $2,000, according to Mr. Kastner. Return per square foot for small retailers like Aveda and Origins cosmetics or a lingerie shop called the Pink Slip is high for a mall, about $1,400 a square foot, he said. "To compare, sales in the best shopping centers will be $500 to $800 per square foot," he said.

Turnover among retailing tenants is low. A men's clothing store in a corner location closed recently. "The men's store wasn't the right fit," Mr. Kastner said. The space is now occupied by Swatch.

Most tenants were eager to renew when their five-year leases ran out. Armin Koglin, owner of Koglin German Royal Hams, who sold four stores in Lubeck, Germany, to open in Grand Central, recently signed a four-year lease and wants to extend that. "I've asked for the option to renew from 2009 to 2014," Mr. Koglin said. He is looking for a second site to open a larger version of his Grand Central venture.

Bobby Shapiro, owner of Zócalo, a 2,000-square-foot Grand Central outpost of his Zócalo Bar and Restaurant, on the Upper East Side, said his sales had climbed every year, including a 10 percent rise this year over last. Now he too wants to take his dining concourse formula to other transit hubs. "I want to go to Penn Station, and we are considering airports," Mr. Shapiro said.

Retailers at Grand Central are delighted at their captive audience of almost three-quarters of a million customers on weekdays. The trouble is, at Grand Central Terminal they all want to shop or eat at the same time, according to Glenn Licht, co-owner with Jerry Bocchino of the Pescatore Seafood Company, which sells fresh fish. "Eighty percent of our business is done with the evening commuters," he said, "generally between 4:30 p.m. and 8 p.m."

Business tends to be almost exclusively tied to office hours and the schedules of suburban commuters from Connecticut and Westchester, according to Donald Myers, store manager of Ceriello Fine Foods in the Grand Central Market and the Paninoteca Italiana, a sandwich shop on the dining concourse.

Relatively few customers come from nearby densely populated residential areas east of Third Avenue, a block away, making weekends extremely slow, a number of merchants said.

Efforts to promote shopping in the terminal by local apartment dwellers have had disappointing results. A coupon mailing around the neighborhood about 18 months ago brought customers into Grand Central Market for their $5 savings, but yielded little repeat business, according to Mr. Myers.

"When work is on, so are we; when work is off, so are we," Mr. Myers said. "Weekends have grown, but they are still not where we want them to be."

[TLOZ Link5]

The restoration scaffolding is starting to come off the south facade, and it looks great.

[lofter1]

The protective netting used to cover scaffolding could use an improvement.

A few years ago I spent some time in Rome, where many buildings were undergoing renvoation. The practice there: scaffolding was wrapped with an image of the building being worked on (with a small acknowledgement for the corporate support).

Sure beats the 60 foot-long billboards on the all scaffolding / "sidewalk sheds" in my neighborhood.

[TLOZ Link5]

Back in the late '90s, when the Washington Monument was being restored, the protective netting around it was painted as to evoke large bricks. It was well-liked and some admirers thought that the scaffolding should have remained even after the restoration work was finished.

[jp1]

The Netting and scaffolding erected for cleaning the western side of Grand Central Terminal has been removed as of at least today, Tusday Sept 13. It looks great.

[Stern]

A view of Grand Central Terminal not often seen.

http://img485.imageshack.us/img485/9906/gct8yu.th.jpg (http://img485.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gct8yu.jpg)

Coincidently I wasnt supposed to be there at 2 am, they're supposed to close the doors at 1:30, that said, I was able to take this picture because they didn't.

[ryan]

nice shot - did you use the doors right behind where you were standing (when you took the photo?)

[Stern]

nice shot - did you use the doors right behind where you were standing (when you took the photo?)

Yes. I used the doors on the west-side of the building.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Tiffany Clock at Grand Central Terminal
http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/1160/gct017my.th.jpg (http://img126.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gct017my.jpg)


Model train exhibit
http://img478.imageshack.us/img478/662/gct025vn.th.jpg (http://img478.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gct025vn.jpg)

[TonyO]

NY Sun
2/22/06

Grand Central's Barriers To Be Given Face-Lift

By BRADLEY HOPE, Special to the Sun

The unsightly barricades outside Grand Central Terminal will be replaced with hundreds of bronze-finished bollards by this summer, Metro-North officials said yesterday.

The Jersey barriers and concrete cubes currently in place were added in the weeks after the September 11, 2001, attacks to prevent terrorists from driving a car bomb into the station.

With a $10 million grant from the Department of Homeland Security, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority last spring awarded John Civetta and Sons a contract to install new, more attractive barricades. The 600 new bollards are designed to allow easier passage by pedestrians while maintaining solid protection from vehicles, a Metro-North spokesman, Dan Brucker, said.

The bollards, which contain large steel cylinders, will be cemented to the sidewalk.

The terminal has been operating in its current form since 1913.Since Metro-North took control of the station in 1994, it has undergone extensive renovations.

Truck and car bombs have been one of the favored terrorism methods by insurgents in Iraq. A truck bomb that slammed into the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad in 2003 killed 17 people and injured more than 100 others. According to a briefing diagram from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, a small box van can carry up to 10,000 pounds of explosives with a lethal blast range of 300 feet.

The updating of perimeter security is the latest of several security moves at Grand Central. Last summer, the MTA announced it had installed real-time technology that can detect chemical and biological agents in the air. Several New York Police Department K-9 units are deployed in the subways. The MTA also awarded a $212 million contract to Lockheed Martin in August to install smart cameras in subway stations. The cameras are designed to detect people loitering or entering restricted zones, as well as unattended packages and other patterns. The MTA also is spending millions of dollars in federal grants on strengthening bridges and tunnels and on training MTA police to be able to spot suspicious activity quickly.

[ryan]

Paris has these things everywhere - they can be really attractive, and make me feel like a much safter pedestrian terrorists or no...

http://static.flickr.com/8/7538880_1f86d673f4.jpg
(http://static.flickr.com/8/7538880_1f86d673f4.jpg?v=0)

[BPC]

Paris has these things everywhere - they can be really attractive, and make me feel like a much safter pedestrian terrorists or no...


Those don't look like they would stop a truck bomb.

[ryan]

Well, like everything French (especially their cars) these are much slimmer than in the U.S. They would stop a lot of trucks from entering the building, but I would guess we'll see the less elegant 10" stanchions.

[MidtownGuy]

Thank God GCT is getting these. I walk through almost every day, and there is always a bottleneck of pedestrians at those few points where a space is left between the cement barriers. You can't get through. Then of course, there is often a giant puddle of greasy water at the exact spot where they left the opening.

[BPC]

Agreed. They could also keep those guys from selling stolen goods (or stuff fished out of garbage cans) on the sidewalk right by the Lexington Avenue entrance. The sidewalks there are crowded enough.

[MidtownGuy]

I'll never get tired of looking up at this ceiling... this was taken a few days ago. The turquoise color , seen in person, would have me mixing paint all day to reproduce. It is absolutely sublime.


http://static.flickr.com/36/103184867_bb81127318_b.jpg

[antinimby]

Agreed. They could also keep those guys from selling stolen goods (or stuff fished out of garbage cans) on the sidewalk right by the Lexington Avenue entrance. The sidewalks there are crowded enough.Yeah, clean up the streets even more and when they are completely squeaky clean, then turn around and complain that NY is getting too sterile.
I want the street vendors/hawkers, 3-card Monty hustlers and the squeegee men back.

[macreator]

Yeah, clean up the streets even more and when they are completely squeaky clean, then turn around and complain that NY is getting too sterile.
I want the street vendors/hawkers, 3-card Monty hustlers and the squeegee men back.

True. But Lexington at 42nd street is so narrow and so busy that I would really prefer the vendors to be on 42nd or something. Just a suggestion to any vendors reading Wired New York :D

[BPC]

Yeah, clean up the streets even more and when they are completely squeaky clean, then turn around and complain that NY is getting too sterile.
I want the street vendors/hawkers, 3-card Monty hustlers and the squeegee men back.

To each their own.

[macreator]

Btw, I definitely do not want the squeegee men back...

How could anyone?

[BigMac]

Notice the tiny black streak on the far right (towards the center) in MidtownGuy's picture, a deliberate remnant of the ceiling's pre-Beyer Blinder Belle state showing how dirty it had once been.

[Bob]

That section of ceiling has become something of a tourist attraction. Just about every time I'm at GCT I see several people pointing to that exact location. I think it is generally well-known, the result of publicity in books, news articles, internet, and those documentaries normally seen on Discovery, TLC, etc.

[alonzo-ny]

cant see it

[lofter1]

Look below ... (Its an itty bitty patch on both the terra cotta and the painted ceiling that retains the smoky grey color from pre-restoration)

[TonyO]

^ I've seen that before in documentaries on GCT following the restoration. It was a great idea to leave it there to remind people what grime was there. A lot of it was exhaust and furnace soot, but also from tobacco products. Makes you want to quit if that's your vice.

[NYatKNIGHT]

There's also a hole in the ceiling for the tip of that missile.

[aprokos]

Here are some additional photos of the exterior and interior of Grand Central Station (http://andrewprokos.com/photos/new-york/landmarks/grand-central-station/). It may be very valuable airspace, but to build an office tower atop Grand Central would absolutely ruin the charm the facade. Not everything boils down to money, even in New York.

[lofter1]

Threadbare to Quite Posh, in Just 12 Hours

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/03/05/nyregion/05campbell-600.jpg
James Estrin/The New York Times
Just before the bar opened Sunday, the owner, Mark Grossich, right,
gave last-minute instructions to Matthew Hartzog, a designer.

NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/nyregion/05campbell.html?ref=nyregion)
By ANTHONY RAMIREZ
March 5, 2007

In 1923, John W. Campbell, a millionaire American financier, built a big corner office resembling a 13th-century Florentine palazzo, a whim not unusual in the age of Gatsby, save for the whim’s location.

Mr. Campbell chose Grand Central Terminal. There, in a hide-in-plain-sight corner only steps away from commuters pouring onto Vanderbilt Avenue, he built his ground-floor office in a space the size of a chapel.

It had a butler, a pipe organ, a library and one of the world’s largest Persian rugs. After Mr. Campbell’s death in 1957, the space fell into peculiar times, including a stint as a jail.

Not until 1999 was it restored and renovated into a lush saloon of dark wood, dim lamps and Jazz Age cocktails now known as the Campbell Apartment.

Last year, Mark Grossich, who restored the leased space and owns the bar, decided the place was getting threadbare and needed Nina Campbell, an interior designer in London, to spruce it up. In less than 12 hours, they would do everything, to avoid closing for even a night.

Yesterday, a platoon of workers labored morning to afternoon to refashion the Campbell Apartment into something still agreeably old but almost entirely new.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/03/05/nyregion/05campbell-2-450.jpg
James Estrin/The New York Times
Workers peeled back carpet early yesterday
in the Campbell Apartment, an office-turned-bar
in Grand Central Terminal.


Ms. Campbell, who is not related to the American financier, is known for designing the interiors of Annabel’s club in London and the Hotel le Parc in Paris.

When she first saw the Campbell Apartment about a year ago, she recalled, she was stunned. “I came in the doorway and I said, ‘Oh, my God, what is this, Pandora’s box?’

“Then I began thinking of Anna Karenina and train stations and steam and illicit meetings.” She added, “Luckily for me, the upholstery needed attention.”

Ms. Campbell’s strategy was to replace a largely blue palette with a largely red one — to lay new carpet, banquettes, bar stools and chairs, and brighten it all with red, much like turning up the color on a television set.

The 1999 restoration of the Campbell Apartment cost more than $1.5 million and the current makeover more than $350,000, Mr. Grossich said.

The breakneck renovation, months in the planning, began at dawn yesterday. Under the 25-foot ceiling, union workers being paid double overtime hauled away old tables, chairs and sofas, and then peeled away the carpet.

Shuffling along on knee pads, they scraped away sheets of carpet adhesive, stuck like fried egg on a pan, as well as the remains of countless spilled martinis.

The new designer furniture left Hickory, N.C., on Friday morning and with luck and clear skies would be rumbling into Manhattan in time for the beefy workers to arrange it just so.

As it happens, the new red furniture arrived a bit late, but serendipitously so, at 3:45 p.m. The furniture workers arrived just as the carpet workers were leaving.

A last-minute glitch: Some of the furniture was too big for Grand Central’s single doors. But employees at the restaurant next door, Cipriani Dolci, let the big furniture caravan its way through their double doors.

By 5:53 p.m., barely 12 hours start to finish, the makeover was complete, the maître d’s lectern in place, and a beaming couple from out of town were the first customers of the evening.

“I like the idea that it’s rather grand,” said Edwin Foster, 53, a music director from Boonton, N.J., who was visiting the Campbell Apartment for the first time.

“And a piece of old New York,” added his friend Judith Stuss, 57.

There is no evidence that John Williams Campbell wrote letters or kept diaries. To Allyn Freeman, who is writing a book about the Campbell Apartment, personal facts about him are almost as scarce as those about Shakespeare.

But what facts there are are choice. Mr. Campbell, who resembled Warren G. Harding, favored Savile Row tailoring but disliked wearing socks, even with shoes, said Mr. Grossich and Mr. Freeman, who have spoken about him with Elsie Fater, his niece. He liked unwrinkled trousers, so he hung his in a humidor, while he worked untrousered at a desk.

Mr. Campbell was born in 1880, the son of John Campbell, the treasurer of Credit Clearing House, a credit-reference firm specializing in the garment industry. The younger Campbell had a sister and an older brother. The family lived on Cumberland Avenue, in the affluent Brooklyn neighborhood known as The Hill, now called Fort Greene.

There is no record of the younger Mr. Campbell attending college. He started work at 18 at his father’s firm, where he became a senior executive at 25 and later president.

In 1920, he was appointed to the board of New York Central Railroad, where he would have crossed paths with William K. Vanderbilt Jr., the railroad scion whose office was in Grand Central Terminal.

By this time, Mr. Campbell was prosperous enough to have workmen come from Tiffany & Company to polish his silver. His wife, the former Rosalind D. Casanave, nicknamed Princess, was once listed in The New York Times as a “patroness” of a “Monte Carlo party and dance” at the Ardsley Country Club at Ardsley-on-Hudson.

Sometime in 1923, he commissioned Augustus N. Allen to build an office in leased space in Grand Central Terminal. Mr. Allen was an architect known for designing Long Island estates and grand offices.

Mr. Campbell filled his new office with Italian furniture, a pipe organ, a piano and a steel safe inside a large stone fireplace. There was a bathroom and a small kitchen. Mr. Campbell had a butler there named Stackhouse.

Perhaps the most striking piece was a Persian rug that covered nearly the entire floor, which is the length of a subway car. It was said to have cost $300,000, or roughly $3.5 million in today’s money.

After Mr. Campbell’s death, it was unclear what happened to the rug and other furnishings, Mr. Freeman said. The space became a signalman’s office and later a closet, where the transit police stored guns and other equipment. It also became a small jail, in the area of the present-day bar.

As for the name Campbell Apartment, that is a misnomer, according to Mr. Freeman. People assumed that such a baronial space was an apartment.

While there was a couch in the office, there was no bed. Mr. Campbell and his wife lived a few blocks away at 270 Park Avenue, not far from the Waldorf-Astoria. There was no need to sleep in the office overnight, Mr. Freeman said.

And for the record, there is no record, or rumor, of dalliance on Mr. Campbell’s part in what must have been one of the city’s great stages for assignation. Not one chorine, hat-check girl or taxi dancer?“

’Fraid not,” Mr. Freeman said.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

[BigMac]

aarongarcia on Flickr
October 9, 2007

Larger Size (http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2357/1551995283_2652a5bfc3_o.jpg)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2357/1551995283_d8e7df0051.jpg

[TREPYE]

^ amazing shot! ;)

[brianac]

TV Review | 'Grand Central'

Crossroads of a Million Private Lives

By MIKE HALE
Published: February 4, 2008

The “American Experience” documentary “Grand Central” is such an entertaining wallow for New York PBS (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/p/public_broadcasting_service/index.html?inline=nyt-org) viewers that it’s disconcerting to note that it was produced, as World Series champions are these days, in Boston, by the public television station WGBH. Think of it as a peace offering.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/02/04/arts/Grand650.jpg
Bettmann/Corbis
A 1919 photograph of Grand Central Terminal, subject of a documentary on PBS.

The film, which was written and produced by Michael Epstein and has its premiere on most PBS stations on Monday night, is at its best when it sticks to its primary concerns of commerce and technology (rather than aesthetics), beginning with Cornelius Vanderbilt’s construction of the original Grand Central Depot on 23 acres in what was, in the 1870s, a squalid industrial zone in the netherlands of Manhattan.

That European-style station, with its huge train shed serving three rail lines, helped to consolidate Vanderbilt’s monopoly on train traffic into New York, but it also quickly became an eyesore, and the tracks running north at grade level through the growing city were a public menace.

From there the story flows: The tracks are sunk below Park Avenue into uncomfortably hot and dangerous tunnels. That leads to a horrific underground collision in 1902 in which 15 died, many killed by steam while trying to escape. That, in turn, forced the railroads to convert from steam to electric locomotives and led, along with competition from the Pennsylvania Railroad and its impressive new station on the West Side, to the building of the current Grand Central Terminal. Among the innovations were two levels of tracks and platforms, both below ground, to handle the growing traffic; and the sale of air rights above the Park Avenue tracks to finance the construction, changing the nature of the Upper East Side.

The narrative gains some contemporary resonance because it takes place largely during the Progressive era, when publicly slamming the predatory practices of big business was a popular sport, one that we’re beginning to see the faintest stirrings of in our own suddenly perilous economic times.

“Grand Central” tells its tale of business and the city briskly via the familiar, and in this case entertaining, mix of archival photos and congenial talking heads. The film’s other component, which could be called the nostalgic-poetic as opposed to the historical-dramatic, is not as felicitous.

Apparently feeling the need to acknowledge the Grand Central-as-modern-cathedral clichés, the filmmakers stop the narrative every so often for brief testimonies, from an immigrant, a veteran, a photographer and so forth, about the terminal’s place in their lives. These stories are touching but ordinary — words like “incredible,” “amazing” and, yes, “cathedral” pop up — and do little but slow down the narrative.

Of course just about anyone can be susceptible to Grand Central’s charms. The film quotes a certain New York daily newspaper — O.K., this one — on the occasion of the terminal’s opening in 1913: “Without exception, it is not only the greatest station in the United States, but the greatest station of any type in the world.”

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
Grand Central
On most PBS (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/p/public_broadcasting_service/index.html?inline=nyt-org) stations Monday (check local listings).

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

[antinimby]

That must be the beautiful Commodore hotel, there to the left of GCT, that Trump so tragically defiled.

[lofter1]

PRINT (http://cgi.ebay.com/1903-Rare-PHOTO-VIEW-Book-of-NEW-YORK-CITY-MOSES-KING_W0QQitemZ110221077329QQihZ001QQcategoryZ29223 QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem) : Bird's eye view of the Grand Central Station on the site prior to the GCT (with open tracks all the way up Park Avenue) ...

http://members.aol.com/bdogcat/mk03g.jpg

[BrooklynRider]

This seems like a good thread to host this. Check it out. Brilliant guerilla performance in GC.

http://gawker.com/5002790/when-grand-central-stood-still (http://gawker.com/5002790/when-grand-central-stood-still)

[alonzo-ny]

Ha! Thats great, though I wonder why people took photos because in the photo everyone is going to look like they are standing still!!

[NYatKNIGHT]

My sister did that! She's an "agent" occasionally with them on some of their "missions". Cracks me up every time.

[MidtownGuy]

That is so BRILLIANT!!! greatest thing I've seen in a very long time. Now that's New York! I was imagining what my own reaction would be if I witnessed that happening. Aliens? Someone meddling with the space-time continuum?:D

[NYatKNIGHT]

Here's another video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwMj3PJDxuo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwMj3PJDxuo)

[cfrobel]

Reminds me of what I used to see every day during rush hour scrambling across Grand Central from the subway station to catch my train.

[brianac]

New Wave of Upgrades at Grand Central Shops

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/03/19/business/19grand.600.jpg Photographs by Patrick Andrade for The New York Times
The window of the boutique La Crasia looks out into the Lexington Passage at Grand Central Terminal.

By LISA CHAMBERLAIN
Published: March 19, 2008

Grand Central Terminal is like a seasoned Hollywood celebrity, aging gracefully with the help of a little nip and tuck now and then, and a major face-lift only when absolutely necessary.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/03/19/business/19grandB.enlarge.jpgPatrick Andrade for The New York Times
The passage leads commuters past stores on the way to the street.

The last overhaul was completed 10 years ago; it resulted in a whole new retail face for one of New York’s best-known landmarks. Now, many of the leases signed after the renovation will be expiring in the next few years, with the first wave concentrated in the Lexington Passage, an entrance from 43rd Street created during the renovation.

The property managers of Grand Central think this provides an ideal time for another nip and tuck. “We want to freshen things up a bit, update the look and mix of retailers,” said Gordon L. Pelavin, vice president and general manager for Jones Lang LaSalle, which has managed Grand Central for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/m/metropolitan_transportation_authority/index.html?inline=nyt-org) since it gained control of the property in 1994. “Retail has really changed over the last 10 years.”

So has Grand Central. When the Lexington Passage retail spaces were being completed in 1998, the terminal was considered a risky venture.

Then, most of the stores were aimed at commuters, and the Main Concourse was dingy and covered with large banner advertising.

The original leasing agent, Williams Jackson Ewing, based in Maryland, courted local boutique operators.

“National chains get tired,” said Michael Ewing, a principal of Williams Jackson Ewing, which had overseen the redevelopment of Union Station in Washington in the early 1980s. “They get to be big companies, and it’s hard for them to change. Small retailers are constantly evolving and updating.”

The strategy worked, and the small stores did well. Grand Central remains one of the rare collection of stores where national chains have not taken over. There is still a concentration of local retailers, and only 16 percent of the stores are national chains.

Not only have annual sales steadily risen, to $175 million in 2007 from $117 million in 2000 (excluding fine-dining restaurants), but there has also been little turnover among tenants.

With annual sales averaging $1,300 a square foot, many tenants would like more space, including Pink Slip, a lingerie shop, whose lease expires this year.
Margo Andros started Pink Slip by selling at flea markets and initially went to Grand Central as part of the Holiday Fair, a temporary market set up in November and December in Vanderbilt Hall, adjacent to the Main Concourse. This event has acted as an incubator for local retailers to test their products without taking the risk of a long-term lease.

After solid sales, Pink Slip signed a lease. With only 337 square feet, its revenue was $906,385 in 2007, not including the Holiday Fair, which pushed the total over $1 million, Ms. Andros said. The leasing agents and property managers have “done a great job with marketing,” she said. “We have 4,000 customers, and we made a name here and we would like to expand,” despite a potentially difficult retail climate on the horizon.

Ms. Andros said that while total sales are the same as last year in dollar terms, the number of transactions is down (meaning that shoppers are spending more on average).

Recent surveys indicate that consumer confidence in New York State (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/classifieds/realestate/locations/newyork/?inline=nyt-geo) is down sharply, according to the Siena College (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/siena_college/index.html?inline=nyt-org) Research Institute, based in Loudonville, N.Y., which has been tracking consumer confidence in New York since 1999.

Indeed, a few tenants are concerned about slowing sales, even though the ridership of Metro-North Railroad is higher than ever; 700,000 people pass through Grand Central daily. One manager of a store in the Lexington Passage said that total sales revenue and the number of sales so far this year were down compared with last year.

Among the Lexington Passage shop owners interviewed, however, not one wanted to leave, and most wanted to expand, which may not be easy to do.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Jones Lang LaSalle and Williams Jackson Ewing require shop owners to reapply for their spaces as they become available and explain how they will upgrade their businesses. By March 2011, 49 leases will be expiring, representing 56,884 square feet, a little more than 40 percent of the total space.

Ms. Andros said she would apply for five spaces just to make sure she gets a spot. While she believes that Pink Slip, with good sales and a willingness to upgrade, will almost surely be approved for a new lease, others might not be so lucky.

This is particularly true of retailers that are dealing with difficult market changes, like InMotion Entertainment, a DVD and CD store, which faces the prospect of becoming obsolete as online sources for movies and music gain in popularity.

The terminal has qualities that make it exceedingly attractive to retailers, said Karen Bellantoni, executive vice president of Robert K. Futterman & Associates, who is familiar with leasing activity at Grand Central but is not currently involved.

“You’ve got tourists and commuters coming in on Metro-North, a strong demographic coming from Westport and Westchester (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/classifieds/realestate/locations/newyork/westchester/?inline=nyt-geo),” she said. “And you also have the office population, lawyers, hedge funds and the MetLife Building attached.”

She added, “Maybe the former World Trade Center is about the only thing that would be similar.”

Meanwhile, another nip and tuck is starting at the grande dame. About 15 years after its last big overhaul, Vanderbilt Hall is closing for a major cleaning, the transportation authority and Metro-North Railroad recently announced.

For the next seven months, conservators will clean and repair the faux Caen stone walls, the Tennessee pink marble floors and the white Botticino marble wainscoting in the 12,500-square-foot room.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company.

[brianac]

Hall at Grand Central to close for $3.6M cleaning

The Associated Press March 4, 2008 Grand Central Terminal (http://www.newsday.com/topic/travel/transportation/railway-transportation/grand-central-terminal-PLTRA0000120.topic)'s Vanderbilt Hall is to undergo a $3.6-million cleaning that will close it to the public for seven months.

Metro-North Railroad officials say the cleaning, which begins today, involves repairing and replacing, as needed, the stone walls, the marble floors, the white marble wainscoting and every surface in the 12,500-square-foot room.

During the cleaning project, travelers will be able to walk between the main concourse and 42nd Street through a plywood tunnel.

Vanderbilt Hall, formerly known as the Main Waiting Room, once had seating for more than 600 long-distance travelers. As long-distance train travel declined, the room became obsolete. Since 1992 it's been used as a venue for parties, fashion shows, art exhibits and other events.

http://blog.pentagram.com/archives/CS_West_Sm.jpg

[brianac]

East Side

When Grand Central Was Younger

By DAVID MARGOLICK
Published: March 30, 2008

THOMAS WOLFE (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/thomas_clayton_wolfe/index.html?inline=nyt-per) wrote that the late Pennsylvania Station was vast enough to hold the sound of time. More than half a century ago, across town at Grand Central Terminal, a 23-year-old industrial design student named Boris Klapwald did something else with time: He stopped it.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/03/30/nyregion/central450.jpgBoris Yale Klapwald/Brain-Ink
More than half a century ago, a young design student named Boris Klapwald took a series of photographs of the station, capturing the romance of train travel and even the allure of waiting for a train. More Photos » (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/03/29/nyregion/033008Grand_index.html)

Multimedia
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/03/29/nyregion/grand190.jpgSlide Show (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/03/29/nyregion/033008Grand_index.html)A Station in Time (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/03/29/nyregion/033008Grand_index.html)

Mr. Klapwald, then a student at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, would occasionally wander through the station with his twin-lens Rolleiflex. All told, he shot only a few rolls of film. He liked Tri-X 120, big enough to enlarge dramatically, sensitive enough to use without a flash. In that pre-digital era, images were husbanded: He had only 12 exposures per roll, and he did not even use up all the ones he had.

The young student thought he was documenting the great terminal’s eternal rituals, mostly the ritual of waiting. “It was a place of contemplation, really — the exact opposite of what it is today,” he recalled. “In the waiting room, you could sit. The policemen wouldn’t bother you. No one bothered you. I liked the quiet of it. It was like a cathedral. You didn’t have to pray; you could reflect on yourself.”

In fact, what he documented was not just timeless but time-bound. His images captured an era when names like New York Central and New Haven Railroad were still emblazoned on the walls; when soldiers and sailors returned from war aboard trains; when women wore hats and nylons with seams; when smoking was so commonplace, and so tolerated, that cigarette butts littered the floor; when a person could leave suitcases unattended without thieves or bomb squads descending upon them; when, come to think of it, one still took suitcases to Grand Central, which was still a hub for long-distance trains rather than a pit stop for suburbanites; when there still was a waiting room.

Although Mr. Klapwald developed his pictures and made contact sheets, he never even printed them. “I had no thought in mind of pictures that were going to become iconic or that someone else would look at and say ‘Wow!’ ” Mr. Klapwald, a modest and soft-spoken man of 77, remarked the other day as the clatter of dishes bounced off the vaulted ceilings of the Oyster Bar, in the bowels of the terminal.

For more than five decades — until his daughter, Thea, unearthed them and took them to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/m/metropolitan_transportation_authority/index.html?inline=nyt-org) — the photographs sat in boxes in Mr. Klapwald’s basement in White Plains. But for much of the past year, his images have been displayed on both sides of the food court on Grand Central’s lower level, and they are both powerful and poignant.

In the keynote picture, featured on the poster that introduces the show, two sailors, the collars of their pea coats turned up, huddle with a young woman on the western balcony, contemplating an impending departure, perhaps, or adjusting to a recent arrival. Beyond the vast concourse is the old Kodak sign, which came down years ago; in between are those mighty shafts of sunlight that appear in all the classic photographs of Grand Central. They, too, are gone: the building across East 42nd Street, erected several years ago by the company formerly known as Philip Morris, stands in the way of the light.

In another picture, a mother reads to her young son as her daughter lies perpendicular to them on the bench. You might think they are homeless, until you look at their shoes. On another bench sit four black children; one is reading a Woody Woodpecker comic. Behind them, in chalk, is a train schedule, like a tote board at a racetrack.

An ungainly young man with white socks, a refugee from a Diane Arbus (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/diane_arbus/index.html?inline=nyt-per) photograph, sits on a cheap striped suitcase. A boy in shorts leans over a banister. (The picture is the victim of some 21st-century, politically correct cropping: Apparently concerned about suggestions of pedophilia, the transportation authority cut out the figure of a man who stood nearby.)

On the other side of the dining concourse, past Junior’s Cheesecake and a juice bar, are more photos. In one, soldiers sit on duffel bags. Farther down, a world-weary young woman, arms folded, stares blankly from one side of a bench while an upright-looking priest, wearing black from his homburg to his shoes except for the bright white of his clerical collar, reads his missal on the other. Physically, cognitively, they are as distant as two occupants of a single bench can be: Edward Hopper (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/edward_hopper/index.html?inline=nyt-per) meets Grant Wood.

“This is my favorite of all,” Mr. Klapwald says. “What’s she thinking about? ‘Should I leave him? Should I go back?’ ”

Mr. Klapwald surely captured a moment in time, but exactly when? He never wrote down a date, and his guesses are tentative, even contradictory. He’d always thought he’d taken the pictures in a single day, but that can’t be: While most of the people wear overcoats, some are in shirt sleeves.

The year? Around the end of the Korean War, he thinks, which would place them in 1953. One might know for sure if the now-defunct newspaper — The World-Telegram and Sun? The Journal-American? — that a toothless man reads in one picture were not just a trifle too out of focus.

THE time of day? The heavenly beams streaming through the grand windows on the station’s southern facade say it’s late afternoon, though in some other pictures the space is dark, and the clocks in still others read anywhere from 6:30 to 7:50.

The project architect for Grand Central’s restoration, Frank J. Prial Jr. of Beyer Blinder Belle, theorizes that Mr. Klapwald visited at least twice, at different times of day, several months apart. The day of the week seems clearer: The sheer emptiness of the place, the absence of hurried, harried commuters, suggests weekends.

Mr. Klapwald, who runs his own interior design business, still travels to Grand Central regularly. Next Saturday he is scheduled to give a tour of the exhibit, which will remain at least until June, under the auspices of the New York Transit Museum. He sometimes checks out his pictures, and whenever he does, he discerns not just a bygone era, but his own, younger self.

And what does he see?

“He was lonely,” he said. “Maybe not lonely, but a loner. He was interested in people, and the things that people were not doing as much as what they were doing. He’s interested in structure and design and detail. He was sensitive.”

David Margolick, a contributing editor at Condé Nast Portfolio, is writing a book about Sid Caesar and “Your Show of Shows.”

Copyright 2008 The New York Times.