Grand Central Terminal

OPENED
1871

ARCHITECTS
Reed & Stern  - Warren & Wetmore

STYLE
Beaux-Arts

Grand Central Terminal is a terminal station at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan and  is the largest train station in the world by number of platforms: 44, with 67 tracks along them.  Although the terminal has been properly called "Grand Central Terminal" since 1913, many people continue to refer to it as "Grand Central Station".

Besides train platforms, Grand Central contains restaurants (the most famous of which is the Oyster Bar), delis, bakeries, newsstands, a gourmet and fresh food market, an annex of the New York Transit Museum, and more than forty retail stores.

A "secret" sub-basement known as M42 lies under the Terminal, containing the AC to DC converters used to supply DC traction current to the Terminal. The exact location of M42 remains a closely guarded secret and cannot be found on maps.  During World War II, this was one of the most guarded facilities as, if it were sabotaged, troop movement on the Eastern Seaboard would have been halted. Despite it being a secret, Adolf Hitler was aware of this facility and sent two spies to sabotage it. The spies were arrested by the FBI before they could strike. It is said that any unauthorized person entering the facility during the war risked being shot on sight.

From 1924 through 1944 the attic of the east wing contained a 7,000-square-foot art school and gallery space, the Grand Central School of Art.

The main information booth is in the center of the concourse. This is a perennial meeting place, and the four-faced clock on top of the information booth is perhaps the most recognizable icon of Grand Central. Each of the four clock faces is made from opal, and both Sotheby's and Christie's have estimated the value to be between $10 million and $20 million. Within the marble and brass pagoda lies a "secret" door that conceals a spiral staircase leading to the lower level information booth.

In fall 1998, a 12-year restoration of Grand Central revealed the original luster of the Main Concourse's elaborately decorated astronomical ceiling. The original ceiling, painted in 1912 by French artist Paul César Helleu, was eventually replaced in the late 1930s to correct falling plaster. This new ceiling had been obscured by decades of what people thought was coal and diesel smoke. Spectroscopic examination revealed that it was actually tar and nicotine from tobacco smoke. A single dark patch remains above Michael Jordan's Steak House, left untouched by renovators to remind visitors of the grime that once covered the ceiling.

Sourced from Wikipedia