Grand Central Terminal

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Grand Central Terminal
Main hall
Main hall
Data
Location in the network Terminus
Design Terminal station on 4 levels
Platform tracks 67
abbreviation NYG
Architectural data
Architectural style Beaux Arts
architect Warren & Wetmore and Reed & Stern
location
City / municipality new York
State new York
Country United States
Coordinates 40 ° 45 '10 "  N , 73 ° 58' 38"  W Coordinates: 40 ° 45 '10 "  N , 73 ° 58' 38"  W.
List of train stations in the United States
i16 i16 i18

The Grand Central Terminal (colloquially often called Grand Central Station ) is a train station in Manhattan in New York , USA . It's on the corner of 42nd Street and Park Avenue . Currently, end there the commuter trains of the Metro North toward Westchester County , Putnam County , Dutchess County , Fairfield County and New Haven County .

The Grand Central Terminal was inaugurated as a terminus on February 2, 1913 and has since been the station with the most tracks in the world - its 67 tracks end at 44 platforms. The multi-level station is on two levels with 41 tracks on the upper level and 26 on the lower level.

In January 1975, the Grand Central Terminal was entered on the National Register of Historic Places and in December 1976 a National Historic Landmark . On the occasion of its centenary, the structure was added to the List of Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks on February 1, 2013 by the American Society of Civil Engineers .

history

Three buildings that had the same function had previously stood in the same place:

Grand Central Depot

Views (video, 2010)

The Grand Central Depot was completed in 1871 and should bring together the trains of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad , the Harlem River Railroad and the New Haven Railroad at a common station. The main building, which in addition to the passenger functions also housed the offices of the railway companies, had the shape of the letter L. The track hall to the north and east of the main building had two new features that were unusual for the American continent: the platforms were raised to the height of the wagons, and a vaulted roof spanned all the tracks.

Grand Central Station

The main building was extensively redesigned between 1899 and 1900: it was increased from three to six floors and given a new facade . Only the track hall remained in its original form. The tracks, which had previously extended to 42nd Street to the south, were shortened and the track field was redesigned in order to reduce traffic jams on the trains and to shorten turnaround times. The remodeled building was renamed Grand Central Station in 1900 .

Grand Central Station, New York (ca.1902)

Grand Central Terminal

Ceiling with starry sky - equator, ecliptic, figures of the zodiac signs
Grand Central Terminal from the inside

Between 1903 and 1913, the entire building was laid down in sections and replaced by the current, multi-story Grand Central Terminal . Architects Warren & Wetmore and Reed & Stern redesigned it in the Beaux-Arts style . At the same time as the new reception building was being built, the three railway lines ending there were electrified.

360 ° interior view (2006)

The gigantic Railway Cathedral quickly became one of New York's most iconic buildings. More than 500,000 people use the station every day, making it the most visited building in the city. The large main hall with the dark blue-green ceiling painting as a starry sky is worth seeing. This is the work of Paul César Helleu , who designed the zodiac with the advice of astronomy professor Harold Jacoby . Jacoby supplied with the card Uranometria of Johann Bayer the template for the design, interpreted the Helleu free, which after the opening of a controversy in the New York Times led after an amateur astronomer had made mistakes public. The Australian Charles Basing was in charge of the work on the ceiling . The factory was restored in 1945 and around 1995, and Basing's student Charles Gulbrandsen directed the 1945 work . The central kiosk with four clocks is also worth seeing.

In 1968, plans became known to demolish the building in order to be able to erect more high-rise buildings on this site. It was argued that the property was worth more than the building itself. However, by order of the US Supreme Court in 1978 (the case is known as Penn Central Transportation Co. vs. New York City) it was preserved and then renovated .

The building and sections of the access routes as well as the building rights were long owned by Penn Central Corporation (operating as American Premier Underwriters since 1994 ), which leased it to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority . In the late autumn of 2006, the properties, including the existing lease that was valid until 2274, were sold to Midtown TDR Ventures . On November 13, 2018, the MTA approved the purchase of the station and access routes (Harlem Line and Hudson Line) for $ 35 million.

With the establishment of Amtrak , which in 1971 had taken over almost all of the US long-distance traffic from the private railway companies, the first long-distance trains from New Haven and Boston were withdrawn from the station. All that remained were the Empire Service trains through Upstate New York to Niagara Falls and some New England states and Canada . With the construction of a new access route to Penn Station in New York , Grand Central Terminal also lost the remaining long-distance trains in 1991, so that this station is now only frequented by local and regional trains. For three lines of the Metro-North Railroad , the Grand Central Terminal is the southern end point and by far the most important transfer point to inner-city transport, especially the subway . Work is currently underway to establish a connection to the Long Island Railroad through the East Side Access .

In 1976 a bomb was hidden in the train station. Croatian nationalists under Zvonko Bušić hijacked an airplane and placed a bomb in one of the lockers. After their demands were met, they disclosed the hiding place. The police secured the bomb. An attempt to defuse the explosive device on a firing range resulted in an explosion: a bomb defuser was killed.

use

Platforms

Track plan above
Track plan below

With 44 platforms, the station has the largest number in the world. In 2016, 67 tracks were in regular operation for passenger traffic. The upper level has 42 tracks, including ten tracks that are only used to park vehicles. A track forms a loop around forty of the platforms of the terminus. The lower level has 27 tracks that are enclosed by several loops.

Tracks 116-125 on the lower level will be demolished to make way for the waiting halls to transfer to the Long Island Rail Road route in the east wing of the building. Eight new tracks will then run there, named 301 to 304 and 401 to 404. Since the East Side Access will be drilled below the level of the subway, Template: future / in 3 yearsa third and fourth level with tracks will be created when the station opens in 2023 . These platforms are connected to the building of the Grand Central Terminal above by means of escalators.

A special feature is that a little in front of the train station there is a private platform under the Waldorf-Astoria, with platform 61, which was used a lot by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A private elevator is also part of the area. After Roosevelt's death, the platform was used a few more times. It was not built specifically for him: the platform of the Waldorf-Astoria was already included in the construction plans and was mentioned in the New York Times as early as 1929.

Subway station

The station is connected to the Grand Central-42 Street subway station on the New York City subway . Lines S, 7 and 7d of the IRT 42nd Street Line and lines 4, 5, 6 and 6d of the IRT Lexington Avenue Line stop there .

In movies

Countless feature films have been shot or played in Grand Central. Including z. E.g .: Unfaithful , The Avengers , The Bone Hunter , Armageddon , Carlito's Way , Cloverfield , The Cotton Club , Freshman , I Am Legend , Madagascar , Midnight Run , The Invisible Third , Stop the Death Ride of Subway 123 , Hackers - On the Net of the FBI , privileged friends , Mr. Nobody , Ghostbusters , King of the Fishermen and Unbreakable as well as the series Quantico and Gossip Girl .

For the flash mob classic Frozen Grand Central, 207 people froze simultaneously for five minutes on a Saturday afternoon in the winter of 2007/08 in Hall. The video posted on YouTube on January 31, 2008 has been viewed 36 million times to date.

Trivia

The Waldorf-Astoria has its own platform (no. 61) in the Grand Central Terminal. a. used by Franklin D. Roosevelt , Adlai Ewing Stevenson and Douglas MacArthur . A private underground corridor leads to this platform exclusively for guests; even cars can use it. A wagon is still there today. General Pershing was the first to use the platform in 1938.

Individual evidence

  1. Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: New York. National Park Service , accessed October 24, 2019.
    Grand Central Terminal on the National Register Information System. National Park Service , accessed October 23, 2019.
  2. ^ Dough Scott: ASCE Dedicates Grand Central Terminal As Historic Civil Engineering Landmark ( English ) American Society of Civil Engineers . Archived from the original on May 24, 2013. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 14, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.asce.org
  3. ^ A b c d e f g Glenn Palmer-Smith, Joshua McHugh, Graydon Carter: Les plus belles fresques de New York . Ed .: Laurent Lempereur. Gallimard, Paris 2014, ISBN 978-2-07-014685-7 , pp. 27 (Original Edition : Murals of New York City , Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2013).
  4. ^ "Midtown TDR Ventures LLC - Acquisition Exemption" notice of exemption from the Surface Transportation Board of the US Department of Transportation dated December 7, 2006
  5. ^ "Air Rights Make Deals Fly." New York Post , July 6, 2007
  6. ^ Rail News - MTA to buy Grand Central Terminal, Harlem and Hudson lines. In: Progressive Railroading . November 14, 2018. Retrieved November 16, 2018 (American English).
  7. ^ Katz, Samuel M. (2002). Relentless Pursuit: The DSS and the Manhunt for the Al-Qaeda Terrorists. New York: Forge / Tom Doherty Associates. P. 82. ISBN 0-7653-0402-3 .
  8. Frozen Grand Central , accessed March 22, 2018.
  9. BBC contribution on the platform (English)

literature

  • Christina Haberlik: 50 classics. 20th century architecture. Gerstenberg Verlag, Hildesheim 2001, ISBN 3-8067-2514-4 .
  • Wolfgang Klee: Real greatness. In: Eisenbahngeschichte 59 (2013), pp. 43–47.
  • Wolfgang Klee: Grand Central. In: EisenbahnGeschichte Spezial 1: Railways in New York (2013), ISBN 978-3-937189-77-2 , pp. 79-87.

Web links

Commons : Grand Central Terminal  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

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