One of Grand Central's main attractions, the four-faced opal clock in the Main Concourse, is a meeting place for visitors and locals alike. You know you're a New Yorker when you've told a friend to “meet me at the clock”!
People Also Ask
It's the largest train station in the worldGrand Central Terminal is spread over 49 acres, has 44 platforms and 67 tracks on two levels. It is the world's largest train station by number of platforms and area occupied.
VIPs who want to avoid the public gaze have used a top-secret track, known as Track 61, to get around. It connects to an elevator that goes directly into the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. One such VIP, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is believed to have used it to hide his polio from the public.
Information Booth Clock“Meet me at the clock!” This clock, like all those in the terminal, is accurate to within 1 second every 20 billion years, calibrated to the atomic clock in the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, DC. The famed opal glass clock perched atop the Info Booth is valued at $20 million or more.
More than 50 movies and television shows have been filmed in or feature the iconic New York building. Grand Central Terminal ?is one of the world's most visited tourist attractions with more than 20 million visitors a year.
Follow the signs (or take an elevator)But what if you are arriving on a Metro-North train? It might come in on the upper concourse level (tracks 11-42) or lower level (101-117).
The brass center inside of the booth features a door, which leads to a spiral staircase used by employees to get from the lower level to the main floor, and vice versa.
Common Questions About Grand Central TerminalThe difference is very slight. Grand Central Terminal refers to the MTA Metro North train lines that run into and out of the tracks. GCT is the terminal line, meaning trains stop there and don't run through. Grand Central Station refers to the subway station inside GCT.
Among the more incredible secrets of Grand Central Terminal is the secret track hidden in its depths. It was first built to move freight but then converted into a private railroad used for ushering guests, rich and famous enough, in and out of the famed Waldorf Astoria Hotel, sight unseen.
Grand Central Station refers to the subway station inside GCT. The main subway lines that connect here are the 4, 5, and 6 trains (green line), the 7 train (purple line), and the S train (gray line shuttle).
The MTA's ownership of Grand Central Terminal will further give MTA Long Island Rail Road clear control of the East Side Access terminal being built beneath Grand Central Terminal.
The Station Narrowly Escaped DemolitionAccordingly, the Penn Central railroad line that controlled Grand Central wanted to tear it down. Skyscrapers were proposed to take its place, but luckily those plans never came to be.
The building's construction started in 1903 and it was opened on February 2, 1913. The terminal continued to grow until after World War II, when train traffic started to decline. In the 1950s and 1970s, there were two separate proposals to demolish Grand Central, though both were unsuccessful.