After the Anderson Cooper show taping, I had a couple hours to fill, so I walked from 59th Street down Broadway to 42nd Street and then east to Madison Avenue to Grand Central Terminal. I had been there before but had always wanted to take the audio tour, so for $6 I got a map and a headset and spent the next 45 minutes walking around this bustling terminal. Each day more than 700,000 people pass through.
Grand Central Terminal, often incorrectly called Grand Central Station, is the largest in the world by the number of platforms with 45 and 63 tracks among them on two levels. When the East Side Access opens in 2016, there will be 75 tracks. The terminal now covers 49 acres.
The tour included 22 points of interest including the Main Concourse which is 275 feet long, 120 feet wide and 125 feet tall. Many ticket booths in the concourse stand unused since the introduction of ticket vending machines. The ticket booths are embellished with brass and oak leaf designs, the symbol of the Vanderbilt family who built and owned the terminal. In the center of the concourse is the information booth, topped by a clock with four faces made of opal, believed to be valued between $10 and $20 million dollars. Within this marble and brass pagoda lies a "secret door" which conceals a spiral staircase leading to the information booth on the lower level. The windows of the terminal were painted black during World War II to escape detection by enemy planes. In 1998 the beautiful astronomical ceiling was restored. What was thought to be coal and diesel smoke damage was later revealed to be tar and nicotine from tobacco smoke. A small square was left untouched to show the grime that once covered the ceiling. The chandeliers in the Main Concourse are all original and each weigh 2,500 pounds, are 11 feet across, are made of solid nickel and brass, and have 144 light bulbs.
More steel was used in the framing of Grand Central Terminal than was used to build the Eiffel Tower. Every clock in Grand Central is set every second by the atomic clock in the Naval Observatory. That means that the 1913 four-faced clock atop the Information Booth is accurate to within one second every 20 billion years. (Good to know!) Its Lost & Found receives more than 2,000 items per month. Items have included a barking basset hound and an urn of cremated ashes. At one time, Grand Central housed the CBS Television Studios. The panel show What's My Line was first broadcast here. More than $150 million is spent each year in the Terminal shops and restaurants, including the world famous Oyster Bar. 340 staff workers maintain this extraordinary building. I think it is one of the "must see" places in the city.
Look carefully in the center of the 2nd photo and you can see the smoke stained tile left unrestored.
