Grand Central

I'm about halfway through blogging about our Southeast Asia trip but still traveling. OK, maybe a bit less than halfway through. Time for a blog post break from Cambodia, Singapore and Malaysia (with a bonus country added on the end) to check in on our U.S. travels. I'll get back to SE Asia, I promise.

I've never really traveled much for work. I am fortunate enough that my job has taken me all over this country of ours but not for a very long time or very regularly. Honestly, traveling for work sucks for me. It ends up being a plane or car or train ride; then straight to the hotel on arrival; back and forth to the office; some substandard restaurant for dinner; and then sitting in my hotel room and repeating until it's time to go home. I'm not cut out for that stuff. It sounds fun and glamorous. I don't find it that way.

But late last year, I got asked to take on an assignment that required me to spend two to four nights in New York City each month. I love New York so I eagerly agreed but the first couple of months doing that went just as described above. So this year, I decided to change that. I made it my mission this year to live a little on these trips. Rather than hitting the closest restaurant to the hotel and going straight back to my room, I resolved to explore a little at night. Pick out a ramen place a few blocks away or get on the Subway and go somewhere further. Maybe I didn't need to stay at the same hotel every time up there. And I wanted to try to hit a sight or two at night in the City that I'd never seen.

Last year and January of this year, I'd been focused in an office in the Financial District so I'd always stayed down by the Staten Island Ferry terminal in lower Manhattan. But in March that assignment moved to Midtown and for my March trip I picked a hotel right next to Grand Central Terminal, the great train station on 42nd Street that has been transporting people to and from New York for over 100 years. I thought I'd use that venue as an opportunity to explore Grand Central a little at night and on the following weekend. I'd never stayed this close to this important civic building but I'd been an admirer for decades. Time to dig a little deeper.

When I think of Grand Central, I think of my dad. My first memories of transiting to the station (and I'm using "to" deliberately because it's a terminal stop) were the few trips my dad and I used to take in the 1990s down to New York Knick games from my parents' house in Connecticut. We'd drive most of the way to the City but then hop on the Metro North train for the last little bit which would deposit us in the bowels of the station an hour or so before gametime. 

From there, we'd walk up into that magnificent public space that is the Main Concourse. What an amazing way to enter New York. It is truly one of the great interior spaces in this country of ours. I feel confident making that statement without (certainly) having been to every interior public space that's ever been built in the U.S. That hall is the connection hub between New York and the rest of the country that is served by the trains that take people to and from the Terminal. It's a grand mixing bowl of residents and workers and tourists.

When we first started going down to the City, the ceiling of the Main Concourse was black. We assumed it had always been that way. We'd read stories about the ceiling having the heavens painted on them with lights for each star but we just figured the effect relied on the pinpoints of light that shone through the holes in the vault that covered the space. 

Then one day we arrived there and a piece of the ceiling had been cleaned and it was this copper patina green color in that patch, not the black that we'd always seen. And there were lines and figures connecting the points of light. It was amazing, the first step in the grand restoration of that space. It's a pretty amazing space but it's better with a clean ceiling. Now, of course, it's completely clean and it's glorious.

The current Grand Central Terminal was created by accident. Or I guess more accurately, it was created by an accident. 

The current Terminal is not the original Grand Central. There were actually two earlier Grand Centrals: one called Grand Central Station and one called Grand Central Depot. When Grand Central Depot was built in the 1860s on 42nd Street it was considered by some to be too far to realistically serve the city of New York. But it quickly picked up business, as evidenced by its demolition and replacement with the second Grand Central.

That meant more business. So much business, in fact, that by the time it got to the beginning of the 20th century a couple of years after the start of construction on the second Grand Central, the area north of the station was a dangerous mix of steam-filled tunnels, malfunctioning signals and employees that saw little point sometimes in staying at their post to operate said signals because, well...what's the point if they don't work to begin with?

It was no big deal, though. There had been proposals to get rid of steam engines in New York and go electric but those suggestions had been put aside. Too expensive! Why fix what wasn't broken? Visibility in the tunnels wasn't that bad. The railroad magnates who had set up and were operating under this accident waiting to happen were raking in money hand over fist and nobody was getting hurt. What's the problem?

Well there wasn't one really. Until there was. 

One of the original chalkboards with train departure and arrival information. Chalkboards!!!

On the morning of January 2, 1902, a man named John Wisker was driving Train 118 south towards the old Grand Central Station. Maybe he was late. Maybe he was rushing. Maybe he ignored a signal. Maybe the signal was obscured by smoke or steam or fog. Maybe the signal didn't operate. Maybe the signal operator didn't even turn it on. Or wasn't able to turn it on. But one thing we know did happen: Wisker drove Train 118 right into the back of another train stopped and awaiting a go signal to proceed to Grand Central. 15 people died in that crash. It is still Manhattan's (not New York's) deadliest train accident.

Two things happened next. 

First, they tried to pin the whole mess on Wisker. But there was so much evidence of things being broken and so little evidence that Wisker actually did anything deliberately wrong that no conviction was ever reached.

Second, things started to change, mostly driven by the state of New York. The railroad owners (and particularly the Vanderbilts), who were mostly responsible for the whole messy situation to begin with, proposed some action. A new station and a new system of getting trains in and out of it. Nobody ever charged the Vanderbilts or any of the other railroad tycoons with any sort of crime, by the way. Ain't that always the case. Sure they had to spend a whole bunch of money to clean their own mess up, but I'm guessing they got way more back.

So, how do you get a new rail station designed in New York? How about holding a competition? Good idea! Especially after your main rivals, the Pennsylvania Railroad, just did the exact same thing and got a gorgeous new station on the west side of the city a few blocks south of 42nd Street. Have to keep up with the rivals.

The competition ended up with two winners, two separate architecture firms who were assigned to work together to pull the whole thing off. See if you think there's anything sketchy about the process here. The main functional design of the building was conceived and executed by the firm of Reed and Stern. "Reed" of Reed and Stern was the brother-in-law of William Willis, who happened to be the chief engineer of the New York Central Railroad. The exterior of the building was designed by the first of Warren and Wetmore. Whitney Warren was a cousin of Cornelius Vanderbilt's grandson.

Nepotism, anyone? I guess it doesn't really matter any more. The result is spectacular.

Vanderbilt Hall (the old waiting room) just off 42nd Street.

Before March of this year, I had never really done anything in Grand Central Terminal outside of the Main Concourse. And that was not that much even then. I'd traversed through that space many times between the tracks and the city but that time is pretty ephemeral. I'd also eaten dinner with my dad a few times on our trips down to New York in one of the restaurants that used to occupy the terrace at the west side of the hall. More recently, I'd dragged friends to that same space for drinks where we could talk and gaze at the magnificence of the place. But outside of that? Nothing. I knew there had to be more to the place than that. 

If you exit out the front of Grand Central and take a left, you will find the Hyatt Grand Central New York hotel. You don't even have to cross a street to get there. It's on the very same block as the Terminal. That was my home for four nights in March, selected deliberately so I would be able to do something more than just work and eat and sleep. I wasn't going to mess up this opportunity. 

Did you know there's a whole dining concourse at Grand Central that's below the main level of the station? Honestly, I didn't and I'm sure anyone from New York reading this post is rolling their eyes right now. I also didn't know there is an indoor gourmet market on the main level between the Main Concourse and Lexington Avenue to the east (cue more eye-rolling...). In my four days in my hotel on the same block as Grand Central, I ate at (or from) each one. I didn't intend to. I just discovered something that I thought sounded good at mealtime and took a chance.

But I DID know there was at least one restaurant at Grand Central and it's one I've wanted to eat at for decades: Grand Central Oyster Bar. It's not quite on the dining concourse. It's halfway between the main floor level and the dining level. The Oyster Bar was the first stop I planned when I knew I'd be near Grand Central. I think any time you can check something off a wish list that's been on there for decades on a work trip, then that's a worthwhile work trip.

Grand Central Oyster Bar: outside and in.

The Oyster Bar and Grand Central Terminal are virtually inseparable. Two weeks after Grand Central opened for business, the Oyster Bar opened for business. It's been there ever since. 111 years and counting. It is truly a New York City institution. It's in a gorgeous vaulted space deep in the heart of the building and the vaults are completely covered with tiles and a ton of lights. It's straight out of the opulence of the 1920s or thereabouts over a century into its lifetime. 

And the food? Seafood. They still serve super-fresh fish and other sea creatures that are flown in or caught daily and they still run out later in the day. That definitely means it's fresh because no way do you run out of frozen fish. They also are still firmly entrenched in the idea of serving commuters. Want to eat at Oyster Bar on weekends? You can't. It's closed.

I love all that.

Our experience at the Oyster Bar was just that: an experience! The decor is amazing. The menu is amazing. The service and the prices are New York (or New Yawk) all the way. It's old school food and old school service. Don't know how you want your fish or whatever else you are ordering to be cooked? Don't worry, your waiter will tell you. In fact, he'll tell you even if you DO know how you want your food prepared and served. I'm sure you have input but it seemed pretty definite that we should order how it was suggested. I got the fried oysters. No preparation suggestions there. How could I not get oysters?

Daytime...

One of the great things about staying very, very close to place like Grand Central is that you can take time whenever you want to walk down from your second floor hotel lobby and around the place, both inside or out. That is definitely something I took advantage of a lot, especially to check out the exterior on multiple days and at multiple times of day. Whether it was just walking past the place on 42nd Street and seeing how it looked from street level or taking a walk down Park Avenue which literally wraps around the station (you cannot actually walk all the way around Grand Central on Park Avenue). 

The views of the front of the station from Park are definitely worth savoring. The station which looks so gigantic from street level looks really, really small when viewed in front of the MetLife Building (formerly and more famously the PanAm Building). It is to me one of the best views in New York City. I admit I walked down Park Avenue to see it this way at least three times in the four days and nights I stayed there. 

What can I say...I'm a fan. Have been for a while.

And that second floor lobby thing in our hotel? There are few ground floor elevators in New York City around Grand Central. The space below the entirety of the neighborhood around the station is occupied by train tracks. No basements. No below grade elevator pits. Meaning no elevators at grade.

and nighttime.

But to really get into Grand Central for real, we decided to take a tour. Not a self-guided one. A paid one.

A company called Walks operates a few tours in New York City, including the official tour of Grand Central Station which they run pretty much every day of the year at 11 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. I have taken I don't know how many tours of buildings in my life (I mean I AM an architect, after all) and I have to say this tour is one of the most engaging and informative that I have ever taken. Maybe it's because my baseline knowledge of the history of Grand Central was lacking, but I thought it was well worth the price of admission, even after walking around the building a few times on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights before our Saturday tour.

I won't blow by blow it but I might spoil a surprise or two. 

The main hall, with the Information Booth front and center.

Did you know that the term "commuter" was invented at Grand Central Terminal? It's true.

There was a time when the future of train travel as a means of getting to work was way less than the sure thing that it is today. Or maybe that's written wrong, because going to the office at all seems to be less than a sure thing following the recent global pandemic. But in the first half of the 20th century, the railroads using Grand Central figured folks could use a cost savings to take the train on a daily basis into Manhattan. 

So to encourage daily business travelers to use rail to get to work in Manhattan, the railroads advertised that they would "commute" part of the fare for regular travelers who used their services on an everyday basis. Those with commuted fares who traveled through Grand Central eventually started to be called commuters. 

Did you know that Eastern Standard Time was ALSO invented by Grand Central? That's also true. Or maybe mostly true. Or at least the first clock displaying Eastern Standard Time was installed at Grand Central. It's in the Graybar Passage that connects the Main Concourse to Lexington Avenue to the east.

I honestly had no idea how time zones were invented in this world of ours but apparently, they were invented by the railroads in the United States. As rail travel to move people long distances became more and more common, the railroads found that different passengers from slightly different places might be keeping slightly different time. By this I mean that someone from Philadelphia might set their watch a few minutes ahead of New York which might be a few minutes ahead of someone in Pittsburgh or Albany or wherever.

The problem with all of this, of course, was that people kept missing trains. So the railroads got together and standardized times so their operations would have a chance of working smoothly. In Grand Central, they installed a clock with the words "Eastern Standard Time" carved into the stone in the building. It's still there today, even though Daylight Saving Time is in effect for about half the year. That idea was implemented after Grand Central (and the carved-into-stone words above the clock) was finished.

Oak leaves above the entrance to Tracks 107 and 108.

Speaking of clocks...

There are two other prominent clocks at Grand Central: one atop the Information Booth that sits right in the center of the Main Concourse and one that adorns the front of the building. The faces of the clock above the Information Booth are milk opal. It's apparently worth $10 million. And the one on the front of the building? Tiffany stained glass and 14 feet in diameter. No way does it look that big.

Look close at the Information Booth and it looks like there's no way in or out. There are absolutely no doors to the thing. But in the center of the Booth there's a spiral stair which takes people down (and out of the booth). Look closer and you'll see an acorn on top of the clock. The acorn was the symbol of the Vanderbilt family. You'll find acorn shaped light fixtures and oak leaves in some of the carvings too.

I'd put the acorns and the spiral stair in the Easter egg category, little surprising gems of information that you only know if you know. The best one of these in Grand Central for me was the discovery of the Campbell Bar, the gorgeous old converted reception space of the office of one John W. Campbell, who rented out a suite in the Terminal as his private office. The expansive reception space is now converted to a high end bar, with the original decor (minus a Persian rug supposedly worth pretty much a fortune) intact as installed by Campbell.

Who would have even known this thing is here? It's not accessible from the interior of the Terminal. You have to go outside, around the west side of the building, under a porte cochère and up a couple of staircases to get there. If you go, bring money (not meaning cash; meaning be prepared to part with some). We ordered a beer and a bottle of water and paid $23 (without tip). A small price to pay to spend 20 minutes or so inside the space. It's not like we are going to go here every time with visit the City.

There was a time that Grand Central was threatened with demolition. The station that Grand Central had been built to rival (and best), Pennsylvania Station, had just been torn down, viewed by some as a relic of a time and a mode of transportation no longer relevant to society in the 1960s. Once they got rid of Penn Station, Grand Central was next.

Fortunately for us today, the demolition of Penn Station was the rallying cry that pretty much started the historic preservation movement in this country in a serious way. Grand Central particularly has Jackie Kennedy Onassis and architect Philip Johnson to thank for its protection. As an architect, I have mixed feelings about historic preservation. Some of what we protect is, in my opinion, just old and not historically valuable. Where to draw the line between the two seems to be a constant balancing act which sometimes gets priorities wrong. I'm pretty sure in stating, though, that those words do not apply to this station.

I'm grateful it's still here in the 2020s and I'm grateful I decided to spend a little portion of my March work trip (and maybe a day or two extra on my own dime) to dig a little deeper into this New York icon.

The hidden staircase to and from the Information Booth.

Finally, just a note about that black ceiling that my dad and I had seen the first time we walked into Grand Central. We assumed (or maybe it was just me; I don't want to assume that my dad made the same mistake as me) that the ceiling was black due to all the smoke belched out into the building by steam engines that served the building. This couldn't have been true because steam engines were banned in Manhattan before the building was completed. 

Deep down inside, I really think I should have known this. 

When it came time to launch the cleaning effort on the ceiling and get rid of the black color and get back to that gorgeous copper patina green, the folks engineering the restoration made the same mistake I did. They assumed they would be cleaning soot off the ceiling and designed the cleaning methods for that kind of remediation. It didn't work. And if I think deep down inside I should have put two and two together and ruled out steam engines as the cause, then I really think professionals hired specifically to address this problem should have figured it out also.

What caused the black color? Nicotine. Cigarette smoke. How disgusting is that? There's one small spot on the northwest corner of the ceiling that they left uncleaned. It's super small. But tobacco was the cause. Dropping the mic on this post now. Back to Southeast Asia next.

A picture of the postcard of the Campbell Apartment we got "free" with our $23 beer/water. Taking a pic of the actual space with an iPhone proved more difficult than it would seem.