As discussed in a prior post, New York City’s Grand Central Terminal opened on February 2, 1913, when the President of the New York Central Railroad was William Carlos Brown, my maternal second great-uncle.
Another report on the Terminal’s centennial comes from Andrea Sachs for the Washington Post.
She notes the four-sided Tiffany clock in the center of the main floor is an iconic symbol of New York City that appears every Saturday night in the opening sequence for the “Saturday Night Live” television show.
The clock also is evidence of the creation starting in 1883 of four time zones in the continental U.S. by the nation’s railroads in order to synchronize train schedules. Previously each city set its own local time based on the sun’s position at high noon and as a result, for example, Boston was always a few minutes ahead of New York City.
The terminal’s floors, she points out, are made of Tennessee pink marble while chandeliers hang like heavy acorns, which were in the family crest of the Vanderbilts who were the majority owners of the railroad in the early 20th century. One of the Vanderbilt descendants, by the way, is Anderson Cooper of CNN.
There is a 75-minute guided tour of the Terminal from top to bottom, inside and out (the Official MTA Metro-North Grand Central Terminal Tour) that I would love to take some day.
Unfortunately I missed the recent exhibit at the Terminal, “Grand by Design: A Centennial Celebration of Grand Central Terminal.”
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