The Greatest Railroad Terminal in the World

8vo, publisher’s wrappers, printed cover, illustrations.

The Greatest Railroad Terminal in the World. An illustrated article appearing in the April, 1911, issue of Munsey's Magazine.

Grand Central Terminal of the New York Central Lines. New York City, [1911].

Rare text dating from 1911 dedicated to Grand Central Station in New York, built in 1871,

demolished and rebuilt twice between 1899 and 1900 and between 1903 and 1913.

“Few buildings capture the public imagination as does Grand central Terminal…Standing in the heart of midtown Manhattan, the terminal serves as an urban crossroads… For millions, even for those who have never visited the terminal, Grand Central remains a symbol of New York and its power, instantly recognizable for what it is and nearly as familiar as the soaring skyline of Manhattan Island” (Kurt C. Schlichting).

This final reconstruction required the demolition of 120 buildings, three churches, two hospitals, an orphanage, stables, and warehouses.

The architecture was designed by the firms Warren & Wetmore and Reed & Stern.

At the same time, the lines of the three companies were electrified and the tracks approaching the station were buried with the construction of the Park Avenue tunnel.

The station was completely renovated in the 1990s. It was during this renovation that the original ceiling of the main hall, decorated with a starry sky dotted with constellations and painted by Paul-César Helleu, which had been hidden under a layer of dirt and soot, was rediscovered to everyone's surprise.

“Grand Central Station, the worlds greatest railway terminal, is under construction in New York City in 1911 and will handle, if need be, 200 trains an hour.

In 1913 it will reopen as Grand Central Terminal, although it's still often referred to popularly as "Station," which technically it still is, as it is "a stopping place for trains."

Just before the end of the nineteenth century, the problem of handling the ever-increasing multitude which flowed into and out of the terminal stations of our leading railroads was causing great anxiety to the engineering and operating departments, whose duty it is to look far ahead and provide for future developments. Particularly was this true of the Grand Central Station, New York, which forms the eastern terminus of the vast system of railroads which is owned and operated by the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company. The old station, built in the 1870s, with an annual capacity for handling twenty-one million passengers, was considered to be far in advance of its time, and sufficient to take care of a century's growth in the business of the company. Thirty years after its date of opening, however, the purpose of extending the area of the station at street level was out of the question; and on the other hand, the flow of traffic to and from the enlarged station would be throttled by the limited capacity of the four-track tunnel under Park Avenue. Electricity, which has solved so many a problem in modern engineering, proved to be the perfect solution of this riddle. No longer was it necessary, for purposes of ventilation, to build the new station at street level and open to the atmosphere. Trains could be sent through the Park Avenue tunnel without vitiating its atmosphere, and the great terminal station could be sunk below ground, the street level restored above it, and the whole area of the station yard covered with the residential and commercial buildings of a modern city” (Scientific American article excerpt and illustration, June 17, 1911).

Preserved in publisher’s wrappers.

Rare.