100 Years of Grandeur

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/nyregion/the-birth-of-grand-central-terminal-100-years-later.html

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<em>One hundred years ago, on Feb. 2, 1913, the doors to Grand Central Terminal officially opened to the public, after 10 years of construction and at a cost of more than $2 billion in today’s dollars. The terminal was a product of local politics, bold architecture, brutal flexing of corporate muscle and visionary engineering. No other building embodies New York’s ascent as vividly as Grand Central. Here, the tale of its birth, excerpted from “Grand Central: How a Train Station Transformed America,” by Sam Roberts, the urban affairs correspondent for The New York Times, to be published later this month by Grand Central Publishing. </em>

Workers restored a sculpture atop the building in 1980.

The finishing touches would not be complete for another year (the viaduct would not be opened until 1919, and the innovative lower-level loop, which allowed arriving trains to depart more quickly, would not become operational until 1927). Among the last was Transportation, the gigantic sculpture designed by a Frenchman, Jules Félix Coutan, above the central portal on 42nd Street. Coutan, who also designed the France of the Renaissance sculpture for the extravagant Alexander III bridge in Paris, created a one-fourth-size plaster model in his studio from which John Donnelly, a native of Ireland, carved the final 1,500-ton version from Indiana limestone at the William Bradley & Son yards in Long Island City, Queens.

Contemplating a plaster model of the sculpture in his office, Warren later wrote that while the ancients entered cities through triumphal gates that punctuated mighty fortifications, in New York and other cities the gateway is more likely to be “a tunnel which discharges the human flow in the very center of the town.”

“Such is the Grand Central Terminal,” he continued, “and the motive of its facade is an attempt to offer a tribute to the glory of commerce as exemplified by that institution.”

When Grand Central was finally finished, the only thing lacking was adjectives. The Times produced a special section of the newspaper and hailed the terminal as “a monument, a civic center, or, if one will, a city.”

“Without exception,” the newspaper said, “it is not only the greatest station in the United States, but the greatest station, of any type, in the world.”

A full century later, the journalist and novelist Tom Wolfewould write: “Every big city had a railroad station with grand — to the point of glorious — classical architecture — dazzled and intimidated, the great architects of Greece and Rome would have averted their eyes — featuring every sort of dome, soaring ceiling, king-size column, royal cornice, lordly echo — thanks to the immense volume of the spaces — and the miles of marble, marble, marble — but the grandest, most glorious of all, by far, was Grand Central Station.”