Grand Central Terminal

                                        

Grand Central Terminal (GCT; sometimes referred to casually as Grand Central Station) is a commuter (and former intercity) railroad terminal at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States. Built by and named for the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad in the heyday of American long-distance passenger rail travel, it covers 48 acres (19 ha) and has 44 platforms, more than any other railroad station in the world. Its platforms, all below ground, serve 41 tracks on the upper level and 26 on the lower, though the total number of tracks along platforms and in rail yards exceeds 100.

The terminal serves commuters traveling on the Metro-North Railroad to Westchester, Putnam, and Dutchess counties in New York State, and Fairfield and New Haven counties in Connecticut. Until 1991, the terminal served Amtrak, which moved to nearby Pennsylvania Station upon completion of the Empire Connection. The East Side Access project is underway to bringLong Island Rail Road service to the terminal.

Grand Central Terminal has intricate designs both on its inside and outside. In addition, it contains a vast interior main concourse. The terminal is one of the world's most visited tourist attractions, with 21.9 million visitors in 2013.

Unlike other Metro-North stations, Grand Central Terminal is not owned by Metropolitan Transportation Authority, but by private company Midtown TDR Ventures.

Although the terminal has been officially called "Grand Central Terminal" since the present structure opened, it has "always been more colloquially and affectionately known as Grand Central Station", a name of one of the earlier railroad stations on the same site"Grand Central Station" is the name of the nearby U.S. Post Office station at 450 Lexington Avenue,but may also refer to the Grand Central – 42nd Street subway station that is located next to the terminal.

The tracks are numbered according to their location in the terminal building. The upper-level tracks are numbered 11 to 42 east to west. Tracks 22 and 31 were removed in the late 1990s to build concourses for Grand Central North. Track 12 was removed to expand the platform between tracks 11 and 13 and track 14 is only used for loading a garbage train. The lower level has 27 tracks, numbered 100 to 126, east to west; currently, only tracks 102–112, and 114–116 are used for passenger service. Odd-numbered tracks are usually on the east side (right side facing north) of the platform; even-numbered tracks on the west.

Grand Central Terminal features both monumental spaces and meticulously crafted detail, especially on its facade. In a February 2013 BBC News article, historian David Cannadine described it as one of the most majestic buildings of the twentieth century. In 2013, Grand Central Terminal hosted 21.6 million visitors, rendering it one of the ten most-visited tourist attractions worldwide.

Its interior has restaurants, such as the Oyster Bar and various fast food outlets surrounding the Dining Concourse on the level below the Main Concourse, as well as delis, bakeries, newsstands, a gourmet and fresh food market, an annex of the New York Transit Museum, and more than 40 retail stores. Among them are chain stores, including a Starbucks coffee shop, a Rite Aid pharmacy and, as of December 2011, anApple Store.^[9][10] Other chain restaurants include a Shake Shack.

The basements were 49 acres (20 ha), and Grand Central Terminal's basements are among the largest basements in the city. This includes M42, a "secret" sub-basement under the terminal that contains the AC to DC converters used to supply DCtraction current to the tracks. The exact location of M42 is a closely guarded secret and does not appear on maps, though it has been shown on television, most notably, the History Channel program Cities of the Underworld and also a National Geographicspecial. Two of the original rotary converters were not removed in the late 20th century when solid-state ones took over their job, and they remain as a historical record. During World War II, this facility was closely guarded because its sabotage would have impaired troop movement on the Eastern Seaboard.It is said that any unauthorized person entering the facility during the war risked being shot on sight; the rotary converters could have easily been crippled by a bucket of sand.^[16] Abwehr (a German espionage service) sent two spies to sabotage it; they were arrested by the FBI before they could strike.

The terminal is made primarily from granite. In fact, so much granite is used that the building emits relatively high levels of radiation on a regular basis.

Midtown TDR Ventures has owned the station since 2006, when Argent Ventures had transferred ownership of the station.The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state agency that is the parent of Metro-North, holds a lease until 2274.