Grand Central Terminal covers 48 acres and has more platforms than any other train station in the world. Grand Central Terminal is an icon in NYC , an essential part of daily life for New Yorkers, and a destination for travelers from around the world. The history of Grand Central Terminal is long, but it began around the s when rail travel emerged in society. More railroads were built, and as things expanded, it was clear that a hub was needed for all the railroads.
Midtown was the logical choice, so in , the Grand Central Depot opened. After a renovation in , the name was changed to Grand Central Terminal. The yard facilities and tracks more than tripled the train storage capacity of the old station from to 1, cars, reducing the amount of deadhead moves that were needed to travel five miles 8 km north to Mott Haven for cleaning and storage, freeing up capacity on the four-track Park Avenue Tunnel, which had been one of the bottlenecks limiting the station's overall capacity.
With the loop system in place, it was estimated that Grand Central Terminal could handle a maximum of two hundred trains per hour and million passengers per year. This capacity was never exceeded, as annual traffic peaked in with 65 million passengers. The station included an all-electric signal system using motor-operated switches and signals, which was the only one of its kind in the United States.
The interlocking machines were housed in a four story building containing levers: on the lower level and on the upper level. A group of 40 levers were assigned to be managed by one person, who viewed a diagram of the track layout with electric lights indicating the positions of trains that were detected by alternating current circuits in the tracks. The electric switch and signal tower was designed to be fail-safe, identifying and showing errors through electric indicators; if an error was not rectified, an automatic "trip" would be put in place to stop a train and prevent accidents or injuries.
Since the design of the track layout was of principal importance, the economy of steel design had to be sacrificed. Trusses up to feet 46 m in length were installed in the Park Avenue Tunnel to allow the placement of switches without interfering columns.
Two completely different track layouts were used on the express and suburban levels, which resulted in the lower level tracks and platforms not lining up with those above on the upper level. For this reason, the supporting columns on the lower level needed to be strong enough to support the weight of the concrete floor, platforms and trains above. The largest column load supported by a transverse girder was 1,, pounds , kg and the greatest bending moment in girders supporting columns was about 8,, foot-pounds 1.
Although the terminal building has the appearance of stone construction, the granite, limestone and marble facing is supported by a concealed skeleton that required approximately 18, tons 16, t of steel. The demolition of cross-town neighbor Pennsylvania Station served as catalyst for an architectural preservation movement within the United States.
When Penn Central's plans to develop a skyscraper with over 50 stories atop Grand Central Terminal were rejected by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in and drew public opposition, most notably from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the railroad filed a suit against the City's landmarks law. This case was appealed all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which upheld the law in a landmark decision, the first time the court had issued a ruling on historic preservation, which led to the protection of other landmarks across the nation.
The restoration work was financed by the addition of 65, square feet 6, m 2 of retail space with new restaurants and a dining concourse on the lower level. Although long-distance trains stopped serving the station in with the consolidation of Amtrak services to Pennsylvania Station, a new chapter in Grand Central Terminal's role as an important transportation hub will be started in the coming decade with the completion of the East Side Access project, which will include a new concourse and platforms for Long Island Rail Road trains deep below the lower level and allow Long Island commuters to travel directly to the east side of Manhattan without having to transfer to the subway at Pennsylvania Station.
And while the station has provided a backdrop to countless books, movies and television shows, few people realize that during the early days of television, dozens of programs were filmed and broadcast out of studios located above the famed Oyster Bar. The studios have long since been converted, in part, to a series of private tennis courts.
In an effort to ally these fears the U. Later that year they installed a Redstone rocket in the main concourse. To stabilize the rocket in the grand hall, a hole was pierced into the ceiling to secure a wire that held the rocket in place. The massive celestial ceiling that adorns the main concourse is depicted not from earth looking up, but rather from beyond the constellations looking down toward earth through them.
The true reason for the perspective has never been uncovered, and theories vary. The cause of the thick grime was the decades of air pollutants that wafted in through the terminal's open windows. Preservationists left a small patch of the ceiling untreated for historic documentation.
Another irregularity may be even harder to pinpoint to modern eyes. When the building was first constructed, there was just one grand staircase in its main concourse. Sign up for all the latest insider info on events, news and deals from Grand Central!
Deals Here:. Gift Guide:.
0コメント