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This February, NYC’s Transit Museum is celebrating the 100 year anniversary of a national landmark, The Grand Central Terminal. To kick it off, they’ve published a stunning hardcover book entitled Grand Central Terminal: 100 Years of a New York Landmark. The book is thoroughly researched and reads like a library of design, lifestyles, art and trivia that even New Yorker’s don’t know. Gabrielle Shubert on behalf of the Transit Museum states,”planning for the Grand Central Centennial celebration, for the book, exhibitions and educational programs, stretched out over two years. |
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Grand Central Terminal: 100 Years of a New York Landmark (Stewart, Tabori & Chang; February 1, 2013; U.S $40.00; ISBN: 1-58479-994-3). By the New York Transit Museum and Anthony W. Robins; Introduction by Tony Hiss
A Grand Central Celebration
This February, NYC’s Transit Museum is celebrating the 100 year anniversary of a national landmark, The Grand Central Terminal. To kick it off, they’ve published a stunning hardcover book entitled Grand Central Terminal: 100 Years of a New York Landmark. The book is thoroughly researched and reads like a library of design, lifestyles, art and trivia that even New Yorker’s don’t know.
Courtesy of the NY Transit Museum.
Gabrielle Shubert on behalf of the Transit Museum states,”planning for the Grand Central Centennial celebration, for the book, exhibitions and educational programs, stretched out over two years. Our goal in all of these programs was not to present a chronology of the Terminal, or to tell the story of its miraculous restoration. These things have been done really well in other publications. Rather, we wanted to delve into aspects of Grand Central that people might not know about, or might have forgotten. Given all the collective years that Museum staff have worked in the Terminal, we picked about 9 thematic areas we wanted to develop. Our team researched each of these themes or chapters, digging into our own collections and those of other institutions, and unearthing artifacts that would help us tell the story.
Courtesy of the NY Transit Museum.
We look at railroad history, going back into the 1800’s. We discuss the 2 Grand Centrals that preceded the Terminal we know today; we examined the architectural competition held to select the Terminal’s design team, and took a magnifying glass to the building’s magnificent ornamentation.
We researched all the strange and unusual activities that have taken place in Grand Central over the last 100 years and showed how Grand Central was the power generator for itself and all the buildings that surround it. And we argued that Grand Central is New York’s Town Square– serving as the backdrop where people gather to celebrate, to mourn, to get information, and just to congregate.
Enter author Tony Robins, who used quotes from long ago publications to describe Grand Central in the voices of those who witnessed its birth; and Frank English, Metro North’s official photographer for some 27 years, who has observed Grand Central from every angle, and you’ve got a dazzling portrait of one of the world’s great buildings.”
