When Grand Central Terminal opened at midnight on February 1, 1913, it instantly became New York City’s largest transportation hub as well as one of its most iconic buildings.  Located in midtown Manhattan, the terminal cost $80 million to construct, and at 70 acres in size it is nearly 2 1/2 times that of nearby Penn Station.  Grand Central connects commuters with both Metro North Railroad and the subway, and a mega project is currently underway to add the Long Island Rail Road and Penn Station to that list.  More than 750,000 people (larger than Alaska’s population and four times the traffic of JFK Airport) come through Grand Central Terminal on a daily basis.  The largest train station in the world – both in terms of size and number of trains – Grand Central Terminal is among the city’s most beloved places and is the spiritual heart of Gotham.

        This month, the monumental building marked its 100th anniversary with a lavish New York-style party.  Guests included the Vanderbilt family, whose ancestor Cornelius Vanderbilt inspired the terminal’s construction, as well as preservationalist Catherine Kennedy, whose mother Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is widely credited with saving the building from destruction in the 1970s.