The meaning behind Grand Central’s chandeliers

Dropping from Vanderbilt Hall and other parts of Grand Central Terminal like heavenly jewels are spherical chandeliers—each with its light bulbs bare and exposed.

There’s a reason for this, and it stretches all the way back to the building’s construction and design at the turn of the last century.

The Vanderbilt family, which built this third version of Grand Central at 42nd Street, were “immensely proud of Grand Central’s status as one of the world’s first all-electric buildings,” states History.com.

Previously, train stations and the engines that went in and out of them were smoky and sooty, making them unpleasant—not to mention unsafe.

“In fact, their pride greatly influenced the station’s interior designs. When it first opened, every one of the stations chandeliers and lighting fixtures featured bare, exposed light bulbs—more than 4,000 of them.”

The chandeliers have changed over time; in 2008, the incandescent glow was replaced by fluorescent bulbs. But they continue to pay homage to the forward-thinking vision of the Vanderbilts and the era of quieter, cleaner, unadorned electricity.

Grand Central Terminal (never call it Station!) is a treasure of beautiful interiors. If you’ve ever noticed an acorn and leaf motif, that’s the Vanderbilt family again.

A peek inside Grand Central Terminal in 1939

From the New York Central Railroad comes this cool cutaway poster into Grand Central Terminal circa 1939, when train travel reigned supreme.

The zodiac ceiling in the main concourse looks beautifully blue. There’s the main waiting room, now called Vanderbilt Hall, as well as a restaurant concourse, plus various lower levels connecting passengers to commuter trains and subways.

What happened to the art gallery on the third floor above the main waiting room?

The low-rise city that surrounded Grand Central

Today, Grand Central Terminal is a Beaux-Arts beauty lodged among massive office towers and formidable skyscrapers.

Which makes it so hard to imagine that when it opened in 1913, the buildings around it were lilliputian compared to what is there today.

“This doesn’t look much like the old Grand Central, does it?” the postcard’s sender writes to the recipient. It sure doesn’t—this was the Grand Central (with grazing cows nearby!) that came before it.

Have you ever seen Grand Central like this?

Empty of pedestrians, cars, taxis, and traffic, especially during daylight hours, that is. The image comes from a 1920s postcard of the terminal, not long after it opened in 1913.

Check out this grainy photo of the original Grand Central Depot, in the 1870s, with real live cows grazing in front of it—a glimpse of the city’s rural recent past.

When cows grazed next to Grand Central

They did at least until the 1870s, when this grainy photo was taken—showing a couple of bovines relaxing in a pasture at Lexington Avenue and 45th Street.

That’s a stone’s throw from Grand Central Terminal’s train shed, which was built at Fourth Avenue (now Park Avenue) in the 40s, according to New York: An Illustrated History.

“In the distance looms the northern end of the vast iron-and-glass train shed of Grand Central Depot,” the photo caption reads.

That train shed and the adjacent station were replaced by the Beaux-Arts Grand Central Terminal that still stands today.

Here’s more farm animals grazing and chilling in New York.

Just another busy day on Park Avenue

North of 42nd Street, Park Avenue is a pretty, orderly street practically glowing in vibrant shades of green, pink, yellow, and blue, according to this postcard from the 1930s. 

Notice the lack of crosswalk signs and traffic lights. The reason? Metro-North tunnels directly underneath made it difficult for these structures to be properly anchored into the ground.

The last helicopter on the Pan Am Building

Since 1981 it’s been owned by Met Life (though the Met Life sign didn’t go up until 1991)—a 60-story skyscraper behind Grand Central Station. But in 1963 it opened as the Pan Am Building, becoming sort of a symbol of post–World War II, jet-age New York City. 

 Too bad the Pan Am Building lacked the beauty and grace of the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings and was never especially beloved by New Yorkers. 

But it did have one distinct amenity: a helipad on the roof. A company called New York Airways regularly offered seven-minute copter service to JFK and LaGuardia Airports.

The copter shuttle operated in the 1960s and then started up again in 1977—until one helicopter’s broken landing gear caused another copter to tip over and kill four passengers waiting to board. A fifth person, a pedestrian, died when the rotor blade fell off the roof and tumbled all the way down to 43rd Street.

Peering underneath Grand Central Station

Let’s say you could peel back the street and view the subways and train lines criss-crossing one another beneath Park Avenue and 42nd Street. Here’s what you’d find, circa 1920.