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.
Tags: before skyscrapers in Midtown, Grand Central Station, Grand Central Terminal 1913, Grand Central Terminal neighborhood, Midtown in 1913, midtown Manhattan 1900, midtown street, Vintage postcards New York City
Ephemeral New York 
September 13, 2013 at 2:26 pm |
Hey, I seem to have lost your e-mail. Could you please the New York History Blog link url to .org rather than .com? Some Russian dude scammed the .com address. Thanks, and as always, I really enjoy the blog.
John Warren
Editor
New York History Blog
September 13, 2013 at 2:55 pm |
Thanks, you got it–it’s fixed.
September 15, 2013 at 8:20 pm |
And the old Commodore hotel was built on the site to the right of the terminal in that old postcard not long after the postcard was made, then Donald Chump, er Trump came in and destroyed the Commodore, including having workers jackhammer all of the stone carvings on the lower floors flush with the wall, and what we have now is yet another undefined mirrors and glass cereal box.
September 20, 2013 at 3:05 am |
Adding to Rdwolff’s point; I believe most of Park Avenue within the ten blocks north of the station has been razed and rebuilt twice already; three times for 320 Park Avenue.
October 5, 2015 at 4:49 am |
[…] version of Grand Central wouldn’t last long; it would be knocked down and replaced by the current Beaux-Arts beauty by […]
February 1, 2016 at 9:10 am |
[…] when you’re rush through Grand Central Terminal, it’s impossible not to glance up and notice its breathtaking treasures, like the beautiful […]
February 6, 2017 at 5:44 am |
[…] clock isn’t Grand Central largest or most commanding. That might be the Tiffany clock on the 42nd Street facade, the largest stained-glass Tiffany clock in the […]
April 24, 2022 at 11:37 pm |
Sale of air rights saved Grand Central station!!