On Friday, February 1st, Grand Central Terminal (GCT) celebrated 100 years as a great place to arrive in Midtown Manhattan. The current terminal replaced an earlier station on the same site, fronting on East 42d Street. Today, it is the terminal for Metro-North trains from Westchester and Duchess Counties, and as far north as Poughkeepsie, Wassaic, and Connecticut. In the past, it served riders on the New York Central and New Haven Railroads from the Midwest, New England, and Canada. “GCT” is the largest railroad station in world, in terms of area. A threat to demolish it in the 1960s spurred the historic preservation movement into action.
The Lackawanna Coalition has joined other rider advocates in calling for a rail connection between Penn Station and GCT, to be comnpleted early in its second century.