GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL: TIMELESS APPEAL

Designed by Whitney Warren and Charles D. Wetmore in neoclassical style and built in the period 1903 to 1913, Grand Central Terminal, the world’s largest railway station with 44 platforms, stands midway along Park Avenue in New York City.

The facade is dominated by a huge clock and the three sculptures of Mercury, Hercules and Minerva which tower over it. Beneath them is a statue of the railway magnate Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt. Inside, the main concourse has a huge vaulted ceiling (about 40 meters high, 40 meters wide and 80 meters long) covered by a great astronomical mural, in which the zodiac section is famously painted backwards because of a mistake by the artist.

Every day about 550 trains pass through Grand Central Terminal and half a million passengers, who traditionally meet outside the information office in the centre of the main concourse. Grand Central Terminal has also been used as the set for many famous films: Twentieth Century (1934), Cotton Club (1984), The Fisher King (1991), Carlito’s Way (1994) and The Untouchables (1987), to mention just a few. In 1904 Botticino Classico marble, because of its compactness, strength, versatility and appearance, was used to clad the majestic interiors of Grand Central Terminal, including:

• the double stair case connecting the main hall with the entrance from Vanderbilt Avenue

• the skirting around the interior walls of the building;

• the ticket offices and the circular information office, located in the main hall;

• the wall cladding in the entrance to the station and the dining and shopping concourse in the basement.