The Untold Secrets of Grand Central Terminal

And there's tennis courts in Grand Central?! I'm more surprised by the fact that there are operating tennis courts than I am by them being used for skiing in the past.

Grand Central is magnificent. I try not to take it for granted when I go into the city.

http://www.sonicwonders.org/whispering-walls-grand-central-s...

  > 93% of Grand Central Terminal commuters are college graduates.
  > 21.6 million out-of-town tourists, with a mean income of $62,000

1) The tunnel from the 456 to the Time Square Shuttle is the original tunnel of the first subway line. It ran from City Hall on the 456 track along the shuttle tunnel to what is now the north end of the 123. Walk that tunnel 100 years ago and you would standing on the tracks. 2) There is an abandoned level between the 456 concourse and the 7 train tunnel that was used for the original trolley line that was later replaced by the 7 train. 3) During the 60s there was a full size ICBM mockup hung in the great hall. 4) There is a body buried in the walls of the station - a construction worker who fell into pouring concrete a century ago and the body couldn't be recovered.

The real story of the "generator room" is here.[1] There was a coal-fired power generation plant with reciprocating steam engines far below the station from 1902, and an even bigger plant in 1918, when electric locomotives went into service. Exhaust came out a smokestack built into a corner of the Commodore Hotel. Around 1930, Grand Central finally stopped generating its own power and bought from Con Ed. But they still needed 600 VDC for traction power and 250VDC for lighting, and some 25Hz power (the NYC subways distributed power at 25Hz, then converted to DC at substations) so the old generating station space was reused for rotary converters.

In the late 1980s, all that conversion gear finally went solid-state. But it wasn't until the 1990s that Grand Central got a complete rewiring and everything except 600VDC traction power was converted to ordinary 60Hz AC.

Some of the more dramatic videos about this claim this station powered most of the Northeastern rail system. It never powered anything much beyond Grand Central Station.

"Roosevelt's private railroad siding" was actually one of several work tracks used to support all the moves of heavy equipment required over the years. It's still there.

[1] http://magazine.ieee-pes.org/julyaugust-2014/history-14/