Talk:Grand Central Terminal

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Grand Central Terminal was a good article, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Delisted version: March 26, 2007


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[edit] This should be a featured article

I just read through this article. Wow! Other than the one-sentence paragraphs in the Layout section and the lack of a building schematic, this could easily be a featured article. I'll look through the references that I've got at home to see if I can find anything to add to it (I remember a Trains Magazine article about the station a couple years ago, and I saw something on the History Channel about that time too...). slambo 18:20, May 13, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] PanAm building

There are a number of references to the PanAM building in the article. In the mid 1990's the building was sold and was renamed the MetLife Building. I have updated the article accordingly. --Allan 20:06, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Question

I am a french reader of this encyclopedia and I was searching for an information about Grand Central Terminal. I would like to know how many people pass through Grand Central Station each day, each months, each year and unfortunatly I have not seen the information in the article. Someone knows? Sorry for my bad english and thank you.

Another thing : maybe It will be possible to add to the article informations about Grand Central Station in popular culture? Movies, books, music, advertising? 11 september, 17h00.

[edit] Answer

Statistics about the number of daily visitors is on this page, which is linked from the article: http://www.waltlockley.com/cgt/gct.htm --Lockley 19:31, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your answer Lockley. And I see that a new section "Grand Central Station in popular culture" has appeared since my suggestion above. Great ! A very good article. fr:Utilisateur:Kuxu

[edit] Concourse images

Regarding the recent change of Image:Grand Central Terminal main concourse.jpg to Image:Grand_Central_Terminal_Inside_New_York_City_Long.jpg, I find the latter to be more illustrative of the ceiling, but overall less illustrative since it is a night shot and a darker image. Maybe we will have to wait until the window and exterior restoration is complete to get a bright illustrative day shot. Comments? --ChrisRuvolo (t) 15:09, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I just nominated Image:Grand Central Station Main Concourse Jan 2006.jpg by Diliff (t c) to be a Featured Picture. Please comment at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Grand Central Terminal Panorama. Thanks. --ChrisRuvolo (t) 14:43, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Photos before restoration

It would be great if somebody could post photos of the terminal before restoration (e.g., the colorama and host of advertisements. Also, does anybody have a photos of the pre-computer board. Americasroof 02:09, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sub-basement

I was watching Jane's New York (hosted by Jane Hanson) on WNBC-TV today. The show was Underground New York (video introduction) and culminated in a guided tour with a GCT historian of an underground sub-basement. The historian claimed that it was far below the lower track level, and an elevator was shown descending to it. The historian said that the room was preserved in its original 1913 fittings. It had control devices, switching devices, and electrical devices. Apparently during WWII, the existance of the sub-based became a national security secret, because if someone sabotaged the electrical systems all troop movements in the Northeast U.S. would come to a halt. The historian claimed that the existance of the sub-basement was one of the best-kept secrets of New York.

Also, they said that there was a system of ropes that were strung up in the tunnels leading to GCT before there was an electric switching system. When a train broke down in a tunnel, the engineer pulled a rope along the track, which alerted the switching room that there was a problem. Ropes were connected to a bell and a tickertape output.

Can anyone confirm these reports? --ChrisRuvolo (t) 05:57, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe the substation is M42, recently shown in the "A Century of Third Rail Power" tour. As for the ropes in the Park Avenue Tunnel, probably true, as the ropes are there right now, but directly communicate with the Power Directors. They are part of the safety system in the tunnel. Keo 07:40, 1 October 2006 (UTC)


The "sub-basement" in question is actually clearly marked on the high-resolution image of the "Suburban Level" tracks. (The image has been on the article for some time)

It's actually known as the "Trucking Subway". --"Subway", in this case, being the British definition of the word (what Americans typically call a "pedestrian underpass"); and "Trucking", in this case, referring to hand-trucks-- It was once used extensively by intercity railroads for the efficient transfer of passengers' baggage.

Since only commuter services now call at Grand Central Terminal, the Trucking Subway is seldom used nowadays, and is now often occupied by "Mole People" (homeless persons that have taken up residence in abandoned underground structures). I am unable to confirm the popular belief that it was a strategic target in World War II; although it is not unlikely since it is often referred to by Mole People as "Burma Road", which is clearly a WWII reference. Pine 00:15, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The 'flag' image

I removed this image from the bottom of the page for a number of reasons and it has been reverted back by Keo who suggested that I bring it to the talk page. My reasoning was this:

1. There is no citation or reference that the American flag was hung in the terminal after September 11 (or specifically because of 9/11). I did a google search to see if I could find a page that supported this claim but was not able to find anything.

2. The image is basically a duplicate of the lead image in terms of the view. It doesn't really show anything that the existing image does not, except that if anything it does a poorer job of showing the expansiveness of the terminal. Although it is hardly a deal-breaker, we also frown on the use of watermarks within the image on wikipedia, and this image has a prominent copyright notice at the bottom.

3. It is extremely unencyclopedic and NPOV. The title of the image is GodBlessAmerica.jpg (NPOV), it is black and white aside from the American flag in color (which is very misleading for a modern encyclopedia - the image should be in color and only historical images need be B&W). Such a show of patriotism is a bit over the top for an article about the Grand Central Terminal. Yes, if it is true that the flag was hung as a result of the 9/11 attacks, then it should be mentioned in the article and cited, as that is relevent to the article, but this image is simply not NPOV enough in my opinion, despite the fact that it is artistic and emotional. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 10:09, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Good reasoning there, & I now agree with your reasons for removing the photo. But #1 is still correct. I'll try to find some published comments about it & post here for you. Thanks. Keo 07:20, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
National Geographic has some info Here:

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0512/feature6/gallery2.html http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0512/feature6/images/gallery.6.2.jpg

I've heard that the Building Services Dept. hung the flag a few days after 9/11 Keo 10:32, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Fair enough, thats a reliable enough source for me. I still feel the image should be removed for the reasons above, but the caption should be incorporated into the article text somewhere, as it is valid and noteworthy information. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 12:37, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
FYI: There was ALWAYS a flag on the West side of the terminal in the Concourse: it was the largest American flag in the country and hung there for decades until sometime in the 1970s. The return of the flag after 9/11 was just that: a returnDavidMIA 13:47, 26 May 2007 (UTC)DavidMIA

[edit] Night photo

Is there any reason for this photo? The blurriness makes it kind of arty, but that's not what we need.

Further, I have doubts about it being encyclopedic here. It doesn't convey any information that isn't in the lead photo, nor is there any reference to the station looking signficantly different at night. Daniel Case 15:45, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Re-Review and In-line citations

Members of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. Currently this article does not include in-line citations. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. LuciferMorgan 00:37, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] stats cites

I think the stats should be footnote cited and dated, probably using ref tags. It would be very easy for a number like % of lost item returns to change and not be noticed. -- 68.160.160.108 02:03, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Good Article Review

This article is currently under Good Article Review. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by LuciferMorgan (talk • contribs) 04:00, 11 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] MNCX

MNCX 002: Mystery train car, super heavily reinforced, in an underground facility near the infamous M42 facility under Grand Central Terminal. Reported on the History Channel, "Cities of the Underworld: New York", 2007, aired November 25, 2007, 8:00-9:00 pm MST. LanceBarber (talk) 03:44, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Station Infobox

I think it's about time a station infobox is added to the article. An infobox would allow us to bring the train service info (currently located at the very bottom of the page) to the top of the page for easy viewing. Some other info could be added in there as well. For example, if we can find some info on how many tracks and platforms are in the station, we could add them in there. As for a picture to add to the top of the infobox, I was thinking of using one of the pictures already in the article. Give your suggestions. Murjax (talk) 03:13, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

In principle, yes but a side by side arrangement with the architectural infobox makes a poor layout. Perhaps we need to decide whether this is primarily an architectural and historical article, or primarily one about a working facility, to know which infobox to put on top. I lean towards the theory that the working station and its services are primary, but can see merit in the opposing view. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:13, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree. We need to decide which box to put on top. I vote for services as the primary. Murjax (talk) 06:20, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
    • I've stacked the station services box over the NRHP box for now. —CComMack (t–c) 10:32, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Telephones

People sometimes jokingly answer a busy phone "Grand Central Station!" What does this have to do exactly with a NYC train station? -Rolypolyman (talk) 01:30, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

At work, a colleague once answered that after taking five calls back to back and exclaiming herself "This place is like freaking Grand Central Station!" So, I guess it has to do with the comparison that a very busy place is "like Grand Central Station". And by the way, it wasn't a client calling: she saw on her caller ID that it was another colleague, so she took that liberty. AirOdyssey (Talk) 03:07, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Frozen people

what about the frozen people performance? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwMj3PJDxuo i am trying to find more information about this and i thought it should be here--Nauki (talk) 12:24, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

  • That's not a bad idea. That event did get a lot of attention. Murjax (talk) 16:25, 8 April 2008 (UTC)