MICHAEL: You can get anything from a newspaper to a gourmet meal. [00:58:30] You can get fresh fish at the market. You can get the sweetest chocolates, you can get the best coffees. There are so many things you could want. They have it there in a central location. Grand Central was known as a city within a city. We've always had the top shelf of everything. RHIANNON: The Grand Central Market, on the East side of the building is now a lovely destination for upscale groceries, with enticing piles of exotic spices, delicious cheeses, and tempting pastries – but it has a surprising backstory. GEORGE: The market used to be where our trash [00:48:30] and deliveries used to come into. So if you can imagine a truck driving down Lexington Avenue, and it would pull into 43rd Street, which is where the market is located, they would pull their truck, garbage truck into the 43rd street market. They would pick up the garbage. They would make deliveries. There would be rats running around back in the day. But that is no longer our garbage or loading dock. Now it's a beautiful European market where the intent is to pick up fresh fruit and meats and poultry, vegetables. Take 'em home, cook. So it’s for unprepared foods as opposed to the dining concourse, which has the prepared foods for sit-down and eating versus the take home and cook at home. RHIANNON: Walk towards the street-side entrance to the marketplace, and look up! RHIANNON: This upside-down tree sculpture is called Sirshasana, by Donald Lipski. The aluminum and polyester resin sculpture is shaped like an olive tree, with branches spanning 25 feet and featuring 5,000 crystal pendants. The sculpture is named after a headstand posture in yoga: the inverted tree, of course. The work is a "comment on the allure of the exotic and tempting wares sold in the marketplace.”