Graybar Passage Exterior
Graybar Passage Exterior
RHIANNON: Let’s start outside, looking at the “Graybar entrance.” To find the right spot, you can stand in front of the Grand Central market, looking in, then look to your right, and up. This is the Graybar building, the first Art Deco building in the Grand Central zone, and it was built to be in stylistic harmony with the terminal. This was one of many buildings which sprouted up around Grand Central after the Terminal sold off the air rights above the underground train yards, creating what came to be known as “terminal city.”
MICHAEL: All of the well-known hotels, the famous hotels, were built around Grand Central because of Grand Central. Places like the Waldorf Astoria, the Biltmore, the Yale Club. These places with the use of air rights allowed the railroad to recoup the investment they had to make, to electrify, to modernize. They built into the air. They built all these structures that they were gonna recoup the money they invested. And so they built apartment buildings, luxury hotels. And that's what really made Park Avenue. The Vanderbilts really made Manhattan the face it has today. They really did.
RHIANNON: Look very closely at the awning over the main Graybar entrance and you’ll see something strange–
GEORGE: There is an awning, and the awning supports that show rats climbing up the ship line and the cones that were installed on the ship lines to prevent the rats from getting on to the ships. It's a little detail that a lot of people miss, and they walk right by and they don't look, you know, they don't notice it until it's finally pointed out. And then once they see it, they kind of can't forget about it.
RHIANNON: This is yet another nod to the shipping business, where the Commodore got his start and made his FIRST fortune.
As seen on
Grand Central Terminal: Always Moving