Grand Central Terminal art
Grand Central Terminal, one of the main railroad stations in New York City, features public art by a variety of artists.
The Glory of Commerce sculptural group rests atop the terminal's facade, directly above a broken pediment featuring a large clock.
[7][8] Mercury is standing at the top center of the work, depicted traditionally with a caduceus and wearing a winged helmet, with loose drapery concealing otherwise complete nudity.
[1] The work is seen as attempting to fulfill several goals: portraying the terminal itself as a new technology, representing the Vanderbilt family, and serving as an artistic piece to parallel European art and architecture of the time.
Access requires security clearance, limiting the number of visitors; these select few traditionally write their names on the clock room walls in permanent markers.
[19] A statue of Cornelius Vanderbilt, longtime owner of the New York Central, stands at the center of the terminal's south facade, directly below its clock and facing the Park Avenue Viaduct.
[22] The statue was created as part of a bronze bas-relief on the facade of the Hudson River Railroad depot at St. John's Park in the present-day neighborhood of Tribeca.
The relief and statue were generally designed by Albert De Groot, a steamship captain under Vanderbilt, though they were sculpted by Plassmann.
By 1913, two were at the Philipse Manor station in Sleepy Hollow, New York, one was on the lawn of a wealthy resident of Mount Vernon, and the rest were on other estates, purchased from wreckers or taken from those with influence over the railroads.
One had stood for years in a backyard in Bronxville, New York; in 1999, it was placed atop the Lexington Avenue entrance to Grand Central Market.
Eight identical eagle statues are elsewhere, including one at a private home in Kings Point, New York; one at the Space Farms Zoo and Museum in Beemerville, New Jersey; two at the Vanderbilt Museum in Long Island; one, known as the "Shandaken Eagle", in Phoenicia, New York; two at Saint Basil Academy in Garrison; and one at the Philipse Manor station in Sleepy Hollow.
[28] New York City's former Penn Station was adorned with 22 eagle sculptures, many of which were similarly dispersed across the United States after the building's demolition.
[29] A false ceiling of square boards, installed in 1944, bears an elaborate celestial mural painted with more than 2,500 stars and several bands in gold set against a turquoise backdrop.
The latter, who had come to the United States for a three-month stay to create portraits of eight women for a Parisian magazine, sketched a conceptual design for Warren.
[33] Helleu worked from a chart given by Columbia University astronomy professor Harold Jacoby, who had derived it from the Uranometria, a scientifically accurate star atlas published in 1603.
[19] Also depicted are Pegasus, Triangulum Majus and Minus, Musca Borealis, and Orion,[40] as well as two broad gold bands spanning the ceiling, representing the ecliptic and the equator.
[45] As a general renovation of the terminal got underway, historians and preservationists called for the 1944 boards to be removed and the original ceiling mural restored.
But Beyer Blinder Belle, the architecture firm that led the renovation, deemed the original mural irreversibly damaged and noted that the asbestos-laden boards would be hazardous to remove.
[43] A single dark patch near the crab constellation (representing Cancer)[47] was left untouched by renovators to remind visitors of the grime that once covered the ceiling.
In a 1957 attempt to improve public morale after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, an American Redstone missile was set up in the Main Concourse.
[33][32] One possible explanation is that the overall ceiling design might have been based on the medieval custom of depicting the sky as it would appear to God looking in at the celestial sphere from outside, but that would have reversed Orion as well.
[53] Originally, every vault in the passage ceiling was to be painted similarly to the existing work, though project funding fell short during the Great Depression.
The work alludes to Grand Central's decorative chandeliers, and is a "comment on the allure of the exotic and tempting wares sold in the marketplace".
[54] As Above, So Below, a work of glass, bronze, and mosaic in several Grand Central North passageways, was made by Brooklyn-based artist Ellen Driscoll in 1998.
Grand Central management eventually bought an organ and a set of chimes for the station and began paying Read an annual retainer.
[81] Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, she attempted to lift spirits by playing "The Star-Spangled Banner", which brought the main concourse to a standstill.
The stationmaster subsequently asked her to avoid selections that would cause passengers to miss their trains, and Read became known as the only organist in New York who was forbidden to play the United States' national anthem.
[81] In 2018, Paul McCartney gave a private concert in the terminal on the premiere date of his new album Egypt Station, with guests including Jon Bon Jovi, Meryl Streep, Amy Schumer, Kate Moss and Steve Buscemi.
[82] In February 2020, South Korean pop group BTS staged a live performance of their song, "ON", at the Main Concourse.
A 2009 Cornell University study mapping out geotagged photos worldwide indicated the building was the fourth most photographed in New York City.
