Grand Central Terminal, a train station in Manhattan, New York City, has been the subject, inspiration, or setting for literature, television and radio episodes, and films.[1][2]
Film and television
Platform at Track 34, commonly used in films
Many film and television productions have included scenes shot in the terminal. The MTA hosts about 25 large-scale and hundreds of smaller or amateur productions every year.[3] Kyle McCarthy, who handles production at Grand Central, said, "Grand Central is one of the quintessential New York places. Whether filmmakers need an establishing shot of arriving in New York or transportation scenes, the restored landmark building is visually appealing and authentic."[4] Especially during World War II, Grand Central has been a backdrop for romantic reunions between couples. After the terminal declined in the 1950s, it was more frequently used as a dark, dangerous place, even a metaphor for chaos and disorientation,[2] featuring chase scenes, shootouts, homeless people, and the mentally ill. In the 1990 film The Freshman, for example, Matthew Broderick's character stumbles over an unconscious man and watches fearfully as petty crimes take place around him.[5]
Almost every scene filmed in the terminal's train shed was shot on Track 34, one of the few areas without view-blocking structural columns.[6][7]
On October 19, 2017, several of these films were screened in the terminal for an event created by the MTA, Rooftop Films, and the Museum of the Moving Image. The event featured a cinematic history lecture by architect and author James Sanders.[17]
Grand Central Terminal's architecture, including its Main Concourse clock, are depicted on the stage of Saturday Night Live, a long-running NBC television show.[8][18] Warren and Wetmore designed The soundstage reconstruction of the terminal in Studio 8H was first installed in 2003.[19][20]
Literature featuring the terminal includes Report on Grand Central Terminal, written in 1948 by nuclear physicist Leo Szilard; The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger; The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton; Grand Central Murder by Sue MacVeigh, which was made into the eponymous film in 1942; A Stranger Is Watching by Mary Higgins Clark;[8] and the 1946 children's classic The Taxi That Hurried by Lucy Sprague Mitchell.[1] The infrastructure in Grand Central inspired the novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and in turn, the film Hugo.[21] The dangerous life of homeless men and women in Grand Central and its tunnels and passageways inspired Lee Stringer's Grand Central Winter: Stories from the Street and Tina S.'s collaboration with journalist Jamie Pastor Bolnick in the autobiography Living at the Edge of the World: A Teenager's Survival in the Tunnels of Grand Central Station.[22][23]
A Lego replica of the terminal is situated in Miniland USA, an exhibit at Legoland California. The cutaway model shows elaborate interior details of the station building.[25]
^ abcde"Oscar Ready Digs at GCT!". Mileposts. Metropolitan Transportation Authority. August 2019. Archived from the original on August 19, 2019. Retrieved September 5, 2019.
^Winogura, Dale (1972). "Dialogues on Apes, Apes, and More Apes"(PDF). Cinefantastique: Planet of the Apes Issue. p. 37. Archived(PDF) from the original on July 16, 2012. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
^Dunlop, Beth (June 29, 1983). "In praise of Grand Central". The Miami Herald. Archived from the original on February 13, 2023. Retrieved February 13, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
^Jiler, John (June 28, 1998). "Street Singer". Movies. The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 17, 2019. Retrieved February 17, 2019.
^Levinson, D.; Gale Group; Sage Publications (2004). Encyclopedia of Homelessness. A Berkshire reference work. SAGE Publications. p. 25. ISBN978-0-7619-2751-8. Archived from the original on February 17, 2023. Retrieved February 17, 2019.