Grand Central Terminal opens in New York City | February 2, 1913 | HISTORY

On February 2, 1913, New York City’s Grand Central Terminal opens for the first time. The transportation hub as we know it today began construction in 1903, but before that 89 E 42nd was home to an older steam train station built in 1879. Even though the station had been updated to deal with an increased volume of commuters coming from suburbs outside the city, a collision between outdated steam trains in 1902 killed 15 people, and made it clear that a more substantial renovation was needed.

Grand Central Terminal is one of America's busiest train stations, with over 700,000 people passing through it every day. Find out more about this iconic landmark.

That same year, engineer William Wilgus and railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt began planning the landmark that Grand Central is today. They proposed a station with new electric trains that would not emit exhaust fumes and could, for the first time, operate underground. Planning officials also changed the station’s name. Technically a station, because trains no longer went south of Grand Central Station, the hub was renamed Grand Central Terminal. While these renovations and improvements had practical value, the more significant impact that both Wilgus and Vanderbilt hoped to create was cultural.

Grand Central was designed to usher New York into the dynamic 20th century. As the world around it grew increasingly interconnected, Vanderbilt wanted Grand Central to overtake its rival Penn Station as the palatial gateway to the heart of a rapidly growing country. That ambition was manifested in the form of a towering white marble facade and a ceiling mural depicting God’s view of the sky. After almost 10 years of construction and more than $4 billion in today’s money, New York’s architectural marvel opened to the world.