We were up early for our planned visit to Grand Central Terminal (GCT) today, a four hour tour starting at 10am. The tour advertised secret passageways, doors and some serious behind the scenes information.
We were looking forward to a different view of the terminal.
We’d seen the whispering wall before, the clock and the ceiling with its celestial mural. All fascinating, but we wanted to go deeper.
But before we left I needed to grab my camera and lenses.
Me: Mardi, have you seen my camera.
Mardi: Isn’t in in the usual spot, near your chair
Nope
Maybe you moved it
Hmmm, maybe we got home late last night and I was very tired. Nope can’t see it anywhere
Ok, ok, I’ll have a look around……..nope. When did you last have it?
Dunno, looking really silly now!
Then ensued a mad search and the realisation it wasn’t anywhere. Had we been robbed? No. Not possible, had I lost it? Where were we last night? Bosie? The Tenement museum? Hmmm. Now we weren’t allowed to take photos at the museum, so I lugged it around the whole time? Bosie? Surely I didn’t leave it there? On the subway?
Mardi dials Bosie, Jessica answers? Hi Jess, you don’t happen to have a bag there do you? Maybe, what colour? Red and green! We sure do.
Oh thank god.
How did I leave it there and woe, it was still there. We did leave Bosie st closing time last night and were tired and had a few other bags with us so I must have just missed picking it up.
Crisis averted we head off to GCT with iPhones as our only photographic devices. They should do?
We arrive at the designated meeting spot and our tour guide, let’s call him Drill Sergeant Striker, starts yelling st everyone to listen up, stick like glue with each other and put on the god damn hard hat, we thought, wow this is going to be full on. A fellow tourist asked about the walking. Striker replies, the email said 14 flight of stairs, four hours, deal with it.
And with that we were off.
Into the centre of GCT and Striker stops throws down a collapsible soap box, jumps on it and yells, listen up, get closer, CLOSER. We huddle around and he launches into the history of GCT and everything we are going to see.
Four or five times he yells check, we are expected to respond, check.
We then depart, staying close together like a human centipede as he takes us to the first vintage point. Periodically he yells, hurry, this way, stay close. We pile into a lift, up five floors, through massive steel doors, round corners and along corridors. We arrive some 30 metres above ground level and walk along a glass walkway out to a view of the whole concourse below us.
He gathers us around and says, now, these are the photos each of you WILL TAKE. Striker then describes portrait and landscape shots, angles and which window to use. At this stage some people are panicking about not being able to take the correct photos. Striker yells every 20 seconds, next come on, take your photo. Every now and then correcting people doing the wrong thing. He then gets everyone and takes an individual photo of us with our camera.
By now the blustering of Striker is humuours and we see why he’s doing it. He knows his stuff.
After the high view he takes us deep down under GCT. He regales us with WWII stories about a plot to bring down the NYC train system by Hitler. The power supply at the time is a conversion style turbine that converted AC to D.C. A simple bucket of sand thrown into the turbine could render the network useless by jamming the conversion.
We’ve read stories of so called plots targeting, but Striker brought them to life in a fascinating and intriguing way.
We wandered the old and new electrical supply areas amidst the NYC schist deep inside the cavernous space.
When done we walk back up the 13 stories and Striker then takes us through another series of tunnels, corridors and doorways, to an underground train track. He stops us and yells, don’t walk on the track, it’s live. Ok. Good to know. After about 200 metres we stop and Striker shows us a dilapidated carriage. Franklyn Delano Roosevelt, FDR, used the carriage and track to move him around while in NYC. As you may know FDR had polio so the carriage and his car, plus the lift that took him into the Waldorf Astoria were all purpose built. So was the train line from GCT to the hotel. All underground. Amazing architectural and engineering design and a solution to a unique problem of a president who couldn’t walk.
Again Striker yells and tells us where the money shot is and how to set up our camera.Â
We then walk back to GCT and he tell us to hurry the f up. We pile into a lift and run like hut hut hut men. We end up in a well appointed board room after running down a series of corridors.Â
It’s all part of the theatre of the tour. Striker says we shouldn’t be here, we are lucky, be quiet so the high ups don’t throw us out.Â
He then tells us about 9/11 and how the GCT evacuated Manhattan in around six hours that fateful day. The planning, coordination and effort. He tells us about a blackout from 13 years ago where thousands were stranded on trains underground. Fascinating stuff.Â
He then shows us the operations centre, dozens of train traffic controllers, massive digital screens with the whole network on show. A complex, yet smooth running operation.Â
He then evacuates us and rushes us back to the main meeting point and finishes his stories and thanks us for our time. He was certainly a character. Check out the short video of him in action.Â
After the tour we grab a quick lunch and head downtown to collect my camera. While at Bosie we have a pot of tea and sit for a while. We are exhausted after running and climbing so many stairs with Striker nipping at our heels.Â
We get home on dark and rest before dinner, Mexican. Yum. After a brief rest we venture out to Toloache. A nice little Mexican on 50th street. We catch the subway, Mardi is still a bit congested and it’s cold.Â
We enjoy a delicious dinner, a trio of dips, from mild to spicy, some ceviche fish and tacos. Yum.Â
We walk home, it’s cold, but it’s only six blocks, mostly through Times Square, which is buzzing on a Friday night. Plus we’ve had a couple of cocktails, do walking isn’t too bad. We pop into a couple of drops and soak up Times Square, before turning in for the night.
