FROM EAST…TO EAST

You live on Long Island, which is east of Manhattan. You work on Manhattan’s East Side. Yet your commute takes you across town and leaves you on the West Side. What’s wrong with this picture? East Side access will bring Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) trains to Grand Central, enabling an estimated 162,000 LIRR commuters who work on the East Side to avoid trekking from the West Side by bus, subway, taxi, or on foot. The expanded service—which has been on the drawing board since the late 1960s—also will establish connections between the LIRR and Metro-North lines, as well as linking Grand Central to the JFK Airport via the AirTrain through Jamaica Station in Queens.

DIG IT!

Step outside Grand Central. Look around. You’ll notice a building or two. Maybe some cars. The neighborhood is among the most densely packed in the world, with streets, skyscrapers, people, and traffic above ground and a labyrinth of cables, sewers, steam pipes, and of course train tracks below. Bringing the Long Island Rail Road to this crowded urban thicket is challenging. Eight miles of new underground track will link Grand Central to the LIRR facilities in Harold Interlocking in Queens via the existing 63rd Street tunnel. Excavating the new connections required different equipment on either side of the river: soft-ground boring machines for the sand and gravel in Queens, hard-rock machines to slice through solid rock in Manhattan.

TOMORROW’S TERMINAL

The new Long Island Rail terminal—Manhattan’s first major terminal in more than 90 years—will be underground: 140 feet below Park Avenue, between 44th and 48th Streets. In the lower terminal, steel and glass will create a sleek, modern feel. As passengers rise toward the 350,000 passenger concourse and street level, however, visual references to Grand Central’s Beaux-Arts style will create a smooth transition to the century-old landmark above. The East Side Access project will provide eight new miles of track to connect Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal. Transportation efficiency meets energy efficiency! Green design at the new LIRR concourse and terminal will combine maximum comfort with minimal power and water use. Explore how it is being constructed beneath Grand Central Terminal and exactly how tunnel boring machines operate.

NEW YORK TRANSIT MUSEUM



The New York Transit Museum, one of the city’s leading cultural institutions, is the largest museum in the United States devoted to urban public transportation history, and one of the premier institutions of its kind in the world. The Museum explores the development of the greater New York metropolitan region through the presentation of exhibitions, tours, educational programs, and workshops delving into the cultural, social, and technological history of public transportation.

“Grand By Design” was originally on display in Vanderbilt Hall February 1 to March 15, 2013 to commemorate the Centennial of Grand Central Terminal. The exhibition was also displayed at the Riverfront Library in Yonkers, New York January 11 to March 17, 2014.

© 2014−2017 New York Transit Museum

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