“EUROPE has its cathedrals and we have Grand Central Station,” said Philip Johnson, an architect, when he along with Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Kent Barwick, then a director of New York’s Municipal Art Society (MAS), fought to save the station from demolition in the 1970s. It took a Supreme Court decision to save the magnificent Beaux-Arts building; but it survived and launched its year-long centennial celebration on February 1st.

The station’s architectural oddities, still delight. A concave ceiling in the main concourse depicting the constellations draws the eye upwards. The station helped create New York’s premiere business district, where 250,000 people work, and it still serves it well.

The station’s construction was a vast undertaking: 25 miles of water and sewer lines had to be relocated, and 3m cubic yards of dirt and rock were excavated. Tracks were lowered underground and electrified and the ground above became Park Avenue. The station, since 1991 home to a commuter line and several subway lines, was once the main gateway to the rest of the country. In 1913, 75,000 passed through the station per day; today that number is 750,000, with 1m people passing though the station on busy days. Some 160,000 more are expected when the commuter line to Long Island is extended to Grand Central in 2019.

Michael Bloomberg, New York’s mayor, wants to ensure the surrounding area, home to 14 Fortune 500 companies, remains a desirable business district. He has proposed changing the zoning laws for the 78-block area around the station in East Midtown. Re-zoning would make it easier to demolish out-of-date buildings and allow grander commercial space to be built. He also wants to partially pedestrianise Vanderbilt Avenue, an underused street behind the station named for a railway tycoon. The area does have a lot of older buildings with high vacancy rates. The average age of office buildings in the area is 73, much older than similar places in global rivals.

New York has a history of bold vision. Its street grid was designed for 1m people at a time when the population barely topped 100,000. The subway was built when much of New York was still farmland. Mr Bloomberg has long looked to the future. He has re-zoned 36% of the city since 2002. With just one year left in his term, he is moving quickly with his plans, which concern many, like Vin Cipolla, the present head of the MAS, who accepts that midtown must evolve, but is worried about unprotected historic buildings. Just like Mrs Onassis.