Grand Central

February 11, 2013
Roberts delivers the story of one of the most famous transportation hubs in the world and how it shaped Midtown Manhattan into the bustling, thriving center of commerce and entertainment it is today. This is also a history of railroads in New York, from horse-pulled streetcars, to steam engines, to the electric trains brought to the city by Grand Central's chief engineer William Wilgus. Credited with being the first person to monetize "air rights", Wilgus conceived of Grand Central as a 12 story building with the terminal below and 2.3 million square feet above to be rented out to businesses. Roberts, the New York Times's Metro Matters columnist, covers the details of the construction of Grand Central as well as its massive renovation in the 1990's. He describes the massive changes in Midtown area after its initial construction, including the arrival of luxury hotels and office towers. "With Grand Central acting as an anchor," he writes, "Park Avenue was elevated into New York's most prestigious address." A wonderful volume for New York City history buffs or railroad aficionados, Roberts closes with discussions of some of the terminal's quirks and mysteries like the ubiquitous decorative acorns, the secret staircase, and various secret underground locations.

December 15, 2012
A middling account of the architectural splendor that is Manhattan's Grand Central Station. "Modern time began at Grand Central," writes New York Times urban affairs correspondent Roberts (A Kind of Genius: Herb Sturz and Society's Toughest Problems, 2009, etc.), an apercu he repeats a few times in his paean to what is certainly America's definitive, if not greatest, railway terminal. The author observes that it was the need of the new railroads to observe an established schedule that resulted in standardized time--no news to readers of Wolfgang Schivelbusch, that great historian of technology, but a useful gauge all the same in explaining why a railroad station should merit our attention. There are other reasons, which Roberts attentively enumerates: In the instance of Grand Central, which indeed pioneered standardized time and has lived through a few incarnations since ground was broken for the modern structure 110 years ago, it contains the world's largest piece of Tiffany glass, to say nothing of "the largest sculptural grouping in the world" and a ceiling that famously invokes the vastness of the firmament. Roberts closes his rambling, almanaclike narrative with an account of where the ceiling painter went wrong; apparently, railroad officials explained that "the celestial mural represented God's view." There's nothing wrong with an assemblage of oddments and answers to common questions, as any trivia buff will tell you, but at times, Roberts' book resembles an infodump of semidigested notes; this is nowhere more true than in the section on Grand Central in popular culture. Still, the book is inarguably populated by a fascinating cast of characters, from the barons of the late Gilded Age to Jackie O. Grand Central deserves a deep history as good as the World Trade Center got with James Glanz and Eric Lipton's City in the Sky (2003). This isn't it, though railway-history buffs may enjoy this book.

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January 1, 2013
Grand Central Terminal in New York City owes its current incarnation to a fatal train crash in 1902, which was caused partially by human error and partially by design flaws in the New York Central Railroad system. The rebuilding of the terminal was a massive municipal project marshaling the talent and financial resources of leading architects, engineers, and artists. The result is an urban landmark akin to a palace as well as a transportation hub. Roberts, an urban-affairs correspondent for the New York Times, seems to have a love affair with the place, and he describes the building, evolution, and unique features of the terminal with an infectious passion. It is, as he notes, a major tourist attraction, the setting for key scenes in many motion pictures, and a center through which an estimated half a million people move each day. This well-done piece of urban history will appeal to both railroad enthusiasts and general readers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)