Our First Arrival at Grand Central Madison

When we visited Manhattan with Lukey and Kenzie back at Christmastime, we never did tour the new Grand Central Madison part of Grand Central Terminal so we were seeing this new part of Grand Central for the first time just this past weekend.  If we had the time back at Christmastime, we would have spent a little time exploring this new extension to Grand Central.  It just so happens that our Long Island Railroad train arrives in this new extension to Grand Central so we were finally able to experience this new train station ourselves.

This part of the station is quite large and extends for six blocks underground...  very much underground at about 180 feet below street level.  Consequently, we encountered numerous sets of stairs and escalators to get back up to street level.  One of these escalators is noteworthy which I will mention later in this blog entry.

When we stepped out of the train, we were on a beautiful, clean and bright station platform!  Even the kids said, "Wow" out loud.  They had been on the subway before, they had seen some of the upper level tracks at Grand Central and even been in Penn Station before and this new extension to Grand Central is nothing like those other stations they have seen.  This new part of the station would classify as a culture shock!

The Long Island Railroad arrives at Grand Central Madison on three levels stacked atop each other.  Tracks numbered in the "one hundreds" are at the top of these three levels...  tracks numbered in the "two hundreds" are in the middle...  and tracks numbered in the "three hundreds" are at the bottom of the stack of trains.  And, all of this is even below other tracks arriving at Grand Central.  We arrived on Track 202 so we were in the middle of the Long Island Railroad stack.  

From this level, we only had escalators taking us down to the bottom level so that is the direction we went...  farther downward...

We had about six blocks to walk to get to the Grand Concourse at Grand Central so we started walking.  We occasionally stopped to view some artwork or some other interesting feature.  Below, we came across an illuminated floor.  This made Kenzie want to dance...

Here is some of the artwork...  this is a mosaic tiled piece of art which was quite nice.  This was the wall that Kenzie was facing as she danced on the illuminated floor tiles above...

Then, Kenzie looked upward and again said, "WOW!"  This shiny blue tube above our heads made it seem like we were on some sort of huge starship from the movie "Galaxy Quest"...

We went up one level and were treated to views of the level of trains below us as we walked along a glass-enclosed balcony...

Then we came to perhaps the main attraction of this new extension of Grand Central.  Sheila and I knew this was down here so we were looking for it because we wanted Lukey and Kenzie to experience it.  Grand Central Madison goes as deep as 15 stories below street level so there is a bit of vertical distance to traverse to get back up to street level.  To traverse this distance, a one-of-a-kind escalator was designed and built for this new station.

The main attraction to this station is this new escalator that is 182 feet long rising more than 90 feet!  It is looonnnggggg and seemingly steeper than most escalators.  As we kept going up, Kenzie kept sinking closer to the steps of the escalator in fear (see photo below).  By the time we got to the top, she was sort of frozen in fear, palms soaked and a bit shaken up!  

I honestly don't know whether we were more impressed with this impressive escalator or Kenzie's anxious reaction!  That is one impressive escalator though...  I suppose Kenzie's reaction made it a bit more memorable...  a positive memory for us, perhaps a negative memory for Kenzie.

After another short escalator, another staircase, and then walking up the ramp from the lower Dining Concourse, we made it to the Grand Concourse...

We were hungry and looking forward to our breakfast at Pershing Square across the street on 42nd Street so we made our way through Vanderbilt Hall toward 42nd Street.  We could see the illuminated green lettering of Pershing Square as we walked through Vanderbilt Hall...

Below is a photo looking over one corner of Grand Central Terminal toward the towering Chrysler Building.  In the near future, the Chrysler Building will be obscured by an 85 story hotel which will be the tallest hotel in Manhattan.  

Below is a photo of us heading back down the long escalator to get to our Long Island Railroad train back to Long Island after our visit to Manhattan...  Kenzie seemed to have an easier, more relaxed, time going down this incredibly long escalator.

I'd have to say that Grand Central is probably my favorite train station and I've seen a lot of train stations.  Grand Central Madison makes this station even better!