We visited Grand Central for a school project last Friday. I sat down at the corner of one of the east staircase and observed the people, the architecture and the general story Grand Central was propelling to me. Grand Central is definitely really romantic, with its high ceiling and beautiful walls, you can tell instantly that this building holds a lot of history just by simply looking at it. I noticed the west side of the stairs from the east side. Grand central basically has two sides and is a pretty symmetrical building. This made me realize that the whole building can actually be a compass on its own. 400,000 people walking through a “compass” every day? The whole concept of direction and time and people being in it and through it made me feel like I was in a poem. People literally walk in all directions here. If I could trace everyone’s footsteps through a Grand Central map with a pen, it would just look like a bunch of scribbles. I went up to the highest platform possible to look down at the people traveling through Grand Central. It was interesting that the whole ground space was almost evenly filled out between each person, you could imagine as if ants were filling up and covering a whole space. Usually, in most common public spaces, people tend to stick to the sides of the walls, corners of the building, or simply the information booth. Not for Grand Central, it seems like people really enjoyed being in any part of the space there. People also take their time commuting through Grand Central. In the busiest intersections in the city that never sleeps, you would imagine people to be rushing through all the time, but they were not. They were not slow, but the were definitely not rushing, just getting through it.
I loved the architecture at Grand Central, not just the building as a whole, but also its many little details I noticed. For example, the insanely accurate and intricately crafted clock at the information booth, and also the secret hidden spiral staircase in it. The spiral staircase leads to two storeys below. We do not really get such details and thought in more modern day design and architecture, so that was definitely worth observing. And then I saw the bright little Apple logo illuminating from two pillars of the walls. I figured that Apple probably had one of their offices installed at the Grand Central building. It was interesting how that obviously shiny modern day Apple logo contrasted with the historical wall pillars.
