(rshsdepot) Grand Central Terminal

[Bernie Wagenblast <brwagenblast_@_comcast.net>]

More work coming at Grand Central
By CAREN HALBFINGER
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: April 21, 2003)

Five years after Metro-North Railroad wrapped up the most dramatic aspects
of its restoration of Grand Central Terminal, the railroad is preparing to
do more needed work on the 1913 landmark building.

This time, the focus is on preserving its exterior surfaces. What will be
apparent to commuters are the stone repairs and the cleaning of the
building's facade for the first time in 30 years. The railroad also wants to
repaint the cast-iron frames surrounding the hundreds of glass panes that
make up the terminal's two monumental windows on the east and west side, and
the half-moon windows to the north and south.

"It's great that they keep doing this," said Frank E. Sanchis III, an
architect who is executive director of the Municipal Art Society, which
played a major role in preserving Grand Central for posterity.

"With a building like this, the repair work never ends," he said. "You start
at one end, finish at another, and then start all over again. Those windows
are a major feature of the building. They're getting down to the final
things now. It's also commendable they're putting money into parts you won't
see. To prevent any water damage to the work they've already done makes
eminent sense."

The railroad plans to hire a construction company that also will repoint
brick walls, reroof some areas and repair broken grilles and panes of glass
in five skylights in two interior roof courtyards. They are not seen by the
public, but provide light and air to the terminal.

The work is expected to cost upward of $10 million and will take several
years to complete. The railroad is seeking bidders and is expected to choose
a contractor in the next few months. The project's first phase is expected
to begin in late summer and take about 20 months. It will include the roof
courtyard, facade and window work on the Vanderbilt Avenue, or west side,
where the limestone facade will be cleaned to a luminescent shine.

The only anticipated effect on commuters would be the possible closing of
one lane of the Park Avenue viaduct over Vanderbilt Avenue to create a
staging area for scaffolding needed to reach up and over the building to the
roof courtyards.

The terminal's facade was in relatively good shape 15 years ago, when the
railroad commissioned a master plan to outline and set priorities for
renovations, so the pending restorations were tabled. Now they're necessary,
said Wayne Ehmann, the chief architect for the railroad.

On a recent tour of the building intended to highlight the work to come,
Ehmann pointed out visible cracks and bulges in brick walls indicating water
damage in the interior roof courtyards. Repointing the bricks is expected to
take care of that problem, while cleaning them will add wattage to the
terminal's interior, because daylight bounces off the brick walls and pours
in through the skylights. After climbing through a 4-foot-high door that
affords the only roof courtyard access, Ehmann also pointed out broken wire
grilles and cracked panes on the five skylights that are in need of repairs.
Reroofing sections of the flat roof over the Oyster Bar restaurant's ramps
and the north balcony is also part of the plan.

"It's gotten to the point where we have to do something," Ehmann said.

Bijal Shah, 31, a diamond dealer who commutes to Manhattan from Scarsdale,
said he was all for any work done to preserve the terminal's beauty and
integrity.

"It's a gorgeous building," Shah said as he stood in the vestibule of a
Harlem Line train en route to Grand Central. "I think it's worth it."

In May of last year, the railroad hired a preservation firm that used bucket
trucks to inspect and number every stone on the building's facade,
identifying which ones were crumbling and had to be replaced. The decay was
worse than the railroad anticipated, so protective netting was placed around
the cornices on the building's east, south and west sides, about 55 feet
above the street. That netting will be removed after the loose stones in the
cornices are replaced and the cracks in a thin lip of stone, called Ogee
molding, are repaired. The stones also will be cleaned.

"It'll make the building pop," Ehmann said. "It'll be gorgeous."

Railroad officials said that after the project's first phase is completed,
they hope to secure financing for what remains of the job, on the terminal's
south and east sides, in the next capital plan, which runs from 2005 to
2009.

Weekly tours of Grand Central are offered by the Municipal Art Society. The
tours meet at 12:30 p.m. Wednesdays at the station's information booth.


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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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