In recognition of the 100th birthday of one of the country’s most iconic transportation hubs—New York City’s Grand Central Terminal—on Feb. 1, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and MTA Metro-North Railroad are celebrating with a year-long party. Kicking off the year’s activities are a rededication ceremony and the opening of “Grand by Design,” an exhibit that chronicles the station’s colorful history.

The terminal is the flagship home of MTA and Metro-North.

Hosts at the Feb. 1 rededication ceremony will be Metro-North President Howard Permut, acting MTA Chairman Fernando Ferrer, and interim MTA Executive Director Tom Prendergast.

“The soaring space of Grand Central Terminal’s Main Concourse inspires locals and visitors alike and is the closest thing New York has to a town square,” Prendergast said. “The major investments of the past 15 years by Metro-North and its parent, the MTA, has restored its luster and cachet, and prepared it for another century of service.”

Other events will include a performance of the “Grand Central Centennial Fanfare,” a musical piece written for the occasion; a reading of an original poem, commissioned by MTA Arts for Transit, by former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins; and the unveiling of a new Grand Central Terminal Centennial stamp by the U.S. Postal Service.

Scheduled guests include author Caroline Kennedy, honorary co-chair of the Grand Central Centennial Committee, whose mother Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is credited with saving the terminal in the 1970s, and members of the Vanderbilt family, whose ancestor Cornelius Vanderbilt inspired railroading’s “gilded age” and the construction of Grand Central.

“As a native New Yorker, I lived through the dark and dingy days of Grand Central Terminal, when people dared not linger,” Ferrer said. “The restoration of this great public space is symbolic of the renaissance of New York City and its transportation system. Hats off to Grand Central Terminal and the visionaries who made it possible!”
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Photo courtesy of MTA Metro-North Railroad A historic shot of Grand Central Terminal under construction,  prior to its opening Feb. 1, 1913.