‘Grand Central’ authors pay homage to iconic train station
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The authors of Grand Central, an anthology of stories that pay homage to Grand Central Terminal, all taking place on the same day just after the end of World War II, join HEA to share their personal stories about the venerable New York landmark. Grand Central: Original Stories of Postwar Love and Reunion is out now.
Melanie Benjamin, author of The Kissing Room
I was delighted to discover the Biltmore Room in Grand Central Terminal; a waiting room near the platform where the troop trains arrived. Nicknamed “The Kissing Room,” because of the amorous reunions it hosted, this room also had a secret little elevator to whisk guests right up to the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel. Many a secret assignation began in that room. This was also where the 20th-century Limited arrived, the famous train bearing passengers, often celebrities, from Los Angeles. Movie stars galore used that elevator to go right up to the Biltmore, some married to each other, some not! I was so enamored by the romance of this room that I used it as the inspiration for my short story, The Kissing Room.
Jenna Blum, author of The Lucky One
My dad, Bob Blum, used to dash across Grand Central’s main terminal catwalk several times daily as a young CBS correspondent, running copy from newsroom to studio and back — because CBS’ first broadcasts were from Grand Central Terminal. The pictures on people’s television sets used to shake when the trains came in!
My novella, The Lucky One, is inspired in part by my dad and also by a Holocaust survivor I interviewed for the Steven Spielberg Survivors of the Shoah Foundation. The Lucky One features a young concentration camp survivor named Peter Rashkin — who’s about the age my dad was when he started at CBS — working at the Oyster Bar, trying to acclimate to his new country, and outrun the memories of the daily he left behind.
Amanda Hodgkinson, author of Tin Town
Grand Central Terminal is famed for spacious marbled halls and elegant Beaux arts-inspired architecture, but its beauty also lies in its details. I particularly love the chandeliers hanging in the Main Concourse. They hark back to a time when electricity was synonymous with modernity, and their shimmering lights convey a theatrical, gilded glamour. Made by the Sterling Bronze Co. of New York over a hundred years ago, these ornate chandeliers are still lighting the paths of travelers today.
It is under these gorgeous chandeliers that my story, Tin Town, starts. A young English girl, Molly, waits with her mother amid the hustle and bustle of passengers. The two of them have sailed from Britain to New York to be reunited with Jack, a pilot who married Molly’s mother during the war. Molly has never traveled so far in her life. Her home until now has been a farm in a sleepy little British village. Several years earlier, the family’s land was turned into an airfield and 3,000 American servicemen, with squadrons of bomber planes and their aircrew, arrived in the village. That was the summer that Molly’s mother and Jack met and fell in love … Now the GI bride and her homesick daughter stand in Grand Central, waiting to begin a new life …
Pam Jenoff, author of Strand of Pearls
My favorite fun fact about Grand Central Terminal is that the power sub-station was targeted by the Axis powers. They thought if they poured sand in the rotary mechanism, it would turn to glass. They hoped to stop the trains and prevent thousands of American soldiers from deploying!
Inspired by my own grandmother’s true story, Strand of Pearls, is about Ella, a young girl who makes the courageous journey from China to America to be reunited with her father. At Grand Central, she meets David, an enigmatic young artist headed west after losing his whole family to the Holocaust. She leaves David to find her father. But when Ella discovers a devastating secret about her own family, she must make a fateful choice that will affect her life forever.
Sarah Jio, author of I’ll Be Seeing You
One of my favorite features of Grand Central is what’s known as the Whispering Gallery. Because of the angles of the architecture, someone can whisper something from one end of the terminal, and another can hear it from the opposite end if they’re standing in just the right spot.
Jazz great Charles Mingus (a favorite of mine) reportedly proposed to his girlfriend at Grand Central via a whisper of this exact nature, and guess what? She said yes.
About I’ll Be Seeing You: A woman is torn between two worlds: a man she has fallen in love with during the war, and who has just proposed, and a past that continues to haunt her. On the train from New York City to her hometown, Seattle, with the help of a stranger she’s seated beside, she reflects on her life — where it’s taken her and where it’s heading now. And she not only gets the shock of her life when the train arrives in Seattle, but also finds that her journey is far from over. In fact, it’s only just begun.
Sarah McCoy, author of The Branch of Hazel
When I think of Grand Central, I don’t envision luggage or a train but a clock. The Grand Central Terminal Clock. Four striking opal faces valued by Christie’s at $10 million to $20 million glow bright, welcoming and accessible to all. The pointed brass topper is more than style. It’s a compass aligned to true north. She’s the railroad’s version of Lady Liberty! Equally photographed, ignored in the rush of day-to-day, relied upon and glamorized in art, literature, film and American lore since 1913. But did you know that below her surface there’s a trapdoor and a spiral staircase leading down to the lower level? Yes, because even the most renowned icons have their secrets. Don’t we all?
In my novella, The Branch of Hazel, we are introduced to a woman who fits the perfect definition a Hollywood blond bombshell. She’s just entered the United States en route to her only relation not intertwined in the politics of post-war Europe. Despite her new all-American bob and charming looks, she harbors the darkest secrets of the Nazi Lebensborn Program, murder and a name not hers to claim. On the train from Grand Central to Boston, she’s confronted by a blind man who sees the truth beneath her assumed identity.
Kristina McMorris, author of The Reunion
Among the many secrets of Grand Central Terminal, my personal favorite is a private platform buried 200 feet below the station used by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. When traveling to New York, in an effort to conceal his paralysis and thus maintain his political standing, he would ride there in an armored diesel train wide enough to carry his personal car. He could then be driven straight onto the secret platform and into an elevator that would deliver him to the garage of the Waldorf Astoria hotel, bypassing the need to walk in public. Virtually unknown until the late ’80s, this so-called “Roosevelt Platform” continues to host what is now a vacant, decaying train car that once played a significant role in history.
Similarly, just as significant and also lesser known, is the inspiration behind my novella, The Reunion. They are the extraordinary members of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASP. Featured in the story is a female ferrying pilot whose life is forever changed by a wartime tragedy. Only by facing her past, and coming to terms with her guilt, will she ever have a chance to move on with her life.
Alyson Richman, author of Going Home
Grand Central contains a motif of oak leaves and acorns throughout the terminal. You can find these beautiful touches on the top of the information booth in the center of the main floor, in many the bronze lamps, and even on top of the main clock near the central kiosk. These decorative flourishes are in honor of the Vanderbilt family who, in 1871, gave $6.4 million to help finance the construction of the original terminal. It’s hard to believe that Cornelius Vanderbilt, the family’s patriarch, became one of the richest men in history even though he came from a modest background and left school before at the age of 11.
In my story for the Grand Central anthology, both of the main characters have come to America searching for safety and for a better life. Gregori, a Russian émigré, is a talented violinist who performs in a quiet alcove of the main terminal for the commuters’ spare change. One day, he spots a beautiful young dancer named Liesel passing by. He suspects that she’s a newly arrived immigrant, and he dedicates his playing to her, hoping to gain her attention by performing pieces she may recognize from her European homeland.
The acorns and oaks were placed throughout Grand Central to reinforce the idea of the Vanderbilt’s family motto: From tiny acorns great oaks grow. Both of my characters have overcome great hardship and work several jobs in order to pursue their artistic goals here. I would like to think they will one day also flourish, another fruitful seed of the American dream.
Erika Robuck, author of I’ll Walk Alone
Like everyone who travels through Grand Central Terminal, I am captivated by the massive, cathedral-like ceiling. It draws the eye from the mundane business of transportation to the heavens. Apparently, the constellations are backward, but Vanderbilt said that was done intentionally, to illustrate the perspective of the Divine.
My character recalls the night she walked with her husband under such a sky, and how the constellations are like a map of old scars on her body. She has brought her son to the station to see his father, a returning soldier, for the first time since her son was a baby, and yet she does not want her husband to come home. He will bring a war to her.
Karen White, author of The Harvest Season
A farm in the Mississippi Delta sustains, spiritually and physically, two brothers and the woman they love. Following the war, when only one brother steps from the train, the remaining two must piece together their lives in a world they barely recognize — a world where racial and gender roles are changing, where childhood bonds slip away to claim stronger emotions, and where the best secrets are those that are never told.
In 1975, Grand Central’s landmark designation was voided, clearing the way for it to be demolished and replaced by a modern office tower. The magnificent Beaux arts masterpiece had become seedy and dangerous, its cerulean ceiling blackened with nicotine soot, yet Jackie Kennedy and a group of preservationists, eager to avoid Penn Station’s fate, stepped up to the plate. “If we don’t care about our past, we can’t have very much hope for our future,” Jackie implored at an Oyster Bar press conference. Happily, the mayor and New York City’s citizens agreed, paving the way for the restoration of one of the most wonderful public spaces in America.
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