Grand Central Terminal stands at the true heart of Manhattan. Built at the beginning of this century it represents the ideals and aspirations of a great American city emerging as a world metropolis in the decade before World War I. Splendid and conspicuous, Grand Central is more than a building; it is not just a civic monument but the central component of an exercise in urban planning which set a new standard for New York and every other great city.

Romantic, extravagant and gargantuan as Grand Central seems to late twentieth-century sensibilities, it still embodies a practical and progressive vision of urban life which has new relevance in the aftermath of the Modern Movement.