Story highlights
Historic constructing feted as a New York authentic
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis praised for saving the architectural masterpiece
“Grand Central is everything that New York is,” mentioned actress Cynthia Nixon
Celebrities, metropolis officers and on a regular basis commuters gathered at Grand Central Terminal Friday to rejoice the 100th anniversary of the New York landmark.
Mayor Mike Bloomberg informed the gang, “It’s an emblem of all that’s nice about our metropolis. It’s rooted in an unbelievable historical past whereas additionally being totally fashionable. It represents magnificence and artwork, but additionally commerce and business.
“It’s an innovative and visionary place, and it has the same power to inspire awe and wisdom whether you walk these corridors every day or you’re visiting here for the first time.”
In his speech he referenced Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the previous first woman, who led a marketing campaign within the Nineteen Seventies to protect the constructing that was at risk of being razed for lodge improvement.
Listen: Grand Central turns 100
Memorable milestones from Grand Central’s first century
Onassis’s daughter, Caroline Kennedy, was current on the centennial celebration and spoke of her mom’s efforts to avoid wasting the architectural masterpiece. “As a native New Yorker, she cared deeply about this city. She was so upset when Penn Station was torn down, the Metropolitan Opera house, and when it came to Grand Central it was just too much. She cared about its neighborhoods, its families, its artists, its dreamers.”
iReport: Photos from the centennial celebration
The terminal which has been the background of dozens of Hollywood films and tv exhibits all through the years, introduced out a number of celebrities, together with former Mets star Keith Hernandez and Grammy award singer Melissa Manchester to talk and carry out.
Actress Cynthia Nixon of “Sex and the City” fame, mentioned “Grand Central is everything that New York is. It’s big, its loud, its functional, its dysfunctional, it’s crowded, it’s noisy but it is something that New York is too that we sometimes forget: It is so beautiful.”
As the formal program for the celebrations wrapped up, a cake within the type of the terminal’s clock was rolled out and the whole grand corridor of individuals sang “Happy Birthday.”