MY OZ

When Manhattan's grand tribute to railroad travel, Pennsylvania Station was torn down in 1963, architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable wrote:

We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.

Touché.

So even though Manhattanites continued to mourn the loss of such an architectural gem, I was surprised to read many years ago that a little over 10 years after Penn Station was razed, Grand Central Terminal almost suffered the same fate. A half-hearted attempt to save the aging and decaying structure was begun, but it wasn't until Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis got involved that Grand Central was eventually saved.

Grand Central Terminal turned 100 this past weekend and having walked through it hundreds of times during the 10 years I lived there, I can't even imagine what New York City would be like without it.

Happy Birthday, GCT.