Grand Central Terminal’s Secrets: A Self-Guided Audio Walking Tour

Grand Central Terminal is one of the world’s top ten tourist attractions, filled with hidden features and fascinating stories. It’s also the setting for hundreds of famous films and novels, from Hitchcock’s North By Northwest to Salinger’s Catcher In The Rye.

On this tour, you’ll spot the details others miss, like why its famous starry ceiling is backwards, why it has a hole for a rocket, and why they neglected to clean one tiny spot. You’ll learn how Grand Central birthed the phrase “red carpet treatment” and the word “commuter.” You’ll find out how “air rights” were first conceived here – and how they made Grand Central possible, and then nearly destroyed it.

You’ll meet Cornelius “the Commodore” Vanderbilt who turned a rowboat into a shipping empire, becoming the world’s richest man, cornering markets, ruining enemies, and building railroads… only to fall under the spell of an attractive young female clairvoyant, who channeled messages from his dead wife to cut his children out of his will.

As you walk around Grand Central Station, finding its often overlooked corners, you’ll learn how this historic landmark was created “by accident” when a horrific train wreck led to public outcries to prosecute the world’s richest family for manslaughter.

On this 90-minute tour, you’ll:

• Experience real-life dramas that took place here, from terrorist bombs in the lockers to Calvin Klein dropping a bag of cash to ransom his daughter
• Share secrets across the magical vaults of the legendary Whisper Gallery
• Figure out the secrets of the famous clock, where New Yorkers have met for over a century
• Release your inner squirrel as you hunt for acorns hidden in decorative elements throughout the station (and spot the hidden eagles and rats)
• Learn how Grand Central was saved from the wrecking ball, with a little help from Jackie Kennedy Onassis and the Supreme Court
• Get the true story of Nazi spies who landed on New York beaches by submarine to sabotage American railroads and factories
• Browse the delights of Grand Central Market, one of the best specialty food emporiums in the city
• Join the 1960’s hippies who held a ’Yip-in’... until the cops bashed their heads in
• Find the famous Lost & Found department that has successfully returned everything from live animals to dead husbands
• Drop in at the Campbell Apartment, NYC’s most elegant hideaway bar
• Locate the hidden tennis courts that anyone can use!

By the end of the tour, you’ll have a deeper appreciation for this architectural masterpiece and engineering marvel that pioneered many features now common in transportation hubs around the world.

For a live tour guide to match the experience you’ll get from this Tellbetter tour, they’d have to bring along a troupe of actors, a special effects team and a full symphony. We don’t just recite the facts, we bring Grand Central Terminal’s most fascinating stories and characters to life. No other tour (including Grand Central’s own official audio tour) comes close.

CREDITS:
Many of the stories and quotes in the tour were inspired by the excellent book Grand Central - How a Train Station Transformed America by Sam Roberts.