title: Nuclear reactor

text: At the end of the operating cycle, the fuel in some of the assemblies is "spent", having spent four to six years in the reactor producing power. This spent fuel is discharged and replaced with new (fresh) fuel assemblies. Though considered "spent," these fuel assemblies contain a large quantity of fuel. In practice it is economics that determines the lifetime of nuclear fuel in a reactor. Long before all possible fission has taken place, the reactor is unable to maintain 100%, full output power, and therefore, income for the utility lowers as plant output power lowers. Most nuclear plants operate at a very low profit margin due to operating overhead, mainly regulatory costs, so operating below 100% power is not economically viable for very long. The fraction of the reactor's fuel core replaced during refueling is typically one-third, but depends on how long the plant operates between refueling. Plants typically operate on 18 month refueling cycles, or 24 month refueling cycles. This means that one refueling, replacing only one-third of the fuel, can keep a nuclear reactor at full power for nearly two years. The disposition and storage of this spent fuel is one of the most challenging aspects of the operation of a commercial nuclear power plant. This nuclear waste is highly radioactive and its toxicity presents a danger for thousands of years. After being discharged from the reactor, spent nuclear fuel is transferred to the on-site spent fuel pool. The spent fuel pool is a large pool of water that provides cooling and shielding of the spent nuclear fuel. Once the energy has decayed somewhat (approximately five years), the fuel can be transferred from the fuel pool to dry shielded casks, that can be safely stored for thousands of years. After loading into dry shielded casks, the casks are stored on-site in a specially guarded facility in impervious concrete bunkers. On-site fuel storage facilities are designed to withstand the impact of commercial airliners, with little to no damage to the spent fuel. An average on-site fuel storage facility can hold 30 years of spent fuel in a space smaller than a football field.


title: Nuclear reactor

text: Not all reactors need to be shut down for refueling; for example, pebble bed reactors, RBMK reactors, molten-salt reactors, Magnox, AGR and CANDU reactors allow fuel to be shifted through the reactor while it is running. In a CANDU reactor, this also allows individual fuel elements to be situated within the reactor core that are best suited to the amount of U-235 in the fuel element.


title: Nuclear reactor

text: The amount of energy extracted from nuclear fuel is called its burnup, which is expressed in terms of the heat energy produced per initial unit of fuel weight. Burnup is commonly expressed as megawatt days thermal per metric ton of initial heavy metal.


title: Nuclear reactor

text: Nuclear safety covers the actions taken to prevent nuclear and radiation accidents and incidents or to limit their consequences. The nuclear power industry has improved the safety and performance of reactors, and has proposed new, safer (but generally untested) reactor designs but there is no guarantee that the reactors will be designed, built and operated correctly. Mistakes do occur and the designers of reactors at Fukushima in Japan did not anticipate that a tsunami generated by an earthquake would disable the backup systems that were supposed to stabilize the reactor after the earthquake, despite multiple warnings by the NRG and the Japanese nuclear safety administration. According to UBS AG, the Fukushima I nuclear accidents have cast doubt on whether even an advanced economy like Japan can master nuclear safety. Catastrophic scenarios involving terrorist attacks are also conceivable. An interdisciplinary team from MIT has estimated that given the expected growth of nuclear power from 2005 to 2055, at least four serious nuclear accidents would be expected in that period.


title: Nuclear reactor

text: Serious, though rare, nuclear and radiation accidents have occurred. These include the Windscale fire (October 1957), the SL-1 accident (1961), the Three Mile Island accident (1979), Chernobyl disaster (April 1986), and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (March 2011). Nuclear-powered submarine mishaps include the K-19 reactor accident (1961), the K-27 reactor accident (1968), and the K-431 reactor accident (1985).


title: Nuclear reactor

text: Nuclear reactors have been launched into Earth orbit at least 34 times. A number of incidents connected with the unmanned nuclear-reactor-powered Soviet RORSAT especially Kosmos 954 radar satellite which resulted in nuclear fuel reentering the Earth's atmosphere from orbit and being dispersed in northern Canada (January 1978).


title: Nuclear reactor

text: Almost two billion years ago a series of self-sustaining nuclear fission "reactors" self-assembled in the area now known as Oklo in Gabon, West Africa. The conditions at that place and time allowed a natural nuclear fission to occur with circumstances that are similar to the conditions in a constructed nuclear reactor. Fifteen fossil natural fission reactors have so far been found in three separate ore deposits at the Oklo uranium mine in Gabon. First discovered in 1972 by French physicist Francis Perrin, they are collectively known as the Oklo Fossil Reactors. Self-sustaining nuclear fission reactions took place in these reactors approximately 1.5 billion years ago, and ran for a few hundred thousand years, averaging 100 kW of power output during that time. The concept of a natural nuclear reactor was theorized as early as 1956 by Paul Kuroda at the University of Arkansas.


title: Nuclear reactor

text: Such reactors can no longer form on Earth in its present geologic period. Radioactive decay of formerly more abundant uranium-235 over the time span of hundreds of millions of years has reduced the proportion of this naturally occurring fissile isotope to below the amount required to sustain a chain reaction with only plain water as a moderator.


title: Nuclear reactor

text: The natural nuclear reactors formed when a uranium-rich mineral deposit became inundated with groundwater that acted as a neutron moderator, and a strong chain reaction took place. The water moderator would boil away as the reaction increased, slowing it back down again and preventing a meltdown. The fission reaction was sustained for hundreds of thousands of years, cycling on the order of hours to a few days.


title: Nuclear reactor

text: These natural reactors are extensively studied by scientists interested in geologic radioactive waste disposal. They offer a case study of how radioactive isotopes migrate through the Earth's crust. This is a significant area of controversy as opponents of geologic waste disposal fear that isotopes from stored waste could end up in water supplies or be carried into the environment.


title: Nuclear reactor

text: Nuclear reactors produce tritium as part of normal operations, which is eventually released into the environment in trace quantities.


title: Nuclear reactor

text: As an isotope of hydrogen, tritium (T) frequently binds to oxygen and forms TO. This molecule is chemically identical to HO and so is both colorless and odorless, however the additional neutrons in the hydrogen nuclei cause the tritium to undergo beta decay with a half-life of 12.3 years. Despite being measurable, the tritium released by nuclear power plants is minimal. The United States NRC estimates that a person drinking water for one year out of a well contaminated by what they would consider to be a significant tritiated water spill would receive a radiation dose of 0.3 millirem. For comparison, this is an order of magnitude less than the 4 millirem a person receives on a round trip flight from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles, a consequence of less atmospheric protection against highly energetic cosmic rays at high altitudes.


title: Nuclear reactor

text: The amounts of strontium-90 released from nuclear power plants under normal operations is so low as to be undetectable above natural background radiation. Detectable strontium-90 in ground water and the general environment can be traced to weapons testing that occurred during the mid-20th century (accounting for 99% of the Strontium-90 in the environment) and the Chernobyl accident (accounting for the remaining 1%).


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Gilgit-Baltistan (; ), formerly known as the Northern Areas, is a region administered by Pakistan as an administrative territory, and constituting the northern portion of the larger Kashmir region which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947, and between India and China from somewhat later. It borders Azad Kashmir to the south, the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the west, the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan to the north, the Xinjiang region of China, to the east and northeast, and the Indian-administered union territories Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh to the southeast.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: The region, together with Azad Kashmir in the southwest, is grouped and referred to by the United Nations and other international organisations as "Pakistan-administered Kashmir".


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: The territory of present-day Gilgit-Baltistan became a separate administrative unit in 1970 under the name "Northern Areas". It was formed by the amalgamation of the former Gilgit Agency, the Baltistan district, and several small former princely states, the largest of which were Hunza and Nagar. In 2009, the region was renamed to "Gilgit-Baltistan" and granted limited autonomy through the Self-Governance Order signed in by former Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari, a move that was reportedly intended to also empower the territory's people; however, scholars state that the real power rests with the governor and not with the chief minister or elected assembly. Much of the population of Gilgit-Baltistan reportedly wants the territory to become integrated with Pakistan proper as a fifth province, and opposes integration with the rest of the Kashmir region. The Pakistani government had rejected calls from the territory for provincial status on the grounds that granting such a request would jeopardise Pakistan's demands for the entire Kashmir conflict to be resolved according to all related United Nations resolutions. However, in November 2020, Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan announced that Gilgit-Baltistan would attain provisional provincial status after the 2020 Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly election.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Gilgit-Baltistan covers an area of over 72,971 km (28,174 sq mi) and is highly mountainous. It had an estimated population of 1.249 million people in 2013 (estimated to be 1.8 million in 2015 by ). Its capital city is Gilgit (est. population 216,760). The region is home to five of the 14 eight-thousanders, including K2, and additionally has more than fifty mountain peaks above 7,000 metres (23,000 ft). Three of the world's longest glaciers outside of Earth's polar regions are found in Gilgit-Baltistan. The main tourism activities are trekking and mountaineering, and this industry has been growing in importance throughout the region.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: The rock carvings found in various places in Gilgit-Baltistan, especially in the Passu village of Hunza, suggest a human presence since 2000 BC. Within the next few centuries of human settlement on the Tibetan plateau, this region became inhabited by Tibetans, who preceded the Balti people of Baltistan. Today Baltistan bears similarity to Ladakh physically and culturally (although not in religion). Dards are found mainly in the western areas. These people are the Shina-speaking peoples of Gilgit, Chilas, Astore and Diamir, while in Hunza and the upper regions, Burushaski and Khowar speakers predominate. The Dards find mention in the works of Herodotus, Nearchus, Megasthenes, Pliny, Ptolemy, and the geographical lists of the Puranas. In the 1st century, the people of these regions were followers of the Bon religion while in the 2nd century, they practiced Buddhism.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Between 399 and 414, the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Faxian visited Gilgit-Baltistan. In the 6th century Somana Palola (greater Gilgit-Chilas) was ruled by an unknown king. Between 627 and 645, the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang travelled through this region on his pilgrimage to India.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: According to Chinese records from the Tang dynasty, between the 600s and the 700s, the region was governed by a Buddhist dynasty referred to as "Bolü" (), also transliterated as "Palola", "Patola", "Balur". They are believed to have been the Patola Shahis dynasty mentioned in a Brahmi inscription, and devout adherents of Vajrayana Buddhism. At the time, Little Palola () was used to refer to Gilgit, while Great Palola () was used to refer to Baltistan. However, the records do not consistently disambiguate the two.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: In mid-600s, Gilgit came under Chinese suzerainty after the fall of the Western Turkic Khaganate to Tang military campaigns in the region. In the late 600s CE, the rising Tibetan Empire wrestled control of the region from the Chinese. However, faced with growing influence of the Umayyad Caliphate and then the Abbasid Caliphate to the west, the Tibetans were forced to ally themselves with the Islamic caliphates. The region was then contested by Chinese and Tibetan forces, and their respective vassal states, until the mid-700s. Rulers of Gilgit formed an alliance with the Tang Chinese, and held back the Arabs with their help.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Between 644 and 655, "Navasurendrāditya-nandin" became king of the Palola Sāhi dynasty in Gilgit. Numerous Sanskrit inscriptions, including the Danyor Rock Inscriptions, were discovered to be from his reign. In the late 600s and early 700s, Jayamaṅgalavikramāditya-nandin was king of Gilgit.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: According to Chinese court records, in 717 and 719 respectively, delegations of a ruler of Great Palola (Baltistan) named Su-fu-she-li-ji-li-ni () reached the Chinese imperial court. By at least 719/720, Ladakh (Mard) became part of the Tibetan Empire. By that time, Buddhism was practised in Baltistan, and Sanskrit was the written language.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: In 720, the delegation of "Surendrāditya" () reached the Chinese imperial court. He was referred to in Chinese records as the king of Great Palola; however, it is unknown if Baltistan was under Gilgit rule at the time. The Chinese emperor also granted the ruler of Cashmere, Chandrāpīḍa ("Tchen-fo-lo-pi-li"), the title of "King of Cashmere". By 721/722, Baltistan had come under the influence of the Tibetan Empire.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: In 721–722, the Tibetan army attempted but failed to capture Gilgit or Bruzha (Yasin valley). By this time, according to Chinese records, the king of Little Palola was Mo-ching-mang (). He had visited the Tang court requesting military assistance against the Tibetans. Between 723 and 728, the Korean Buddhist pilgrim Hyecho passed through this area. In 737/738, Tibetan troops under the leadership of Minister Bel Kyesang Dongtsab of Emperor Me Agtsom took control of Little Palola. By 747, the Chinese army under the leadership of the ethnic-Korean commander Gao Xianzhi had recaptured Little Palola. Great Palola was subsequently captured by the Chinese army in 753 under military Governor Feng Changqing. However, by 755, due to the An Lushan rebellion, the Tang Chinese forces withdrew and were no longer able to exert influence in Central Asia or in the regions around Gilgit-Baltistan. The control of the region was left to the Tibetan Empire. They referred to the region as Bruzha, a toponym that is consistent with the ethnonym "Burusho" used today. Tibetan control of the region lasted until late-800s CE.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Turkic tribes practising Zoroastrianism arrived in Gilgit during the 7th century, and founded the Trakhan dynasty in Gilgit.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: In the 14th century, Sufi Muslim preachers from Persia and Central Asia introduced Islam in Baltistan. Famous amongst them was Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani, who came through Kashmir while in the Gilgit region Islam entered in the same century through Turkic Tarkhan rulers. Gilgit-Baltistan was ruled by many local rulers, amongst whom the Maqpon dynasty of Skardu and the Rajas of Hunza were famous. The Maqpons of Skardu unified Gilgit-Baltistan with Chitral and Ladakh, especially in the era of Ali Sher Khan Anchan who had friendly relations with the Mughal court. Anchan's reign brought prosperity and entertained art, sport, and variety in architecture. He introduced polo to the Gilgit region, and sent a group of musicians from Chitral to Delhi to learn Indian music; Mughal architecture influenced the architecture of the region as well under his reign. Later Anchan in his successors Abdal Khan had great influence though in the popular literature of Baltistan, where he is still alive as a dark figure by the nickname "Mizos", "man-eater". The last Maqpon Raja, Ahmed Shah, ruled all of Baltistan between 1811 and 1840. The areas of Gilgit, Chitral and Hunza had already become independent of the Maqpons.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Before the demise of Shribadat, a group of Shina people migrated from Gilgit Dardistan and settled in the Dras and Kharmang areas. The descendants of those Dardic people can be still found today, and are believed to have maintained their Dardic culture and Shina language up to the present time.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: In November 1839, Dogra commander Zorawar Singh, whose allegiance was to Gulab Singh, started his campaign against Baltistan. By 1840 he conquered Skardu and captured its ruler, Ahmad Shah. Ahmad Shah was then forced to accompany Zorawar Singh on his raid into Western Tibet. Meanwhile, Baghwan Singh was appointed as administrator (thanadar) in Skardu. But in the following year, Ali Khan of Rondu, Haidar Khan of Shigar and Daulat Ali Khan from Khaplu led a successful uprising against the Dogras in Baltistan and captured the Dogra commander Baghwan Singh in Skardu.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: In 1842, Dogra Commander Wasir Lakhpat, with the active support of Ali Sher Khan (III) from Kartaksho, conquered Baltistan for the second time. There was a violent capture of the fortress of Kharphocho. Haidar Khan from Shigar, one of the leaders of the uprising against the Dogras, was imprisoned and died in captivity. Gosaun was appointed as administrator (Thanadar) of Baltistan and till 1860, the entire region of Gilgit-Baltistan was under the Sikhs and then the Dogras.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: After the defeat of the Sikhs in the First Anglo-Sikh War, the region became a part of the Jammu and Kashmir princely state, which since 1846 had remained under the rule of the Dogras. The population in Gilgit perceived itself as ethnically different from Kashmiris and disliked being ruled by the Kashmir state. The region remained with the princely state, with temporary leases of some areas assigned to the British, until 1 November 1947.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: After Pakistan's independence, Jammu and Kashmir initially remained an independent state. Later on 22 October 1947, tribal militias backed by Pakistan crossed the border into Jammu and Kashmir after Poonch rebellion and Jammu Muslim massacre. Hari Singh made a plea to India for assistance and signed the Instrument of Accession, making his state a part of India. India air-lifted troops to defend the Kashmir Valley and the invaders were pushed back behind Uri.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Gilgit's population did not favour the State's accession to India. The Muslims of the "frontier ilaqas" (Gilgit and the adjoining hill states) had wanted to join Pakistan. Sensing their discontent, Major William Brown, the Maharaja's commander of the Gilgit Scouts, mutinied on 1 November 1947, overthrowing the governor Ghansara Singh. The bloodless "coup d'état" was planned by Brown to the last detail under the code name "Datta Khel", which was also joined by a rebellious section of the Jammu and Kashmir State Forces under Mirza Hassan Khan. Brown ensured that the treasury was secured and minorities were protected. A provisional government ("Aburi Hakoomat") was established by the Gilgit locals with Raja Shah Rais Khan as the president and Mirza Hassan Khan as the commander-in-chief. However, Major Brown had already telegraphed Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan asking Pakistan to take over. Pakistan's political agent, Khan Mohammad Alam Khan, arrived on 16 November and took over the administration of Gilgit. Brown outmaneuvered the pro-Independence group and secured the approval of the mirs and rajas for accession to Pakistan. According to Brown,


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: The provisional government lasted 16 days. According to scholar Yaqub Khan Bangash, it lacked sway over the population. The Gilgit rebellion did not have civilian involvement and was solely the work of military leaders, not all of whom had been in favour of joining Pakistan, at least in the short term. Historian Ahmed Hasan Dani says that although there had been a lack of public participation in the rebellion, pro-Pakistan sentiments were intense in the civilian population and their anti-Kashmiri sentiments were also clear. According to various scholars, the people of Gilgit as well as those of Chilas, Koh Ghizr, Ishkoman, Yasin, Punial, Hunza and Nagar joined Pakistan by choice.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: After taking control of Gilgit, the Gilgit Scouts along with Azad irregulars moved towards Baltistan and Ladakh and captured Skardu by May 1948. They successfully blocked Indian reinforcements sent to relieve Skardu, and proceeded towards Kargil and Leh. Indian forces mounted an offensive in the autumn of 1948 to push them back from Ladakh, but Baltistan came into the rebels' territory.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: On 1 January 1948, India took the issue of Jammu and Kashmir to the United Nations Security Council. In April 1948, the Council passed a resolution calling for Pakistan to withdraw from all of Jammu and Kashmir and for India to reduce its forces to the minimum level, following which a plebiscite would be held to ascertain the people's wishes. However, no withdrawal was ever carried out. India insisted that Pakistan had to withdraw first and Pakistan contended there was no guarantee that India would withdraw afterwards. Gilgit-Baltistan, along with the western districts that came to be called Azad Kashmir, have remained under the control of Pakistan ever since.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: While the residents of Gilgit-Baltistan expressed a desire to join Pakistan after gaining independence from Maharaja Hari Singh, Pakistan declined to merge the region into itself because of the territory's link to Jammu and Kashmir. For a short period after joining Pakistan, Gilgit-Baltistan was governed by Azad Kashmir if only "theoretically, but not practically" through its claim of being an alternative government for Jammu and Kashmir. In 1949, the Government of Azad Kashmir handed over the administration of Gilgit-Baltistan to the federal government under the Karachi Agreement. According to Indian journalist Paul Sahni, this is seen as an effort by Pakistan to legitimise its rule over Gilgit-Baltistan.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: According to Pakistani analyst Ershad Mahmud, there were two reasons why administration was transferred from Azad Kashmir to Pakistan:


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: According to the International Crisis Group, the Karachi Agreement is highly unpopular in Gilgit-Baltistan because Gilgit-Baltistan was not a party to it even while it was its own fate was being decided.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: From then until the 1990s, Gilgit-Baltistan was governed through the colonial-era Frontier Crimes Regulations, which were originally created for the northwest tribal regions. They treated tribal people as "barbaric and uncivilised," levying collective fines and punishments. People had no right to legal representation or appeal. Members of tribes had to obtain prior permission from the police to travel anywhere, and had to keep the police informed about their movements. There was no democratic set-up during this period. All political and judicial powers remained in the hands of the Ministry of Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas (KANA). The people of Gilgit-Baltistan were deprived of rights enjoyed by citizens of Pakistan and Azad Kashmir.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: A primary reason for this state of affairs was the remoteness of Gilgit-Baltistan. Another factor was that the whole of Pakistan itself was deficient in democratic norms and principles, therefore the federal government did not prioritise democratic development in the region. There was also a lack of public pressure as an active civil society was absent in the region, with young educated residents usually opting to live in Pakistan's urban centers instead of staying in the region.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: In 1970 the two parts of the territory, viz., the Gilgit Agency and Baltistan, were merged into a single administrative unit, and given the name "Northern Areas". The Shaksgam tract was ceded by Pakistan to China following the signing of the Sino-Pakistani Frontier Agreement in 1963. In 1969, a Northern Areas Advisory Council (NAAC) was created, later renamed to Northern Areas Council (NAC) in 1974 and Northern Areas Legislative Council (NALC) in 1994. But it was devoid of legislative powers. All law-making was concentrated in the KANA Ministry of Pakistan. In 1994, a Legal Framework Order (LFO) was created by the KANA Ministry to serve as the "de facto" constitution for the region.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: In 1974, the former State Subject law was abolished in Gilgit Baltistan, and Pakistanis from other areas could buy land and settle.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: In 1984 the territory's importance shot up within Pakistan with the opening of the Karakoram Highway and the region's population became more connected to mainland Pakistan. The improved connectivity facilitated the local population to avail itself of educational opportunities in the rest of Pakistan. Italso allowed the political parties of Pakistan and Azad Kashmir to set up local branches, raise political awareness in the region. According to Ershad Mahmud, these Pakistani political parties have played a 'laudable role' in organising a movement for democratic rights among the residents of Gilgit-Baltistan.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: In the 1988 Gilgit Massacre, groups of Islamist Sunnis, supported by Osama bin Laden, Pervez Musharraf, General Zia-ul Haq and Mirza Aslam Beg slaughtered hundreds of local Shias.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: In the late 1990s, the President of Al-Jihad Trust filed a petition in the Supreme Court of Pakistan to determine the legal status of Gilgit-Baltistan. In its judgement of 28 May 1999, the Court directed the Government of Pakistan to ensure the provision of equal rights to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan, and gave it six months to do so. Following the Supreme Court decision, the government took several steps to devolve power to the local level. However, in several policy circles, the point was raised that the Pakistani government was helpless to comply with the court verdict because of the strong political and sectarian divisions in Gilgit-Baltistan and also because of the territory's historical connection with the still disputed Kashmir region, and that this prevented the determination of Gilgit-Baltistan's real status.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: A position of 'Deputy Chief Executive' was created to act as the local administrator, but the real powers still rested with the 'Chief Executive', who was the Federal Minister of KANA. "The secretaries were more powerful than the concerned advisors," in the words of one commentator. In spite of various reforms packages over the years, the situation is essentially unchanged. Meanwhile, public rage in Gilgit-Baltistan "[grew] alarmingly." Prominent "antagonist groups" have mushroomed protesting the absence of civic rights and democracy. The Pakistani government has debated granting provincial status to Gilgit-Baltistan.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Gilgit-Baltistan has been a member state of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization since 2008.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: According to Antia Mato Bouzas, the PPP-led Pakistani government has attempted a compromise through its 2009 reforms between its traditional stand on the Kashmir dispute and the demands of locals, most of whom may have pro-Pakistan sentiments. While the 2009 reforms have added to the self-identification of the region, they have not resolved the constitutional status of the region within Pakistan.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: According to 2010 news reports, the people of Gilgit-Baltistan want to merge into Pakistan as a separate fifth province. However, as of 2015 leaders of Azad Kashmir were opposed to any step towards integrating Gilgit-Baltistan into Pakistan. The people of Gilgit-Baltistan have opposed integration with Azad Kashmir. They desire Pakistani citizenship and a constitutional status for their region.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: In 2016, for the first time in the country's Constitution, Gilgit-Baltistan had been mentioned by name.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: In September 2020, it was reported that Pakistan decided to elevate Gilgit-Baltistan's status to that of a full-fledged province.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: The territory of present-day Gilgit-Baltistan became a separate administrative unit in 1970 under the name "Northern Areas". It was formed by the amalgamation of the former Gilgit Agency, the Baltistan District of the Ladakh Wazarat and the hill states of Hunza and Nagar. It presently consists of fourteen districts, has a population approaching one million and an area of approximately , and shares borders with Pakistan, China, Afghanistan, and India. In 1993, an attempt was made by the High Court of Azad Jammu and Kashmir to annex Gilgit-Baltistan but was quashed by the Supreme Court of Pakistan after protests by the locals of Gilgit-Baltistan, who feared domination by the Kashmiris.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Government of Pakistan abolished State Subject Rule in Gilgit-Baltistan in 1974, which resulted in demographic changes in the territory. While administratively controlled by Pakistan since the First Kashmir War, Gilgit-Baltistan has never been formally integrated into the Pakistani state and does not participate in Pakistan's constitutional political affairs. On 29 August 2009, the Gilgit-Baltistan Empowerment and Self-Governance Order 2009, was passed by the Pakistani cabinet and later signed by the then President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari. The order granted self-rule to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan, by creating, among other things, an elected Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly and Gilgit-Baltistan Council. Gilgit-Baltistan thus gained a "de facto" province-like status without constitutionally becoming part of Pakistan. Currently, Gilgit-Baltistan is neither a province nor a state. It has a semi-provincial status. Officially, the Pakistan government had rejected Gilgit-Baltistani calls for integration with Pakistan on the grounds that it would jeopardise its demands for the whole Kashmir issue to be resolved according to UN resolutions. Some Kashmiri nationalist groups, such as the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, claim Gilgit-Baltistan as part of a future independent state to match what existed in 1947. India, on the other hand, maintains that Gilgit-Baltistan is a part of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir that is "an integral part of the country [India]."


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: The Gilgit-Baltistan Police (GBP) is responsible for law enforcement in Gilgit-Baltistan. The mission of the force is the prevention and detection of crime, maintenance of law and order and enforcement of the Constitution of Pakistan.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Gilgit-Baltistan is administratively divided into three divisions: Baltistan, Diamer and Gilgit, which, in turn, are divided into fourteen districts.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: <nowiki>*</nowiki> Combined population of Skardu, Shigar, Kharmang and Roundu districts. Shigar and Kharmang Districts were carved out of Skardu District after 1998. The estimated population of Gilgit-Baltistan was about 1.8 million in 2015 and the overall population growth rate between 1998 and 2011 was 63.1% making it 4.85% annually.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Security in Gilgit-Baltistan is provided by the Gilgit-Baltistan Police, the Gilgit Baltistan Scouts (a paramilitary force), and the Northern Light Infantry (part of the Pakistani Army).


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Gilgit-Baltistan borders Pakistan's Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province to the west, a small portion of the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan to the north, China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to the northeast, the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir to the southeast, and the Pakistani-administered state of Azad Jammu and Kashmir to the south.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Gilgit-Baltistan is home to all five of Pakistan's "eight-thousanders" and to more than fifty peaks above . Gilgit and Skardu are the two main hubs for expeditions to those mountains. The region is home to some of the world's highest mountain ranges. The main ranges are the Karakoram and the western Himalayas. The Pamir Mountains are to the north, and the Hindu Kush lies to the west. Amongst the highest mountains are K2 (Mount Godwin-Austen) and Nanga Parbat, the latter being one of the most feared mountains in the world.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Three of the world's longest glaciers outside the polar regions are found in Gilgit-Baltistan: the Biafo Glacier, the Baltoro Glacier, and the Batura Glacier. There are, in addition, several high-altitude lakes in Gilgit-Baltistan:


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: The Deosai Plains are located above the tree line and constitute the second-highest plateau in the world after Tibet, at . The plateau lies east of Astore, south of Skardu and west of Ladakh. The area was declared as a national park in 1993. The Deosai Plains cover an area of almost . For over half the year (between September and May), Deosai is snow-bound and cut off from rest of Astore and Baltistan in winters. The village of Deosai lies close to Chilum chokki and is connected with the Kargil district of Ladakh through an all-weather road.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: There are more than 50,000 pieces of rock art (petroglyphs) and inscriptions all along the Karakoram Highway in Gilgit-Baltistan, concentrated at ten major sites between Hunza and Shatial. The carvings were left by invaders, traders, and pilgrims who passed along the trade route, as well as by locals. The earliest date back to between 5000 and 1000 BCE, showing single animals, triangular men and hunting scenes in which the animals are larger than the hunters. These carvings were pecked into the rock with stone tools and are covered with a thick patina that proves their age.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: The ethnologist has pieced together the history of the area from inscriptions and recorded his findings in "Rock Carvings and Inscriptions in the Northern Areas of Pakistan" and the later-released "Between Gandhara and the Silk Roads — Rock Carvings Along the Karakoram Highway". Many of these carvings and inscriptions will be inundated and/or destroyed when the planned Basha-Diamir dam is built and the Karakoram Highway is widened.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: The climate of Gilgit-Baltistan varies from region to region, since the surrounding mountain ranges create sharp variations in weather. The eastern part has the moist zone of the western Himalayas, but going toward Karakoram and Hindu Kush, the climate gets considerably drier.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: There are towns like Gilgit and Chilas that are very hot during the day in summer yet cold at night and valleys like Astore, Khaplu, Yasin, Hunza, and Nagar, where the temperatures are cold even in summer.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Climate change has adversely effected this region with more rains every year. On 26 August 2022, most villages in Ghizer district and Hunza were severely effected by the ongoing flooding displacing many people.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: The economy of the region is primarily based on a traditional trade route, the historic Silk Road. The China Trade Organization forum led the people of the area to actively invest and learn modern trade know-how from their Chinese neighbour, Xinjiang. Later, the establishment of a chamber of commerce and the Sust dry port in Gojal Hunza are milestones. The rest of the economy is shouldered by mainly agriculture and tourism. Agricultural products are wheat, corn (maize), barley, and fruits. Tourism is mostly in trekking and mountaineering, and this industry is growing in importance.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: In early September 2009, Pakistan signed an agreement with the People's Republic of China for a major energy project in Gilgit-Baltistan which includes the construction of a 7,000-megawatt dam at Bunji in the Astore District.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Gilgit-Baltistan is home to more than 20 peaks of over , including K-2 the second highest mountain on Earth. Other well known peaks include Masherbrum (also known as K1), Broad Peak, Hidden Peak, Gasherbrum II, Gasherbrum IV, and Chogolisa, situated in Khaplu Valley. The following peaks have so far been scaled by various expeditions:


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Gilgit has not received a gas pipeline infrastructure since Pakistan's independence, unlike other cities. Through the importation of gas cylinders from other provinces, many private gas contractors offer gas cylinders. The LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) Air Mix Plant project by Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited was unveiled in 2020 with the goal of bringing the gas facility to Gilgit. This will significantly reduce deforestation as public uses wood from trees for heating and lighting purpose. The first head office has been built in Gilgit City.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Gilgit Baltistan is the capital of tourism in Pakistan. Gilgit Baltistan is home to some of the highest peaks in the world, including K2 the second highest peak in the world. Gilgit Baltistan's landscape includes mountains, lakes, glaciers and valleys. Gilgit Baltistan is not only known for its mountains — it is also visited for its landmarks, culture, history and people. K2 Basecamp, Deosai, Naltar, Fairy Meadows Bagrot Valley and Hushe valley are common places to visit in Gilgit Baltistan.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Before 1978, Gilgit-Baltistan was cut off from the rest of the Pakistan and the world due to the harsh terrain and the lack of accessible roads. All of the roads to the south opened toward the Pakistan-administered state of Azad Kashmir and to the southeast toward the present-day Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. During the summer, people could walk across the mountain passes to travel to Rawalpindi. The fastest way to travel was by air, but air travel was accessible only to a few privileged local people and to Pakistani military and civilian officials. Then, with the assistance of the Chinese government, Pakistan began construction of the Karakoram Highway (KKH), which was completed in 1978. The journey from Rawalpindi / Islamabad to Gilgit takes approximately 20 to 24 hours.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: The Karakoram Highway connects Islamabad to Gilgit and Skardu, which are the two major hubs for mountaineering expeditions in Gilgit-Baltistan. Northern Areas Transport Corporation (NATCO) offers bus and jeep transport service to the two hubs and several other popular destinations, lakes, and glaciers in the area. Landslides on the Karakoram Highway are very common. The Karakoram Highway connects Gilgit to Tashkurgan Town, Kashgar, China via Sust, the customs and health-inspection post on the Gilgit-Baltistan side, and the Khunjerab Pass, the highest paved international border crossing in the world at .


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: In March 2006, the respective governments announced that, commencing on 1 June 2006, a thrice-weekly bus service would begin across the boundary from Gilgit to Kashgar and road-widening work would begin at of the Karakoram Highway. There would also be one daily bus in each direction between the Sust and Taxkorgan border areas of the two political entities.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Pakistan International Airlines used to fly a Fokker F27 Friendship daily between Gilgit Airport and Benazir Bhutto International Airport. The flying time was approximately 50 minutes, and the flight was one of the most scenic in the world, as its route passed over Nanga Parbat, a mountain whose peak is higher than the aircraft's cruising altitude. However, the Fokker F27 was retired after a crash at Multan in 2006. Currently, flights are being operated by PIA to Gilgit on the brand-new ATR 42–500, which was purchased in 2006. With the new plane, the cancellation of flights is much less frequent. Pakistan International Airlines also offers regular flights of a Boeing 737 between Skardu and Islamabad. All flights are subject to weather clearance; in winter, flights are often delayed by several days.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: The population of Gilgit Baltistan is 1,492,924 as of 2017. The estimated population of Gilgit-Baltistan in 2013 was 1.249 million, and it was 873,000 in 1998. Approximately 14% of the population was urban. The fertility rate is 4.7 children per woman, which is the highest in Pakistan.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: The population of Gilgit-Baltistan consists of many diverse linguistic, ethnic, and religious sects, due in part to the many isolated valleys separated by some of the world's highest mountains. The ethnic groups include Shins, Yashkuns, Kashmiris, Kashgaris, Pamiris, Pathans, and Kohistanis. A significant number of people from Gilgit-Baltistan are residing in other parts of Pakistan, mainly in Punjab and Karachi. The literacy rate of Gilgit-Baltistan is approximately 72%.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: In 2017 census, Gilgit District has the highest population of 330,000 and Hunza District the lowest of 50,000.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Gilgit-Baltistan is a multilingual region where Urdu being a national and official language serves as the lingua franca for inter ethnic communications. English is co-official and also used in education, while Arabic is used for religious purposes. The table below shows a break-up of Gilgit-Baltistan first-language speakers.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: The population of Gilgit-Baltistan is entirely Muslim and is denominationally the most diverse in the country. The region is also the only Shia-plurality area in an otherwise Sunni-dominant Pakistan. People in the Skardu district are mostly Shia, while Diamir and Astore districts have Sunni majorities. Ghanche has a Noorbakhshi population, and Ghizar has an Ismaili majority. The populations in Gilgit, Hunza and Nagar districts are composed of a mix of all of these sects.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: According to Indian government official, B. Raman, the Shias and Ismailis constituted about 85% of the population in 1948. Raman claims the proportion was brought down by General Zia ul-Haq through a conscious policy of demographic change by encouraging the migration of Sunnis from other provinces and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, in an effort to counter the growing sectarian consciousness of the Shias after the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Recent surveys show that Shia Ismaili women, both rural and urban, have high rates of contraceptives usage and low fertility rates; by contrast Sunni women, especially in rural areas, have low rates of contraceptive usage and high fertility rates.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Gilgit-Baltistan is home to diversified cultures, ethnic groups, languages and backgrounds. Major cultural events include the Shandoor Polo Festival, Babusar Polo Festival and Jashn-e-Baharan or the Harvest Time Festival (Navroz). Traditional dances include: "Old Man Dance" in which more than one person wears old-style dresses; "Cow Boy Dance" (Payaloo) in which a person wears old style dress, long leather shoes and holds a stick in hand and the "Sword Dance" in which the participants show taking one sword in right and shield in left. One to six participants can dance in pairs.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Many types of sports are in currency, throughout the region, but most popular of them is Polo. Almost every bigger valley has a polo ground, polo matches in such grounds attract locals as well as foreigners visitors during summer season. One of such polo tournament is held in Shandur each year and polo teams of Gilgit with Chitral participates. Though very internationally unlikely, but even for some local historians like Hassan Hasrat from Skardu and for some national writers like Ahmed Hasan Dani it was originated in same region. For testimonies, they present the Epic of King Gesar of balti version where king gesar started polo by killing his step son and hit head of cadaver with a stick thus started the game they also held that the very simple rules of local polo game also testifies its primitiveness. The English word "Polo" has Balti origin, that is spoken in same region, dates back to the 19th century which means ball.


title: Gilgit-Baltistan

text: Other popular sports are football, cricket, volleyball (mostly play in winters) and other minor local sports. with growing facilities and particular local geography Climbing, trekking and other similar sports are also getting popularity. Samina Baig from Hunza valley is the only Pakistani woman and the third Pakistani to climb Mount Everest and also the youngest Muslim woman to climb Everest, having done so at the age of 21 while Hassan Sadpara from Skardu valley is the first Pakistani to have climbed six eight-thousanders including the world's highest peak Everest (8848 m) besides K2 (8611 m), Gasherbrum I (8080 m), Gasherbrum II (8034 m), Nanga Parbat (8126 m), Broad Peak (8051 m).


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to as Grand Central Station or simply as Grand Central) is a commuter rail terminal located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Grand Central is the southern terminus of the Metro-North Railroad's Harlem, Hudson and New Haven Lines, serving the northern parts of the New York metropolitan area. It also contains a connection to the New York City Subway at Grand Central–42nd Street station. The terminal is the second-busiest train station in North America, after New York Penn Station.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The distinctive architecture and interior design of Grand Central Terminal's station house have earned it several landmark designations, including as a National Historic Landmark. Its Beaux-Arts design incorporates numerous works of art. Grand Central Terminal is one of the world's ten most-visited tourist attractions, with 21.6 million visitors in 2018, excluding train and subway passengers. The terminal's Main Concourse is often used as a meeting place, and is especially featured in films and television. Grand Central Terminal contains a variety of stores and food vendors, including upscale restaurants and bars, a food hall, and a grocery marketplace. The building is also noted for its libraries, event hall, tennis club, control center and offices for the railroad, and sub-basement power station.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Grand Central Terminal was built by and named for the New York Central Railroad; it also served the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad and, later, successors to the New York Central. Opened in 1913, the terminal was built on the site of two similarly-named predecessor stations, the first of which dated to 1871. Grand Central Terminal served intercity trains until 1991, when Amtrak began routing its trains through nearby Penn Station. The East Side Access project, which will bring Long Island Rail Road service to the new Grand Central Madison station beneath the terminal, is expected to begin service by the end of 2022.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Grand Central covers and has 44 platforms, more than any other railroad station in the world. Its platforms, all below ground, serve 30 tracks on the upper level and 26 on the lower. In total, there are 67 tracks, including a rail yard and sidings; of these, 43 tracks are in use for passenger service, while the remaining two dozen are used to store trains. Another eight tracks and four platforms are being built on two new levels deep underneath the existing station as part of East Side Access.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Grand Central Terminal was named by and for the New York Central Railroad, which built the station and its two predecessors on the site. It has "always been more colloquially and affectionately known as Grand Central Station", the name of its immediate predecessor that operated from 1900 to 1910. The name "Grand Central Station" is also shared with the nearby U.S. Post Office station at 450 Lexington Avenue and, colloquially, with the Grand Central–42nd Street subway station next to the terminal.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Grand Central Terminal serves some 67 million passengers a year, more than any other Metro-North station. During morning rush hour, a train arrives at the terminal every 58 seconds.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Through these lines, the terminal serves Metro-North commuters traveling to and from the Bronx in New York City; Westchester, Putnam, and Dutchess counties in New York; and Fairfield and New Haven counties in Connecticut.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The terminal and its predecessors were designed for intercity service, which operated from the first station building's completion in 1871 until Amtrak ceased operations in the terminal in 1991. Through transfers, passengers could connect to all major lines in the United States, including the "Canadian", the "Empire Builder", the "San Francisco Zephyr", the "Southwest Limited", the "Crescent", and the "Sunset Limited" under Amtrak. Destinations included San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver, New Orleans, Chicago, and Montreal. Another notable former train was New York Central's "20th Century Limited", a luxury service that operated to Chicago's LaSalle Street Station between 1902 and 1967 and was among the most famous trains of its time.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: From 1971 to 1991, all Amtrak trains using the intrastate Empire Corridor to Niagara Falls terminated at Grand Central; interstate Northeast Corridor trains used Penn Station. Notable Amtrak services at Grand Central included the "Lake Shore", "Empire Service", "Adirondack", "Niagara Rainbow", "Maple Leaf", and "Empire State Express".


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to bring Long Island Rail Road commuter trains to the new Grand Central Madison station beneath Grand Central as part of its East Side Access project. The project will connect the terminal to the railroad's Main Line, which connects to all of the LIRR's branches and almost all of its stations. , service is expected to begin in December 2022.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Grand Central Terminal was designed and built with two main levels for passengers: an upper for intercity trains and a lower for commuter trains. This configuration, devised by New York Central vice president William J. Wilgus, separated intercity and commuter-rail passengers, smoothing the flow of people in and through the station. After intercity service ended in 1991, the upper level was renamed the Main Concourse and the lower the Dining Concourse.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The original plan for Grand Central's interior was designed by Reed and Stem, with some work by Whitney Warren of Warren and Wetmore.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The Main Concourse is located on the upper platform level of Grand Central, in the geographical center of the station building. The concourse leads directly to most of the terminal's upper-level tracks, although some are accessed from passageways near the concourse. The Main Concourse is usually filled with bustling crowds and is often used as a meeting place. At the center of the concourse is an information booth topped with a four-sided brass clock, one of Grand Central's most recognizable icons. The terminal's main departure boards are located at the south end of the space. The boards have been replaced numerous times since their initial installation in 1967.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: In their design for the station's interior, Reed & Stem created a circulation system that allowed passengers alighting from trains to enter the Main Concourse, then leave through various passages that branch from it. Among these are the north–south 42nd Street Passage and Shuttle Passage, which run south to 42nd Street; and three east–west passageways — the Grand Central Market, the Graybar Passage, and the Lexington Passage — that run about east to Lexington Avenue by 43rd Street. Several passages run north of the terminal, including the north–south 45th Street Passage, which leads to 45th Street and Madison Avenue, and the network of tunnels in Grand Central North, which lead to exits at every street from 45th to 48th Street.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Each of the east–west passageways runs through a different building. The northernmost is the Graybar Passage, built on the first floor of the Graybar Building in 1926. Its walls and seven large transverse arches are made of coursed ashlar travertine, and the floor is terrazzo. The ceiling is composed of seven groin vaults, each of which has an ornamental bronze chandelier. The first two vaults, as viewed from leaving Grand Central, are painted with cumulus clouds, while the third contains a 1927 mural by Edward Trumbull depicting American transportation.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The middle passageway houses Grand Central Market, a cluster of food shops. The site was originally a segment of 43rd Street which became the terminal's first service dock in 1913. In 1975, a Greenwich Savings Bank branch was built in the space, which was converted into the marketplace in 1998, and involved installing a new limestone facade on the building. The building's second story, whose balcony overlooks the market and 43rd Street, was to house a restaurant, but is instead used for storage.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The southernmost of the three, the Lexington Passage, was originally known as the Commodore Passage after the Commodore Hotel, which it ran through. When the hotel was renamed the Grand Hyatt, the passage was likewise renamed. The passage acquired its current name during the terminal's renovation in the 1990s.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The Shuttle Passage, on the west side of the terminal, connects the Main Concourse to Grand Central's subway station. The terminal was originally configured with two parallel passages, later simplified into one wide passageway.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Ramps include the Vanderbilt Avenue ramp and the Oyster Bar ramps. The Vanderbilt Avenue or Kitty Kelly ramp leads from the corner of Vanderbilt Avenue and 42nd Street down into the Shuttle Passage. The ramp was likewise restored in 1998; originally and currently its space was two stories high. Most of the space was built upon, becoming the Kitty Kelly women's shoe store, and later operating as Federal Express.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The Oyster Bar ramps lead down from the Main Concourse to the Oyster Bar and Dining Concourse. They span a total of from east to west under an ceiling. The ramps were partially covered by expanded main-floor ticket offices from 1927 until the terminal's restoration in 1998. A pedestrian overpass spans over the ramps, leading from Vanderbilt Hall to the Main Concourse. The bridge has been visible since 1998, restoring the original appearance with one minor change the bridge now has a low balustrade, replacing an eight-foot-high solid wall that blocked views between the two levels. The underside of the bridge is covered with Guastavino tiling. The bridge's arches create a whispering gallery: a person standing in one corner can hear another speaking softly in the diagonally opposite corner.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Grand Central North is a network of four tunnels that allow people to walk between the station building (which sits between 42nd and 44th Street) and exits at 45th, 46th, 47th, and 48th Street. The Northwest Passage and Northeast Passage run parallel to the tracks on the upper level, while two shorter cross-passages run perpendicular to the tracks. The 47th Street cross-passage runs between the upper and lower tracks, below street level; it provides access to upper-level tracks. The 45th Street cross-passage runs under the lower tracks, below street level. Converted from a corridor built to transport luggage and mail, it provides access to lower-level tracks. The cross-passages are connected to the platforms via 37 stairs, six elevators, and five escalators.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The tunnels' street-level entrances, each enclosed by a freestanding glass structure, sit at the northeast corner of East 47th Street and Madison Avenue (Northwest Passage), northeast corner of East 48th Street and Park Avenue (Northeast Passage), on the east and west sides of 230 Park Avenue (Helmsley Building) between 45th and 46th streets, and (since 2012) on the south side of 47th Street between Park and Lexington avenues. Pedestrians can also take an elevator to the 47th Street passage from the north side of East 47th Street, between Madison and Vanderbilt avenues; this entrance adjoined the former 270 Park Avenue.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Proposals for these tunnels had been discussed since at least the 1970s. The MTA approved preliminary plans in 1983, gave final approval in 1991, and began construction in 1994. Dubbed the North End Access Project, the work was to be completed in 1997 at a cost of $64.5 million, but it was slowed by the incomplete nature of the building's original blueprints and by previously undiscovered groundwater beneath East 45th Street. The passageways opened on August 18, 1999, at a final cost of $75 million.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The project entailed enclosing existing passageways with glazed-terrazzo walls. The Northeast Passage's walls have blue-green accents while the Northwest Passage's walls have red accents. The ceilings are high. The cross-passages' ceilings are blue-green, the same color as the Main Concourse, and have recessed lighting that is arranged to resemble the Main Concourse's constellations. Originally, Grand Central North had no restrooms or air-conditioning. The passages contain an MTA Arts & Design mosaic installation by Ellen Driscoll, an artist from Brooklyn.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The entrances to Grand Central North were originally open from 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. During weekends and holidays, the 47th and 48th Street entrances were open on 9 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., while the two entrances to the Helmsley Building were closed. About 30,000 people used it on a typical weekday, but only about 6,000 people used it on a typical weekend. As part of the 2005–2008 Financial Plan, the MTA proposed closing the passageways on weekends, citing low usage and the need to save money. Since summer 2006, Grand Central North has been closed on weekends.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Vanderbilt Hall is an event space on the south side of the terminal, between the main entrance and the Main Concourse to its north. The space is lit by Beaux-Arts chandeliers, each with 132 bulbs on four tiers. Vanderbilt Hall was formerly the main waiting room for the terminal, used particularly by intercity travelers. The space featured double-sided oak benches and could seat 700 people. When intercity service ceased at Grand Central in 1991, hundreds of homeless people began using the room. The terminal's managers first removed the room's benches before closing the space entirely.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: In 1998, the hall was renovated and renamed after the Vanderbilt family, which built and owned the station. It is used for the annual Christmas Market, as well as for special exhibitions and private events. From 2016 to 2020, the west half of the hall held the Great Northern Food Hall, an upscale Nordic-themed food court with five pavilions. The food hall was the first long-term tenant of the space; the terminal's landmark status prevents permanent installations.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Since 1999, Vanderbilt Hall has hosted the annual Tournament of Champions squash championship. Each January, tournament officials construct a free-standing glass-enclosed squash court. Like a theatre in the round, spectators sit on three sides of the court.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: South of Vanderbilt Hall is the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Foyer, which leads south to the main entrance on 42nd Street. A men's smoking room and women's waiting room were formerly located on the west and east sides of Vanderbilt Hall, respectively. In 2016, the men's room was renovated into Agern, an 85-seat Nordic-themed fine dining and Michelin-starred restaurant operated by Noma co-founder Claus Meyer, who also ran the food hall. Both venues permanently closed in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. City Winery signed a lease for both the food hall and the Agern space in 2022, and it opened a wine bar, a quick-service restaurant named City Jams, and a farm-to-table restaurant named Cornelius in these spaces that November.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The Biltmore Room is a marble hall northwest of the Main Concourse that serves as an entrance to tracks 39 through 42. Completed in 1915 directly beneath the New York Biltmore Hotel, it originally served as a waiting room for intercity trains known formally as the incoming train room and colloquially as the "Kissing Room".


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: As the station's passenger traffic declined in mid-century, the room fell into neglect. In 1982 and 1983, the room was damaged during the construction that converted the Biltmore Hotel into the Bank of America Plaza. In 1985, Giorgio Cavaglieri was hired to restore the room, which at the time had cracked marble and makeshift lighting. During that era, a series of lockers was still located within the Biltmore Room. Later, the room held a newsstand, flower stand, and shoe shine booths. In 2015, the MTA awarded a contract to refurbish the Biltmore Room into an arrival area for Long Island Rail Road passengers as part of the East Side Access project. As part of the project, the room's booths and stands are being replaced by a pair of escalators and an elevator to the deep-level LIRR concourse.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The room's blackboard displayed the arrival and departure times of New York Central trains until 1967, when a mechanical board was installed in the Main Concourse.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The Station Master's Office, located near Track 36, has Grand Central's only dedicated waiting room. The space has benches, restrooms, and a floral mixed-media mural on three of its walls. The room's benches were previously located in the former waiting room, now known as Vanderbilt Hall. Since 2008, the area has offered free Wi-Fi.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: One of the retail areas of the Graybar Passage, currently occupied by wine-and-liquor store Central Cellars, was formerly the Grand Central Theatre or Terminal Newsreel Theatre. Opened in 1937 with 25-cent admission, the theater showed short films, cartoons, and newsreels from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Designed by Tony Sarg, it had 242 stadium-style seats and a standing-room section with armchairs. A small bar sat near the entrance. The theater's interior had simple pine walls spaced out to eliminate echos, along with an inglenook, a fireplace, and an illuminated clock for the convenience of travelers. The walls of the lobby, dubbed the "appointment lounge", were covered with world maps; the ceiling had an astronomical mural painted by Sarg. "The New York Times" reported a cost of $125,000 for the theater's construction, which was attributed to construction of an elevator between the theater and the suburban concourse as well as air conditioning and apparatuses for people hard of hearing.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The theater stopped showing newsreels by 1968 but continued operating until around 1979, when it was gutted for retail space. A renovation in the early 2000s removed a false ceiling, revealing the theater's projection window and its astronomical mural, which proved similar in colors and style to the Main Concourse ceiling.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Access to the lower-level tracks is provided by the Dining Concourse, located below the Main Concourse and connected to it by numerous stairs, ramps, and escalators. For decades, it was called the Suburban Concourse because it handled commuter rail trains. Today, it has central seating and lounge areas, surrounded by restaurants and food vendors. The shared public seating in the concourse was designed resembling Pullman traincars. These areas are frequented by the homeless, and as a result, in the mid-2010s the MTA created two areas with private seating for dining customers.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The terminal's late-1990s renovation added stands and restaurants to the concourse, and installed escalators to link it to the main concourse level. The MTA also spent $2.2 million to install two circular terrazzo designs by David Rockwell and Beyer Blinder Belle, each 45 feet in diameter, over the concourse's original terrazzo floor. Since 2015, part of the Dining Concourse has been closed for the construction of stairways and escalators to the new LIRR terminal being built as part of East Side Access.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: A small square-framed clock is installed in the ceiling near Tracks 108 and 109. It was manufactured at an unknown time by the Self Winding Clock Company, which made several others in the terminal. The clock hung inside the gate at Track 19 until 2011, when it was moved so it would not be blocked by lights added during upper-level platform improvements.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Metro-North's lost-and-found bureau sits near Track 100 at the far east end of the Dining Concourse. Incoming items are sorted according to function and date: for instance, there are separate bins for hats, gloves, belts, and ties. The sorting system was computerized in the 1990s. Lost items are kept for up to 90 days before being donated or auctioned off.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: As early as 1920, the bureau received between 15,000 and 18,000 items a year. By 2002, the bureau was collecting "3,000 coats and jackets; 2,500 cellphones; 2,000 sets of keys; 1,500 wallets, purses and ID's ; and 1,100 umbrellas" a year. By 2007, it was collecting 20,000 items a year, 60% of which were eventually claimed. In 2013, the bureau reported an 80% return rate, among the highest in the world for a transit agency.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Some of the more unusual items collected by the bureau include fake teeth, prosthetic body parts, legal documents, diamond pouches, live animals, and a $100,000 violin. One story has it that a woman purposely left her unfaithful husband's ashes on a Metro-North train before collecting them three weeks later. In 1996, some of the lost-and-found items were displayed at an art exhibition.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Grand Central Terminal contains restaurants such as the Grand Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant and various fast food outlets surrounding the Dining Concourse. There are also delis, bakeries, a gourmet and fresh food market, and an annex of the New York Transit Museum. The 40-plus retail stores include newsstands and chain stores, including a Starbucks coffee shop, a Rite Aid pharmacy, and an Apple Store. The Oyster Bar, the oldest business in the terminal, sits next to the Dining Concourse and below Vanderbilt Hall.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: An elegantly restored cocktail lounge, the Campbell, sits just south of the 43rd Street/Vanderbilt Avenue entrance. A mix of commuters and tourists access it from the street or the balcony level. The space was once the office of 1920s tycoon John W. Campbell, who decorated it to resemble the galleried hall of a 13th-century Florentine palace. In 1999, it opened as a bar, the Campbell Apartment; a new owner renovated and renamed it the Campbell in 2017.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: From 1939 to 1964, CBS Television occupied a large portion of the terminal building, particularly in a third-floor space above Vanderbilt Hall. The CBS offices, called "The Annex", contained two "program control" facilities (43 and 44); network master control; facilities for local station WCBS-TV; and, after World War II, two production studios (41 and 42). The total space measured . Broadcasts were transmitted from an antenna atop the nearby Chrysler Building installed by order of CBS chief executive William S. Paley, and were also shown on a large screen in the Main Concourse. In 1958, CBS opened the world's first major videotape operations facility in Grand Central. Located in a former rehearsal room on the seventh floor, the facility used 14 Ampex VR-1000 videotape recorders.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: "Douglas Edwards with the News" broadcast from Grand Central for several years, covering John Glenn's 1962 Mercury-Atlas 6 space flight and other events. Edward R. Murrow's "See It Now" originated there, including his famous broadcasts on Senator Joseph McCarthy, which were recreated in George Clooney's movie "Good Night, and Good Luck", although the film incorrectly implies that CBS News and corporate offices were in the same building. The long-running panel show "What's My Line?" was first broadcast from Grand Central, as were "The Goldbergs" and "Mama". CBS eventually moved its operations to the CBS Broadcast Center on 57th Street.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: In 1966, the vacated studio space was converted into the Vanderbilt Athletic Club, a sports club named for the hall just below. Founded by Geza A. Gazdag, an athlete and Olympic coach who fled Hungary amid its 1956 revolution, its two tennis courts were once deemed the most expensive place to play the game—$58 an hour—until financial recessions forced the club to lower the hourly fee to $40. Club amenities included a nylon ski slope, a health club facility and sauna, and spaces for golf, fencing, gymnastics, and ballet practice. Gazdag's business was evicted from Grand Central in 1976, amid a lease dispute. In 1984, the club was purchased by real estate magnate Donald Trump, who discovered it while renovating the terminal's exterior. In 2009, the MTA planned a new conductor lounge in the space, and terminated Trump's lease that year. It divided the space into three floors, with the lounge on the original third floor. A single tennis court was added on the new fourth floor in 2010, along with two practice alleys on the new fifth floor. Trump found the new space too small to release, and so the current Vanderbilt Tennis Club operates independent of Trump.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Grand Central Terminal's basements are among the largest in the city. Basement spaces include M42, which has AC-to-DC converters to power the track's third rails, as well as Carey's Hole, a former retail storage space and present-day employee lounge and dormitory.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Grand Central Terminal contains an underground sub-basement known as M42. Its electrical substation is divided into substation 1T, which provides for third-rail power, and substation 1L, which provides for other lighting and power. The substation—the world's largest at the time—was built about under the Graybar Building at a cost of $3 million, and opened February 16, 1930. It occupies a four-story space with an area of .


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Another part of the basement is known as Carey's Hole. The two-story section is directly beneath the Shuttle Passage and adjacent spaces. In 1913, when the terminal opened, J. P. Carey opened a barbershop adjacent to and one level below the terminal's waiting room (now Vanderbilt Hall). Carey's business expanded to include a laundry service, shoe store, and haberdashery. In 1921, Carey also ran a limousine service using Packard cars, and in the 1930s, he added regular car and bus service to the city's airports as they opened. Carey would store his merchandise in an unfinished, underground area of the terminal, which railroad employees and maintenance staff began calling "Carey's Hole". The name has remained even as the space has been used for different purposes, including currently as a lounge and dormitory for railroad employees.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The terminal holds the Guinness World Record for having the most platforms of any railroad station: 28, which support 44 platform numbers. All are island platforms except one side platform. Odd-numbered tracks are usually on the east side of the platform; even-numbered tracks on the west side. , there are 67 tracks, of which 43 are in regular passenger use, serving Metro-North. At its opening, the train shed contained 123 tracks, including duplicate track numbers and storage tracks, with a combined length of .


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The tracks slope down as they exit the station to the north, to help departing trains accelerate and arriving ones slow down. Because of the size of the rail yards, Park Avenue and its side streets from 43rd to 59th Streets are raised on viaducts, and the surrounding blocks were covered over by various buildings.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The upper Metro-North level has 42 numbered tracks. Twenty-nine serve passenger platforms; these are numbered 11 to 42, east to west. Tracks 12, 22, and 31 do not exist, and appear to have been removed. To the east of the upper platforms sits the East Yard: ten storage tracks numbered 1 through 10 from east to west. A balloon loop runs from Tracks 38–42 on the far west side of the station, around the other tracks, and back to storage Tracks 1–3 at the far east side of the station; this allows trains to turn around more easily.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: North of the East Yard is the Lex Yard, a secondary storage yard under the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. The yard formerly served the power plant for Grand Central Terminal. Its twelve tracks are numbered 51 through 65 from east to west (track numbers 57, 58, and 62 do not exist). Two private loading platforms, which cannot be used for passenger service, sit between tracks 53 and 54 and between tracks 61 and 63. Track 61 is known for being a private track for United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt; part of the original design of the Waldorf Astoria, it was mentioned in "The New York Times" in 1929 and first used in 1938 by John J. Pershing, a top U.S. general during World War I. Roosevelt would travel into the city using his personal train, pull into Track 61, and take a specially designed elevator to the surface. It has been used occasionally since Roosevelt's death. The upper level also contains 22 more storage sidings.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Track 63 held MNCW #002, a baggage car, for about 20 to 30 years. The railcar's location near Roosevelt's Track 61 led former tour guide Dan Brucker and others to falsely claim that this was the president's personal train car used for transporting his limousine. The baggage car was moved to the Danbury Railway Museum in 2019.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The lower Metro-North level has 27 tracks numbered 100 to 126, east to west. Two were originally intended for mail trains and two were for baggage handling. Today, only Tracks 102–112 and 114–115 are used for passenger service. The lower-level balloon loop, whose curve was much sharper than that of the upper-level loop and could only handle electric multiple units used on commuter lines was removed at an unknown date. Tracks 116–125 were demolished to make room for the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) concourse being built under the Metro-North station as part of the East Side Access project.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The upper and lower levels have different track layouts and, as such, are supported by different sets of columns. The upper level is supported by ultra-strong columns, some of which can carry over .


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The LIRR terminal being built as part of East Side Access will add four platforms and eight tracks numbered 201–204 and 301–304 in two double-decked caverns below the Metro-North station. The new LIRR station will have four tracks and two platforms in each of the two caverns, with each cavern containing two tracks and one platform on each level. A mezzanine will sit on a center level between the LIRR's two track levels.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Upper floors of the terminal primarily hold MTA offices, including the fifth-floor office of the terminal's director, overlooking the Main Concourse. The seventh floor contains Metro-North's situation room for handling emergencies, as well as the offices of the Fleet Department.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Grand Central Terminal has a single Operations Control Center, where controllers monitor the track interlockings with computers. Completed in 1993, the center is operated by a crew of about 24 people. The terminal was originally built with five signal control centers, labeled A, B, C, F, and U, that collectively controlled all of the track interlockings around the terminal. Each switch was electrically controlled by a lever in one of the signal towers, where lights illuminated on track maps to show which switches were in use. As trains passed a given tower, the signal controllers reported the train's engine and timetable numbers, direction, track number, and the exact time.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Tower U controlled the interlocking between 48th and 58th streets; Tower C, the storage spurs; and Tower F, the turning loops. A four-story underground tower at 49th Street housed the largest of the signal towers: Tower A, which handled the upper-level interlockings via 400 levers, and Tower B, which handled the lower-level interlockings with 362 levers. The towers housed offices for the stationmaster, yardmaster, car-maintenance crew, electrical crew, and track-maintenance crew. There were also break rooms for conductors, train engineers, and engine men. After Tower B was destroyed in a fire in 1986, the signal towers were consolidated into the modern control center.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: During the terminal's construction, an "accident room" was set up to treat worker injuries in a wrecking car in the terminal's rail yard. Later on, a small hospital was established in the temporary station building on Lexington Avenue to care for injured workers. The arrangement was satisfactory, leading to the creation of a permanent hospital, the Grand Central Emergency Hospital, in Grand Central Terminal in 1911. The hospital was used for every employee injury as well as for passengers. In 1915, it had two physicians who treated a monthly average of 125 new cases per month and 450 dressings. The space had four rooms: Room A (the waiting room), Room B (the operating room), Room C (a private office), and Room D (for resting patients). The hospital was open at least until 1963; a "Journal News" article that year noted that the hospital treated minor to moderate ailments and was open every day between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Located on an upper floor above the Apple Store, the Williamson Library is a meeting space and research center for the New York Railroad Enthusiasts. Upon its founding in 1937, the association was granted use of the space in perpetuity by Frederick Ely Williamson, once president of the New York Central Railroad as well as a rail enthusiast and member of the association. Today, it contains about 3,000 books, newspapers, films, photographs, and other documents about railroads, along with artifacts, including part of a "20th Century Limited" red carpet. The library is only accessible through secure areas, making it little known to the public and not included in tours of the terminal's hidden attributes. The association holds monthly meetings in the space, open to new visitors for free, and allows research visits by appointment.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Another library, the Frank Julian Sprague Memorial Library of the Electric Railroaders Association, was created in the terminal in 1979. The library has about 500,000 publications and slides, focusing on electric rail and trolley lines. A large amount of these works were donated to the New York Transit Museum in 2013.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Grand Central Terminal was designed in the Beaux-Arts style by Reed and Stem, which was responsible for the overall design of the terminal, and Warren and Wetmore, which mainly made cosmetic alterations to the exterior and interior. Various elements inside the terminal were designed by French architects and artists Jules-Félix Coutan, Sylvain Salières, and Paul César Helleu. Grand Central has both monumental spaces and meticulously crafted detail, especially on its facade. The facade is based on an overall exterior design by Whitney Warren.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The terminal is widely recognized and favorably viewed by the American public. In America's Favorite Architecture, a 2006-07 public survey by the American Institute of Architects, respondents ranked it their 13th-favorite work of architecture in the country, and their fourth-favorite in the city and state after the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, and St. Patrick's Cathedral. In 2013, historian David Cannadine described it as one of the most majestic buildings of the twentieth century. The terminal is also recognized by the American Society of Civil Engineers as a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, added in 2013.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: As proposed in 1904, Grand Central Terminal was bounded by Vanderbilt Avenue to the west, Lexington Avenue to the east, 42nd Street to the south, and 45th Street to the north. It included a post office on its east side. The east side of the station house proper is an alley called Depew Place, which was built along with the Grand Central Depot annex in the 1880s and mostly decommissioned in the 1900s when the new terminal was built.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: As first built, the station house measured about along Vanderbilt Avenue (120 feet longer than originally planned) and on 42nd Street. Floors above the first story are set back about 50 feet, making the rest of the station house originally measure 290 by 670 feet. The station is approximately tall.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The station and its rail yard have steel frames. The building also uses large steel columns designed to hold the weight of a 20-story office building, which was to be built when additional room was required.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The facade and structure of the terminal building primarily use granite. Because granite emits radiation, people who work full-time in the station receive an average dose of 525 mrem/year, more than permitted in nuclear power facilities. The base of the exterior is Stony Creek granite, while the upper portion is of Indiana limestone, from Bedford, Indiana.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The interiors use several varieties of stone, including imitation Caen stone for the Main Concourse; cream-colored Botticino marble for the interior decorations; and pink Tennessee marble for the floors of the Main Concourse, Biltmore Room, and Vanderbilt Hall, as well as the two staircases in the Main Concourse. Real Caen stone was judged too expensive, so the builders mixed plaster, sand, lime, and Portland cement. Most of the remaining masonry is made from concrete. Guastavino tiling, a fireproof tile-and-cement vault pattern patented by Rafael Guastavino, is used in various spaces.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The terminal's main facade—on the building's southern side, facing 42nd Street—was key to the architects' vision of the building as a gateway to the city. Its trio of 60-by-30-foot arched windows are interspersed with ten fluted Doric columns that are partially attached to the granite walls behind them, though they are detached from one another. The central window resembles a triumphal arch. The facade was also designed to complement that of the New York Public Library Main Branch, another Beaux-Arts edifice on nearby Fifth Avenue.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The facade includes several large works of art. At the top of the south facade is a clock. The clock is surrounded by the "Glory of Commerce" sculptural group, a work by Jules-Félix Coutan, which includes representations of Minerva, Hercules, and Mercury. At its unveiling in 1914, the work was considered the largest sculptural group in the world. Below these works, facing the Park Avenue Viaduct, is an 1869 statue of Cornelius Vanderbilt, longtime owner of New York Central. Sculpted by Ernst Plassmann, the bronze is the last remnant of a 150-foot bronze relief installed at the Hudson River Railroad depot at St. John's Park; it was moved to Grand Central Terminal in 1929.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The Main Concourse, on the terminal's upper platform level, is located in the geographical center of the station building. The cavernous concourse measures long by wide by high; a total of about . Its vastness was meant to evoke the terminal's "grand" status.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Many parts of the terminal are adorned with sculpted oak leaves and acorns, nuts of the oak tree. Cornelius Vanderbilt chose the acorn as the symbol of the Vanderbilt family, and adopted the saying "Great oaks from little acorns grow" as the family motto. Among these decorations is a brass acorn finial atop the four-sided clock in the center of the Main Concourse. Other acorn or oak leaf decorations include carved wreaths under the Main Concourse's west stairs; sculptures above the lunettes in the Main Concourse; metalwork above the elevators; reliefs above the train gates; and the electric chandeliers in the Main Waiting Room and Main Concourse. These decorations were designed by Salières.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The overlapping letters "G", "C", and "T" are sculpted into multiple places in the terminal, including in friezes atop several windows above the terminal's ticket office. The symbol was designed with the "T" resembling an upside-down anchor, intended as a reference to Cornelius Vanderbilt's commercial beginnings in shipping and ferry businesses. In 2017, the MTA based its new logo for the terminal on the engraved design; MTA officials said its black and gold colors have long been associated with the terminal. The spur of the letter "G" has a depiction of a railroad spike. The 2017 logo succeeded one created by the firm Pentagram for the terminal's centennial in 2013. It depicted the Main Concourse's ball clock set to 7:13, or 19:13 using a 24-hour clock, referencing the terminal's completion in 1913. Both logos omit the word "terminal" in its name, in recognition to how most people refer to the building.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Among the buildings modeled on Grand Central's design is the Poughkeepsie station, a Metro-North and Amtrak station in Poughkeepsie, New York. It was also designed by Warren and Wetmore and opened in 1918. Another is Union Station in Utica, New York.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The Park Avenue Viaduct is an elevated road that carries Park Avenue around the terminal building and the MetLife Building and through the Helmsley Building — three buildings that lie across the line of the avenue. The viaduct rises from street level on 40th Street south of Grand Central, splits into eastern (northbound) and western (southbound) legs above the terminal building's main entrance, and continues north around the station building, directly above portions of its main level. The legs of the viaduct pass around the MetLife Building, into the Helmsley Building, and return to street level at 46th Street.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The viaduct was built to facilitate traffic along 42nd Street and along Park Avenue, which at the time was New York City's only discontinuous major north–south avenue. When the western leg of the viaduct was completed in 1919, it served both directions of traffic, and also served as a second level for picking up and dropping off passengers. After an eastern leg for northbound traffic was added in 1928, the western leg was used for southbound traffic only. A sidewalk, accessible from the Grand Hyatt hotel, runs along the section of the viaduct that is parallel to 42nd Street.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Grand Central Terminal has a post office at 450 Lexington Avenue, originally built from 1906 to 1909, though with a high-rise tower built atop it in 1992. The architecture of the original post office building matches that of the terminal, as the structures were designed by the same architects. The post office building expanded into a second building, also built by Warren & Wetmore, and directly north of the original structure, in 1915. The building, then known as the Railroad Mail Service Building and today known as 237 Park Avenue, has been extensively renovated since its opening. From the beginning, Grand Central's post office buildings were designed to handle massive volumes of mail, though they were not as large as the James A. Farley Building, the post office that was built with the original Penn Station.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The terminal complex also originally included a six-story building for baggage handling just north of the main station building. Departing passengers unloaded their luggage from taxis or personal vehicles on the Park Avenue Viaduct, and elevators brought it to the baggage passageways (now part of Grand Central North), where trucks brought the luggage to the respective platforms. The process was reversed for arriving passengers. Biltmore Hotel guests arriving at Grand Central could get baggage delivered to their rooms. The baggage building was later converted to an office building, and was demolished in 1961 to make way for the MetLife Building.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The terminal's subway station, Grand Central–42nd Street, serves three lines: the IRT Lexington Avenue Line (serving the ), the IRT Flushing Line (serving the ), and the IRT 42nd Street Shuttle to Times Square. Originally built by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), the lines are operated by the MTA as part of the New York City Subway.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The Main Concourse is connected to the subway platforms' mezzanine via the Shuttle Passage. The platforms can also be reached from the 42nd Street Passage via stairs, escalators, and an elevator to the fare control area for the Lexington Avenue and Flushing Lines.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The 42nd Street Shuttle platforms, located just below ground level, opened in 1904 as an express stop on the original IRT subway. The Lexington Avenue Line's platforms, which were opened in 1918 when the original IRT subway platforms were converted to shuttle use, run underneath the southeastern corner of the station building at a 45-degree angle, to the east of and at a lower level than the shuttle platforms. The Flushing Line platform opened in 1915; it is deeper than the Lexington Avenue Line's platforms because it is part of the Steinway Tunnel, a former streetcar tunnel that descends under the East River to the east of Grand Central. There was also a fourth line connected to Grand Central Terminal: a spur of the IRT Third Avenue elevated, which stopped at Grand Central starting in 1878; it was made obsolete by the subway's opening, and closed in 1923.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: During the terminal's construction, there were proposals to allow commuter trains to pass through Grand Central and continue into the subway tracks. However, these plans were deemed impractical because commuter trains would have been too large to fit within the subway tunnels.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Three buildings serving essentially the same function have stood on the current Grand Central Terminal's site.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Grand Central Terminal arose from a need to build a central station for the Hudson River Railroad, the New York and Harlem Railroad, and the New York and New Haven Railroad in modern-day Midtown Manhattan. The Harlem Railroad originally ran as a steam railroad on street level along Fourth Avenue (now Park Avenue), while the New Haven Railroad ran along the Harlem's tracks in Manhattan per a trackage agreement. The business magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt bought the Hudson River and New York Central Railroads in 1867, and merged them two years later. Vanderbilt developed a proposal to unite the three separate railroads at a single central station, replacing the separate and adjacent stations that created chaos in baggage transfer.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Vanderbilt commissioned John B. Snook to design his new station, dubbed Grand Central Depot, on the site of the 42nd Street depot. Snook's final design was in the Second Empire style. Construction started on September 1, 1869, and the depot was completed by October 1871. Due to frequent accidents between pedestrians and trains running on street level, Vanderbilt proposed the Fourth Avenue Improvement Project in 1872. The improvements were completed in 1874, allowing trains approaching Grand Central Depot from the north to descend into the Park Avenue Tunnel at 96th Street and continue underground into the new depot. Traffic at Grand Central Depot grew quickly, filling its 12 tracks to capacity by the mid-1890s, not the late 1890s or early 1900s as expected. In 1885, a seven-track annex with five platforms was added to the east side of the existing terminal.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Grand Central Depot had reached its capacity again by the late 1890s, and it carried 11.5 million passengers a year by 1897. As a result, the railroads renovated the head house extensively based on plans by railroad architect Bradford Gilbert. The reconstructed building was renamed Grand Central Station. The new waiting room opened in October 1900.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: As train traffic increased in the late 1890s and early 1900s, so did the problems of smoke and soot produced by steam locomotives in the Park Avenue Tunnel, the only approach to the station. This contributed to a crash on January 8, 1902, when a southbound train overran signals in the smoky Park Avenue Tunnel and collided with another southbound train, killing 15 people and injuring more than 30 others. Shortly afterward, the New York state legislature passed a law to ban all steam trains in Manhattan by 1908. William J. Wilgus, the New York Central's vice president, later wrote a letter to New York Central president William H. Newman. Wilgus proposed to electrify and place the tracks to Grand Central in tunnels, as well as constructing a new railway terminal with two levels of tracks and making other infrastructure improvements. In March 1903, Wilgus presented a more detailed proposal to the New York Central board. The railroad's board of directors approved the $35 million project in June 1903; ultimately, almost all of Wilgus's proposal would be implemented.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The entire building was to be torn down in phases and replaced by the current Grand Central Terminal. It was to be the biggest terminal in the world, both in the size of the building and in the number of tracks. The Grand Central Terminal project was divided into eight phases, though the construction of the terminal itself comprised only two of these phases.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: The current building was intended to compete with the since-demolished Pennsylvania Station, a majestic electric-train hub being built on Manhattan's west side for arch-rival Pennsylvania Railroad by McKim, Mead & White. In 1903, New York Central invited four architecture firms to a design competition to decide who would design the new terminal. Reed and Stem were ultimately selected, as were Warren and Wetmore, who were not part of the original competition. Reed and Stem were responsible for the overall design of the station, while Warren and Wetmore worked on designing the station's Beaux-Arts exterior. However, the team had a tense relationship due to constant design disputes.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: Construction on Grand Central Terminal started on June 19, 1903. Wilgus proposed to demolish, excavate, and build the terminal in three sections or "bites", to prevent railroad service from being interrupted during construction. About of the ground were excavated at depths of up to 10 floors, with of debris being removed from the site daily. Over 10,000 workers were assigned to the project. The total cost of improvements, including electrification and the development of Park Avenue, was estimated at $180 million in 1910. Electric trains on the Hudson Line started running to Grand Central on September 30, 1906, and the segments of all three lines running into Grand Central had been electrified by 1907.


title: Grand Central Terminal

text: After the last train left Grand Central Station at midnight on June 5, 1910, workers promptly began demolishing the old station. The last remaining tracks from the former Grand Central Station were decommissioned on June 21, 1912. The new terminal was opened on February 2, 1913.