Gathering and Departing at Grand Central Station
If there is something that New York
City is well known for it is the fact that people will gather there to celebrate
or use it as a stop to a bigger journey. The central area of their journey is
in midtown and the center of the city, Grand Central Station. It’s where
business men go through on their way to work, and where immigrants stop to meet
someone who will help them on their journey in their new world. What makes this
place integral to the city is that no matter who a person is or where they’re
from in this one building everyone is equal because they’re all on their way to
their destination. Yet during the early years of the station the crowds and
people who came and went were no different from those who live in the 21st
century, except that they would face a great many hardships that aren’t known
in the modern world. What does looking back one hundred years tell a person in
the 21st Century about New York as a city? How can one image or one
newspaper article say about the life people led during the early 20th
century? Sometimes a single image can capture a life that wasn’t known to
students now, and an article can tell them about what life is like for those
who lived and walked around the city.
Understanding the importance of Grand Central Station, as
well as the people who walked through the station is something that must be
looked at from the perspective of the time. In her article “All Day in Grand
Central Station,” writer Roselee Cohen describes the kind of person who would
come to the station just to watch the crowds of people saying, “Whatever you
do, you must keep moving, unless you are one of those detached spirits who
derive excitement from watching their fellow-man. In that event, the matter is
more simple, and adventure will cost you much less energy. Whenever the Red
Gods make their medicine and the old Wanderlust seizes you again, take a day off
from the office, and spend it in Grand Central Station, seeing how other people
travel.”[1] Cohen is telling people
about the adventure of just standing in the station and watching the people
that go by even if for one day, in a way she’s telling the reader that if they
want an adventure that wouldn’t cost as much as a big trip then Grand Central
is the place to go. What this article says about New York during this time is
that people of all shapes, colors, sizes, and nationalities walked though this
one building each with their own story of how they got there and how they will
walk forward from where they are. An example of this is Cohen’s observation of
a group of immigrants who had the opportunity to enter the country,
“Immigrants, shipped up from Ellis Island by special train, troop in, shawled
and hooded, laden with bags and boxes and wicker hampers of food. This is the
last of the quota from Germany, rejoicing quietly at their luck in being
admitted to the Golden Land.”[2] What this shows is that
during this time a new immigration act was passed in order to restrict people
coming from Eastern and Southern Europe who had begun to migrate to the United
States. These lucky few gained access to the country where others would be
denied. These people would wait for relatives or prospective husbands before
moving forward on their journey, Grand Central was just one stop out of many in
their journey forward.
Another aspect of Cohen’s article is that she also
addresses the people and atmosphere of Grand Central at night after the last
business men have long gone home and only a few remain to wait for a train.
Loiters always have a way of coming into a place in search of somewhere to be
but sometimes those same people have nowhere to go because they have either
missed the train or just because they don’t like the life that they have. Cohen
describes them in the article saying “The station is full of
loiterers, deliberate as well as involuntary. Some of the hangers-on are
runaways, little boys grown tired of school and flappers who have set out to
taster the world.”[3] The 1920’s for women was a time to experiment and
experience a world that was once closed to them, for others it was a time when
they would become disillusioned to the life they do have and want to live a different
life. Further in the article she explains how there is there are workers in the
station who would make sure that those loiters aren’t in certain areas and are
also promptly taken out. What this shows is that people with no place to go
don’t have a place to stay and those who are stuck are stuck waiting around
hoping for a train to take them to their next destination.
Looking at the station from the perspective of a
photograph from the early 20th century would show another side of
the station and the people who walk through it on a daily bases. The image “The Concourse, Grand Central Station,
New York” shows the station during a busy time of the day with crowds of people
waiting in line, or standing idle, while others continue on their journey. The windows
illuminate the station’s interior but the lights within are still on to light
up the areas where natural sunlight doesn’t touch. What the image shows about
the station during this time is the rush of the business men who are getting to
work, properly dressed in suits and coats with hats atop their heads. This
image doesn’t show the other people who may come into the station such as
families and if there are women in the photo they aren’t as prominent as the
men. The image also doesn’t show the people who loiter in the station or those
who are of color. This demonstrates that even during this time people were
still divided by gender and class.
The photograph “The Concourse, Grand Central Station, New York” relates to Roselee
Cohen’s article “All Day in Grand Central” because it shows how people
congregate at the station, their comings and goings during all hours of the
day. The photograph demonstrates what the article is trying to convey to the
reader, that they should take a moment and watch people in the station. Though
the article does raise questions about other things such as the loitering of
people late at night and why people were kicked out of the station to leave it
empty. This is something that the image doesn’t show though the dark areas of
the image does show that even in a brightly lit area there are always thing
that some don’t want to be seen. If the image was taken at night the scene
would be filled with a different spectrum of people than the ones shown in a
picture taken during the daytime hours.
Bibliography
COHEN,
ROSELEE. 1924. "ALL DAY IN GRAND CENTRAL STATION." New York Times
(1923-Current File), February 24, 1924. Accessed March 14, 2015. http://search.proquest.com/docview/103254572?accountid=27880.
“The
Concourse, Grand Central Station,
New York” http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchdetail.cfm?trg=1&strucID=132637&imageID=96640&total=131&num=0&word=grand%20central%20station&s=1¬word=&d=&c=&f=&k=1&lWord=&lField=&sScope=&sLevel=&sLabel=&sort=&imgs=20&pos=20&e=w
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