[11] Originally built by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT),[268][269] the lines are operated by the MTA as part of the New York City Subway. [166], The tracks slope down as they exit the station to the north, to help departing trains accelerate and arriving ones slow down. Grand Central Terminal is one of the world's ten most visited tourist attractions,[4] with 21.6 million visitors in 2018, excluding train and subway passengers. [89] Dubbed the North End Access Project, the work was to be completed in 1997 at a cost of $64.5 million,[94] but it was slowed by the incomplete nature of the building's original blueprints and by previously undiscovered groundwater beneath East 45th Street. The two are connected by a spiral staircase. However, these plans were deemed impractical because commuter trains would have been too large to fit within the subway tunnels. [49][50] This new display, dubbed a Solari board after its Italian manufacturer Solari di Udine [it], showed train information on rows of flip panels that made a distinctive flapping sound as they rotated to reflect changes. [149][147], By the late 1920s, most power and heating services were contracted out to Consolidated Edison,[152] and so the power plant was torn down in 1929. [89] The passageways opened on August 18, 1999, at a final cost of $75 million. In so doing, though, they largely obscured Grand Central, and the station became a victim of its own success, walled off by ever-growing towers. [110] As part of the project, the room's booths and stands are to be replaced by a pair of escalators and an elevator to the deep-level LIRR concourse. [34][7] The Main Concourse is surrounded on most of its sides by balconies. [134][135] In 1999, it opened as a bar, the Campbell Apartment; a new owner renovated and renamed it the Campbell in 2017. There were also break rooms for conductors, train engineers, and engine men. [369], At the time of its completion, Grand Central Terminal offered several innovations in transit-hub design. The first such plant, built for Grand Central Depot in the 1870s, stood in the surface-level railroad yards at Madison Avenue and 46th Street. LIRR trains will reach Grand Central from Harold Interlocking in Sunnyside, Queens, via the existing 63rd Street Tunnel and new tunnels under construction on both the Manhattan and Queens sides. [287][293][167][294] 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,[295][296][294] killing 15 people and injuring more than 30 others. [52] Between March and September 2019,[53] the LCD boards — whose software had become unavailable[54] — were removed from their housings and replaced by LED video wall screens.