The Third Level Series (Part 1/3) - The Grand Central As A Character Itself

THE GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL

A Character Itself

By - Sudarshan Das

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Table of Contents

1. About this project
2. Labyrinth below The Grand Central is real
3. Celebrities' Escape Station 
4. The Battle of New York (The Avengers)
5. The Battle of Manhattan (Percy Jackson and The Last Olympian)
6. Finding Riya (Half Girlfriend)
7. Why read all these?
8. Bibliography
   

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About This Project

(The Grand Central Terminal after it's completion in 1913)

Unknown to many readers, the Grand Central is a terminal, rather than just being a station.

That means it is the starting and ending point of many New York City (NYC) trains rather being just a station, where trains may or may not stop. For a NYC train, "part of the journey is the end" and that end is at the Grand Central Terminal.(I know I am quoting Marvel Endgame and scroll down to see how Grand Central appears in the MCU )  

In this page we will be going beyond just the story of "The Third Level" prescribed in your CBSE books, and will take a closer look at the real Grand Central. We at the end will also try to find the meaning of a sentence spoken by Charley in The Third Level - "And maybe — because for so many people through the years Grand Central has been an exit, a way of escape..."

So let me start off by telling you a secret. 

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Labyrinth below The Grand Central is real

When Charley said "but I’m always bumping into new doorways and stairs and corridors. Once I got into a tunnel about a mile long and came out in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel. Another time I came up in an office building on Forty-sixth Street, three blocks away.", he was not lying. There are many hidden doors, unused railway tracks and secret elevators below the depths of the Grand Central. One such widely known secret is the 'secret' train and 'secret' platform of 32nd American president, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Whenever Mr. Roosevelt came to NY, a huge crowd would cluster up the Grand Central to get a look of him (and to confirm if he was the alien Area-51 or not.)

(Mr. Roosevelt adorning the crowd. I know you can't see his high quality face, but Oppo didn't exist back then)

To combat with the crowd, a separate railway track and a separate 'armoured train car' was built for him to get inside NY without being noticed. The track was separately built avoiding public eye and lies somewhere under the depths of the Grand Central. Mr. Roosevelt used to hop out of the train car go inside a 'secret elevator', and enter the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, without being noticed by anyone. So it was quite possible for Charley to come out of the Roosevelt Lobby, if he had taken the correct path.

(Present condition of the Roosevelt secret train car)

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Celebrities' Escape Station

(Marilyn Monroe waiting at the newly constructed Grand Central Terminal) (*Having DDLJ flashbacks while writing this)

The famous 20th century limited train from the West Coast used to arrive at the Biltmore Room, which was a separate train station adjacent to the Grand Central Terminal, used mostly by celebrities. The Biltmore Room was nick named as 'The Kissing Room', 

(Riya Hayworth and James Hill arriving at the Biltmore Room)

because often celebrities and politicians could be seen hugging or kissing their loved ones once they got off at the station. The Kissing Room was also equipped with a elevator access to the lobby of the NY Biltmore 5star hotel where most of the celebrity couple would go to have some free time together. 

(The Biltmore Room Platform)

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The Battle of New York

Anyone from the Marvel fandom here? Remember the Battle of New York from 'The Avengers' movie? The Chitauri army attacking the New York and all the heroes having to finally coming together and save the day? How could a battle take place in NY without giving us a glimpse of The Grand Central.

 

(Captain, Black Widow and Hawkeye running to save the day)

Actually The Grand Central is such a popular place of NY, that the entire battle that the ground level battle was fought in front of the gates of the Grand Central. The heroic Hulk punch, the defensive circle of the 6 original Avengers, the fall of Iron Man from the sky, all these took place just in front of The Grand Central entrance gate. 

Though in the MCU, after the Battle of New York, the entrance was badly destructed and the statue of Hermes had to be replaced.

(Original statue of Hermes replaced after The Battle of New York)

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Battle of Manhattan

Any Percy Jackson fans here? Though the movie never adapted more than two book of series (which I am very glad of. The movies sucked) but true fans know how much awesome "The Last Olympian" book was, and how much important strategic point the city of New York was. 85% of the book was based on the actual battle taking place in the NYC between the forces of Kronos and Demigods.

Though no live action film was made so I am unable to give any picture for reference; but lets not forget when the time when the Hermes statue of the Grand Central came to life and kicked some butts.

(Statue of Greek god Hermes atop façade of The Grand Central)

 

"Immediately the statue moved its legs. It seemed confused to find that it was no longer on top of Grand Central Terminal. It was, instead, being given a sky-ride on the end of a rope by a large

winged sow. It smashed through the side of a brick building, which I think made it a little mad. It shook its head and began to climb the rope." (Percy Jackson and The Last Olympian)

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Finding Riya 

Don't think I saved the best for the last; because I saved the one closest to my heart for the last. When I first sat down to write this piece on The Grand Central and began searching and collecting pictures that I will need, I came across this picture.

(Imagine running past this at midnight with -6.6 degree Celsius temperature)

and this picture triggered a long lost memory that I had almost forgotten of. I imagined Madhav Jha, running past this at midnight in freezing temperature, like a mad dog being chased by a pack of wolves. I walked up to my shelf, picked up the book and re-read the second half of Half Girlfriend (does that mean I read quarter girlfriend???) and I found what I was looking for:

" ‘Walk west to Fifth Avenue. You will hit Central Park. Try there,’

someone said...(Due to heavy rain no trains are available at The Grand Central)... I reopened Google Maps. I checked the distance from my current

location at the Met Museum to Cafe Wha? and chose the pedestrian option. It displayed this: Walk 4.0 mi, 1 h 10min. The route was simple. I had to go straight down south on Fifth Avenue for 3.8 of the 4 miles, and then turn right. ‘Four miles. 6.4 kilometres,’ I mumbled to myself. An hour and ten minutes to walk, I thought. If I ran, it would be less. If I ran like a mad dog with a pack of wolves chasing it, even lesser. ‘Madhav Jha,’ I whispered to myself. ‘Run.’ " (Half Girlfriend)

Being the first non-curricular novel that I read, the story of Madhav Jha and Riya Somani is deeply etched into my memory. When I had first read the novel in class 10, I hit such a dose of disappointment when Madhav couldn't get tickets from The Grand Central that I instantly googled it to see how shitty this train station must be. And that was the first time I saw the façade and statue of The Grand Central. Partly because the statue looks similar to the Lord Curzon statue of the Curzon Gate and partly because I kept imagining Madhav running madly in front of it, the image of The Grand Central never left my mind after that day.

 But the reason I am including the Half Girlfriend reference here is not because of my nostalgia for it, but because while completing this project and re-reading the novel I realised something; The Grand Central was the escape for Madhav to reach Riya that day.

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Why Read All These?

I know you all must be scratching your head at this point and asking yourself what long ass thing did you just read and more importantly why did you read all these and most importantly how it all ties to "The Third Level". Yah, good question actually

The idea of creating a separate page dedicated entirely to The Grand Central Terminal first came to my mind when I started listing the important characters of 'The Third Level'. Re-reading that story for a couple of times I realised a subtle concept lying in the setting of the story. The concept was of personification. I know you know what personification is, so I am not going into explaining that. What I realised was, as much as Charlie, Sam and Louisa were real, in the story, The Grand Central was a real thing too. For this story, The Grand Central was the personification of Time or rather the personification of a sentient time machine, which offers new pathways, new corridors and new escape routes to people who search for escape. (I know I might be stretching this too far but bear with me for few more minutes.) 

Jack Finney wrote this story for the October edition of 'The Magazine Of Fantasy & Science Fiction' 1952 and in was published on the same month. Starting in 1943, by this time he had already written and published 17 short stories in various major science fiction magazines, almost each dealing with the non continuity of space and time. I can stress more on my speculations that The Grand Central was the personification of time in this story from the fact that in 1986, along the end of his career, he published a collection of his short stories, titled 'About Time' which was a subset of only time travelling stories from his two book, 'The Third Level' (1957) and 'I love Galesburg in Springtime'(1963).

['The Third Level' (published 1952) short story that is in the CBSE syllabus is only a part of the book of short story collection also named 'The Third Level' (published 1957), both written by the same author Jack Finney.] 

Jack Finney in 1952 captured that essence of the Grand Central that was already there. Being a grand terminal, it was the escape route to home for many office workers and daily passengers, while for the 'celebrities', being the terminal station in NY, it was the escape for them from the hectic life of Hollywood or Washington DC and a to many 5star hotels, in the still urbanising New York. 

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Final Note

On a final note I think it is now pretty clear to you that unlike some explanation which claim that the whole story was just a 'wish fulfilment dream' by Charley, it can be now strongly said that NO, TIME TRAVEL REALLY TOOK PLACE in the story. And it took place because the author wanted it to take place. It took place because Jack Finney was interested in telling time travel stories. So now you know answers to many of the questions at the end of the story.

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Bibliography 

•  The Third Level, (Vistas CBSE class 12 prescribed book.)
•  https://in.pinterest.com/ (For pictures)
• https://www.tripsavvy.com/secrets-of-grand-central-terminal-2286955 (For The Grand Central 'Kissing Room' information)
  
• https://marvel-cinematic-universe-guide.fandom.com/wiki/Grand_Central_Station (For The Battle of New York Information)
• https://riordan.fandom.com/wiki/Special:Search?query=the+grand+central (For The Batttle of Manhattan information)
•  Half Girlfriend by Chetan Bhagat (For Finding Riya piece)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Finney (For the accurate dates and works written and published by Jack Finney.)
  

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