Design for New York’s Grand Central Station by the firm McKim, Mead and White

Design for New York’s Grand Central Station by the firm Reed and Stem

Design for New York’s Grand Central Station by the firm McKim, Mead and White

Design for New York’s Grand Central Station by Samuel Huckel Jr.

Between 1903 and 1913, New York’s Grand Central Station was torn down and replaced in phases by a Grand Central Terminal — still called “Grand Central Station” by most New Yorkers. Out of the many firms that vied to design the new railway station, two were selected: Reed and Stem of St. Paul, Minnesota, who were responsible for the overall design, and Warren and Wetmore of New York, who were responsible for the building’s Beaux-Arts style.

Other firms had different ideas.

McKim, Mead and White, who would later build the old Penn Station as well as the campus of Columbia University in Manhattan, proposed a sixty-story skyscraper, which would have been the tallest tower in the world at the time.

Samuel Huckle Jr. of Pennsylvania called for a baroque turreted building.

Reed and Stem, who would go on to design many more train stations across the United States, originally placed a wide courtyard in front of Grand Central that was never built.

#UnbuiltNewYork: The Grand Centrals That Could Have Been Between 1903 and 1913, New York’s Grand Central Station was torn down and replaced in phases by a Grand Central Terminal – still called “Grand Central Station” by most New Yorkers.