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Grand Central is an express stop and the first station along the line from Brooklyn Bridge built as part of the "Dual Contracts." During its construction it was referred to as the "Diagonal Station", owing to its position on a diagonal connecting the IRT Contract I subway under Park Avenue with the new Dual Contracts subway under Lexington Avenue. (Since then, the subway south of Grand Central has come to be known as the "Lex" even though it runs under Park Avenue and various other thoroughfares.) The station is roughly positioned beginning at 41st Street & Park, running under the buildings along 42nd Street between Park & Lexington, and ending just north of 42nd Street at the west side of Lexington. A December, 1918 article published in the Public Service Record, Design of the Diagonal Station and Connection, details the construction, and a later single line diagram gives a scale representation of the track and platform layout. The station platforms are decorated with what will be recognized as "typical Dual Contracts" name tablets, icons, and "runner" mosaics along the trackside walls. The icon in this case is a stylized steam locomotive, apropos to the station's location under Grand Central Terminal (which in its early days indeed had steam powered trains). MTA Metro-North's renovations of Grand Central Terminal included an air-conditioning project, and this was extended to the usually extremely warm IRT subway platforms. Chilled water-based air coolers are located at several points along the platforms, making Grand Central the only artificially cooled station on the New York City Subway. The platform's massive columns and beams support part of Grand Central Terminal and the office towers next to it. The station offers transfer to the IRT Flushing, Queens line as well as the Shuttle to Times Square. The complex also included provisions for a terminal station serving a future extension of the Hudson & Manhattan (PATH) railroad's 6th Avenue line, planned in the early part of the century but never constructed. As a result the station is extremely complex, with a mezzanine above the IRT Lexington line platforms which has direct access by escalator to the Flushing line. There is also a cross-under below the Lexington line platforms offering an easier transfer path to the Flushing line. The mezzanine features as artwork a correctly-oriented compass rose inlaid on the floor. The Grand Central complex is home of the master tower which controls the entire East Side IRT. from lower Manhattan to 125th Street. The interlocking control is quite a sight. The board board shows the status of all of the signals and switches, and roughly indicates the train locations along the East Side IRT. In the photo of the board below, the City Hall loop is on the top track diagram on the far left, and at the close right is Grand Central. The lower tracks indicate from Grand Central north to 125th Street. After leaving Grand Central, the express tracks descend to a lower level, and the line continues north in a 2-over-2 configuration. The station lies pretty much due east and west; Some relative depths of stations in the Grand Central complex are as follows, +/- 10 feet.
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