1.
Marble Hill, Manhattan
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Marble Hill is the northernmost neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the only Manhattan neighborhood on the mainland of North America, Marble Hill was occupied as a Dutch colonial settlement in 1646, and gained its current name in 1891 because of marble deposits underneath the neighborhood. In 1914, the Harlem River was filled in on the side of Marble Hill, connecting it to the North American mainland. Because of this change in geography, Marble Hill is often associated with the Bronx and is part of two of the latters Community Board Districts, Marble Hill has been occupied since the Dutch colonial period. On August 18,1646, Governor Willem Kieft, the Dutch Director of New Netherland, signed a grant to Mattius Jansen van Keulan. This grant had comprised the whole of the present community, the ferry charter was granted in 1667. Many settlers circumvented the toll for the ferry by crossing the creek from northern Marble Hill to modern Kingsbridge, Bronx, in 1669 Verveelen transplanted his ferry to the northern tip of Marble Hill, at todays Broadway and West 231st Street. Two bridges connected Marble Hill with the mainland, the Kings Bridge, originally a merchant in New Amsterdam, Philipse had purchased vast landholdings in what was then Westchester County. Granted the title Lord of Philipse Manor, he established a plantation and his toll bridge provided access and opened his land to settlement. Later, it carried the Boston Post Road, in 1758, the Free Bridge was erected by Jacob Dyckman and Benjamin Palmer. It opened on January 1,1759 and its purpose was to serve the farmers who refused to pay the toll. Stagecoach service was established across the span. The new bridge proceeded to take much of the traffic away from the Kings Bridge, one of the local visiting spots during this period was a tavern operated by the Dyckman family. They had a called the Black Horse Inn, located just south of McGowans Pass in what is now East Drive of Central Park. The Dyckmans sold the Black Horse to finance a new operation on the west side of Broadway and 226th Street that was to be managed by Benjamin Palmer and it was situated to cater to the traffic from both bridges. In 1772 the Dyckmans sold the tavern to Caleb Hyatt and was known by the new name as Hyatt’s Tavern at the Free Bridge. When hostilities broke out at the start of the American Revolution, by November 1776, the fort had been taken over by Hessian forces and renamed Fort Prince Charles in honor of Charles, Duke of Brunswick, brother-in-law to George III. Despite contrary beliefs, the Kings Bridge and the Dyckman Free Bridge served as routes for the retreating American forces after the Battle of Fort Washington on November 16,1776
2.
Manhattan
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Manhattan is the most densely populated borough of New York City, its economic and administrative center, and the citys historical birthplace. The borough is coextensive with New York County, founded on November 1,1683, Manhattan is often described as the cultural and financial capital of the world and hosts the United Nations Headquarters. Many multinational media conglomerates are based in the borough and it is historically documented to have been purchased by Dutch colonists from Native Americans in 1626 for 60 guilders which equals US$1062 today. New York County is the United States second-smallest county by land area, on business days, the influx of commuters increases that number to over 3.9 million, or more than 170,000 people per square mile. Manhattan has the third-largest population of New York Citys five boroughs, after Brooklyn and Queens, the City of New York was founded at the southern tip of Manhattan, and the borough houses New York City Hall, the seat of the citys government. The name Manhattan derives from the word Manna-hata, as written in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, a 1610 map depicts the name as Manna-hata, twice, on both the west and east sides of the Mauritius River. The word Manhattan has been translated as island of hills from the Lenape language. The United States Postal Service prefers that mail addressed to Manhattan use New York, NY rather than Manhattan, the area that is now Manhattan was long inhabited by the Lenape Native Americans. In 1524, Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano – sailing in service of King Francis I of France – was the first European to visit the area that would become New York City. It was not until the voyage of Henry Hudson, an Englishman who worked for the Dutch East India Company, a permanent European presence in New Netherland began in 1624 with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island. In 1625, construction was started on the citadel of Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, later called New Amsterdam, the 1625 establishment of Fort Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan Island is recognized as the birth of New York City. In 1846, New York historian John Romeyn Brodhead converted the figure of Fl 60 to US$23, variable-rate myth being a contradiction in terms, the purchase price remains forever frozen at twenty-four dollars, as Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace remarked in their history of New York. Sixty guilders in 1626 was valued at approximately $1,000 in 2006, based on the price of silver, Straight Dope author Cecil Adams calculated an equivalent of $72 in 1992. In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed as the last Dutch Director General of the colony, New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2,1653. In 1664, the English conquered New Netherland and renamed it New York after the English Duke of York and Albany, the Dutch Republic regained it in August 1673 with a fleet of 21 ships, renaming the city New Orange. Manhattan was at the heart of the New York Campaign, a series of battles in the early American Revolutionary War. The Continental Army was forced to abandon Manhattan after the Battle of Fort Washington on November 16,1776. The city, greatly damaged by the Great Fire of New York during the campaign, became the British political, British occupation lasted until November 25,1783, when George Washington returned to Manhattan, as the last British forces left the city
3.
New York (state)
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New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita. Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
4.
Metro-North Railroad
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With an average weekday ridership of 298,900 in 2014, it is the second-busiest commuter railroad in North America in terms of annual ridership, behind its sister railroad, the Long Island Rail Road. Metro-North also provides rail service within New York City at a reduced fare. There are 124 stations on Metro-North Railroads five active lines, which operate on more than 775 miles of track, the MTA has jurisdiction, through Metro-North, over railroad lines on the western and eastern portions of the Hudson River in New York. Service on the side of the Hudson is operated by New Jersey Transit under contract with the MTA. Three lines provide service on the east side of the Hudson River to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, the Hudson, Harlem. The Beacon Line is a line owned by Metro-North but is not in service. The Hudson and Harlem Lines terminate in Poughkeepsie and Wassaic, New York, the New Haven Line is operated through a partnership between Metro-North and the State of Connecticut. The Connecticut Department of Transportation owns the tracks and stations within Connecticut, MTA owns the tracks and stations and handles capital improvements within New York State. MTA performs routine maintenance and provides services for the entire line, its branches. New cars and locomotives are purchased in a joint agreement between MTA and ConnDOT, with the agencies paying for 33. 3% and 66. 7% of costs respectively. ConnDOT pays more because most of the line is in Connecticut, the New Haven Line has three branches in Connecticut, the New Canaan Branch, Danbury Branch and Waterbury Branch. At New Haven, the Shore Line East connecting service, run by Connecticut, Amtrak operates intercity train service along the New Haven and Hudson Lines. The New Haven Line is part of Amtraks Northeast Corridor, at New Haven, the New Haven Line connects to the Amtrak New Haven–Springfield Line. The Hudson Line connects with the Oak Point Link and is the route for freight to and from the Bronx. Freight railroads CSX, CP Rail, P&W, and Housatonic Railroad have trackage rights on sections of the system, there are two branches, the Port Jervis Line and the Pascack Valley Line. The Port Jervis Line is accessed from two New Jersey Transit lines, the Main Line and the Bergen County Line. The Port Jervis Line terminates in Port Jervis, New York, most stops for the Port Jervis and Pascack Valley Lines are in New Jersey, so New Jersey Transit provides most of the rolling stock and all the staff, Metro-North supplies some equipment. Metro-North equipment has been used on other New Jersey Transit lines on the Hoboken division, All stations west of the Hudson River in New York are owned and operated by Metro-North, except Suffern, which is owned and operated by New Jersey Transit
5.
Hudson Line (Metro-North)
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Metro-North Railroads Hudson Line is a commuter rail line running north from New York City along the east shore of the Hudson River. Metro-North service ends at Poughkeepsie, with Amtraks Empire Corridor trains continuing north to, the line was originally the Hudson River Railroad, and later part of the famous Water Level Route of the New York Central Railroad. The Croton–Harmon station divides the line into two distinct segments, south of there, the line is electrified with third rail, serving suburban stations located relatively close together. Most of the zone has four tracks, usually two express and local tracks in each direction. For a few miles in the Bronx there are two or three tracks. Local service is provided by electric trains, while diesel trains run express. North of Croton–Harmon, the line is not electrified and is mostly double-tracked, service between Croton–Harmon and Poughkeepsie is provided by diesel trains, these generally run express and skip most of the lower stations. From just north of Spuyten Duyvil to the end of the line, the Hudson line was built by the Hudson River Railroad in 1851 as an extension to the Troy and Greenbush Railroad connecting Troy and Albany in the capital region. Cornelius Vanderbilt purchased the Hudson River Railroad in 1864 and merged it in 1869 with other short line railroads that Vanderbilt also owned including the New York and these two merged railroads were named the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad. It was renamed the New York Central Railroad in 1914, the New York Central operated many intercity and commuter trains over this line for many years. It was a key route in connecting Grand Central Terminal in New York to LaSalle Street Station in Chicago, commuter service along the line was offered as far north as Albany Union Station, with 121 trains serving Albany per day during the NYCs peak years. At the end of the world war, private rail service began a sharp decline with the start of the Jet Age. The New York Central began losing money on almost all commuter, the railroad continued to lose money however. This however was denied, preserving Grand Central, in 1971 the National Railroad Passenger Corporation took over all intercity passenger service in the US. Penn Central continued to operate freight and commuter service along the Hudson line until it was folded into Conrail in 1976, Conrail operated commuter service to Albany until it abandoned service north of Poughkeepsie in 1981. In 1983, the MTA Metro-North Railroad took control of all operations in the Hudson Valley. In 2009 a new station was opened at East 153rd Street in the Bronx and it sees regular service on the Hudson Line, plus special service from the Hudson, Harlem, and New Haven Lines for New York Yankees games. On December 1,2013, a train derailed near the Spuyten Duyvil station in the Bronx
6.
Island platform
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An island platform is a station layout arrangement where a single platform is positioned between two tracks within a railway station, tram stop or transitway interchange. Island platforms are popular on twin-track routes due to pragmatic and cost-effective reasons, an alternative arrangement is to position side platforms on either side of the tracks. The historical use of island platforms depends greatly upon the location, the island platform layout is a popular, cost-effective and practical solution in modern railway systems. Island platforms allow facilities such as escalators, elevators, shops, toilets and this is essential for wheelchair accessible stations. An island platform makes it easier for users and the infirm to change services between tracks. Additionally, an island platform layout eliminates the need to construct a crossover or subway between two platforms, however, island platforms may become overcrowded, especially at busy stations, and this can lead to safety issues such as Clapham Common and Angel on the London Underground. However, for the tracks to diverge around the platform, extra width is required along the right-of-way on each approach to the station. Track centers vary for rail systems throughout the world but are normally 3 to 5 meters, if the island platform is 6 meters wide, the tracks have to slew out by the same distance. While this is not a problem on a new line that is being constructed, in addition, a single island platform makes it quite difficult to have through tracks, which are usually between the local tracks. A common configuration in busy locations on high speed lines is a pair of island platforms, high-speed trains can therefore pass straight through the station, while slow trains pass around the platforms. This arrangement also allows the station to serve as a point where trains can be passed by faster trains. The purpose of this design was to reduce unnecessary passenger congestion at a station with a high volume of passengers. Many of the stations on the Great Central Railway were constructed in this form and this was because the line was planned to connect to a Channel Tunnel. Island platforms are a normal sight on Indian railway stations. Almost all railway stations in India consist of island platforms, in Toronto,29 subway stations use island platforms. A slight disadvantage is that crossovers have to be rather long, in southern New Jersey and Philadelphia, PATCO uses island platforms in all of its 13 stations, to facilitate one-person train operation. Most elevated stations in Singapores Mass Rapid Transit system use island platforms, the exception is Dover MRT Station, which uses side platforms as it is built on an existing rail line. The planned Canberra MRT Station will also use side platforms, as it also be built on an existing rail line
7.
New York City Subway
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Opened in 1904, the New York City Subway is one of the worlds oldest public transit systems, one of the worlds most used metro systems, and the metro system with the most stations. It offers service 24 hours per day, every day of the year, the New York City Subway is the largest rapid transit system in the world by number of stations, with 472 stations in operation. Stations are located throughout the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Port Authority Trans-Hudson and the AirTrain JFK, in Manhattan and Queens respectively, accept the subways MetroCard but are not operated by the MTA and do not allow free transfers. Another mass transit service that is not operated by the MTA, the system is also one of the worlds longest. Overall, the system contains 236 miles of routes, translating into 665 miles of track. In 2015, the subway delivered over 1.76 billion rides, averaging approximately 5.7 million daily rides on weekdays and a combined 5.9 million rides each weekend. Of the systems 25 services,22 of them pass through Manhattan, the exceptions being the G train, the Franklin Avenue Shuttle, and the Rockaway Park Shuttle. Large portions of the subway outside Manhattan are elevated, on embankments, or in open cuts, in total, 40% of track is not underground despite the subway moniker. Many lines and stations have both express and local services and these lines have three or four tracks. Normally, the two are used for local trains, while the inner one or two are used for express trains. Stations served by express trains are typically major transfer points or destinations, alfred Ely Beach built the first demonstration for an underground transit system in New York City in 1869 and opened it in February 1870. The tunnel was never extended for political and financial reasons, although extensions had been planned to take the tunnel southward to The Battery, the Great Blizzard of 1888 helped demonstrate the benefits of an underground transportation system. A plan for the construction of the subway was approved in 1894, the first underground line of the subway opened on October 27,1904, almost 36 years after the opening of the first elevated line in New York City, which became the IRT Ninth Avenue Line. The fare was $0.05 and on the first day the trains carried over 150,000 passengers, the oldest structure still in use opened in 1885 as part of the BMT Lexington Avenue Line in Brooklyn and is now part of the BMT Jamaica Line. The oldest right-of-way, which is part of the BMT West End Line near Coney Island Creek, was in use in 1864 as a railroad called the Brooklyn, Bath. By the time the first subway opened, the lines had been consolidated into two privately owned systems, the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company and the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, the city built most of the lines and leased them to the companies. This required it to be run at cost, necessitating fares up to double the five-cent fare popular at the time, in 1940, the city bought the two private systems. Some elevated lines ceased service immediately while others closed soon after, integration was slow, but several connections were built between the IND and BMT, these now operate as one division called the B Division
8.
MTA Regional Bus Operations
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Both NYCT and MaBSTOA operate service pursuant to a lease agreement with the City of New York. MTABC operates service pursuant to an agreement with the City of New York under which all expenses of MTABC and this brought almost all bus transportation in New York City under its control. After the bus mergers were completed in 2006, the MTA then moved to streamline its operations through consolidation of management function, MTA Regional Bus also included the MTA Long Island Bus division until January 2012, when its services were transferred to a private operator by Nassau County. Other changes have included eliminating the MTA Bus call center, folding it into that of MTA New York City Transit, Regional Bus Operations is currently only used in official documentation, and not publicly as a brand. The seven former companies were, Command Bus Company, Inc. Green Bus Lines, Queens Surface Corp. and Triboro Coach Corp. The most common scheme is a blue stripe across the sides of the bus against a white base, with no colors on the front or back. From 1977 until late 2007, the livery was a full all-around stripe with a rear, and until late 2010. Buses operated in Select Bus Service bus rapid transit service are wrapped with a light blue-and-white wrap below the windows. In spring 2016, a new livery was introduced based on blue, light blue, and gold, with a mostly blue front and sides, a light blue and gold wave. Access-A-Ride paratransit services are provided by independent contractors, using vehicles owned by the MTA. In addition, MTA Regional Bus Operations operated bus and paratransit service in Nassau County under the name Long Island Bus until December 31,2011 and this service was operated by the MTA under an agreement with Nassau County, who owned its facilities and equipment. In 2011, the MTA asked Nassau County to provide funding for Long Island Bus than they were at the time. The county refused to provide funding, and the MTA voted to end operation of the system at the end of 2011. The county then decided to hire Veolia Transportation, a transportation company. Eventually all of these routes were transferred to private management, another city acquisition was the Bridge Operating Company, which ran the Williamsburg Bridge Local trolley, acquired in 1921 by the DP&S. Unlike the other lines, this one remained city-operated, and was replaced by the B39 bus route on December 5,1948, on February 23,1947, the Board of Transportation took over the Staten Island bus network of the Isle Transportation Company. The final Brooklyn trolleys were the Church Avenue Line and McDonald Avenue Line, discontinued on October 31,1956, though the privately operated Queensboro Bridge Local remained until 1957. Thus, in the late 1950s, the city operated all local service in Staten Island and Brooklyn, about half the service in Queens
9.
Volt
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The volt is the derived unit for electric potential, electric potential difference, and electromotive force. One volt is defined as the difference in potential between two points of a conducting wire when an electric current of one ampere dissipates one watt of power between those points. It is also equal to the difference between two parallel, infinite planes spaced 1 meter apart that create an electric field of 1 newton per coulomb. Additionally, it is the difference between two points that will impart one joule of energy per coulomb of charge that passes through it. It can also be expressed as amperes times ohms, watts per ampere, or joules per coulomb, for the Josephson constant, KJ = 2e/h, the conventional value KJ-90 is used, K J-90 =0.4835979 GHz μ V. This standard is typically realized using an array of several thousand or tens of thousands of junctions. Empirically, several experiments have shown that the method is independent of device design, material, measurement setup, etc. in the water-flow analogy sometimes used to explain electric circuits by comparing them with water-filled pipes, voltage is likened to difference in water pressure. Current is proportional to the diameter of the pipe or the amount of water flowing at that pressure. A resistor would be a reduced diameter somewhere in the piping, the relationship between voltage and current is defined by Ohms Law. Ohms Law is analogous to the Hagen–Poiseuille equation, as both are linear models relating flux and potential in their respective systems, the voltage produced by each electrochemical cell in a battery is determined by the chemistry of that cell. Cells can be combined in series for multiples of that voltage, mechanical generators can usually be constructed to any voltage in a range of feasibility. High-voltage electric power lines,110 kV and up Lightning, Varies greatly. Volta had determined that the most effective pair of metals to produce electricity was zinc. In 1861, Latimer Clark and Sir Charles Bright coined the name volt for the unit of resistance, by 1873, the British Association for the Advancement of Science had defined the volt, ohm, and farad. In 1881, the International Electrical Congress, now the International Electrotechnical Commission and they made the volt equal to 108 cgs units of voltage, the cgs system at the time being the customary system of units in science. At that time, the volt was defined as the difference across a conductor when a current of one ampere dissipates one watt of power. The international volt was defined in 1893 as 1/1.434 of the emf of a Clark cell and this definition was abandoned in 1908 in favor of a definition based on the international ohm and international ampere until the entire set of reproducible units was abandoned in 1948. Prior to the development of the Josephson junction voltage standard, the volt was maintained in laboratories using specially constructed batteries called standard cells
10.
Third rail
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A third rail is a method of providing electric power to a railway locomotive or train, through a semi-continuous rigid conductor placed alongside or between the rails of a railway track. It is used typically in a transit or rapid transit system. Third rail systems are supplied from direct current electricity. The third-rail system of electrification is unrelated to the third used in dual gauge railways. Third-rail systems are a means of providing electric power to trains. On most systems, the rail is placed on the sleeper ends outside the running rails. The conductor rail is supported on ceramic insulators or insulated brackets, the trains have metal contact blocks called shoes which make contact with the conductor rail. The traction current is returned to the station through the running rails. The conductor rail is made of high conductivity steel. The conductor rails have to be interrupted at level crossings, crossovers, tapered rails are provided at the ends of each section, to allow a smooth engagement of the trains contact shoes. Because third rail systems present electric shock hazards close to the ground, a very high current must therefore be used to transfer adequate power, resulting in high resistive losses, and requiring relatively closely spaced feed points. The electrified rail threatens electrocution of anyone wandering or falling onto the tracks. This can be avoided by using platform screen doors, or the risk can be reduced by placing the rail on the side of the track away from the platform. There is also a risk of pedestrians walking onto the tracks at level crossings, the Paris Metro has graphic warning signs pointing out the danger of electrocution from urinating on third rails, precautions which Chicago did not have. The end ramps of conductor rails present a practical limitation on speed due to the impact of the shoe. The world speed record for a rail train is 174 km/h attained on 11 April 1988 by a British Class 442 EMU. In the event of a collision with an object, the beveled end ramps of bottom running systems can facilitate the hazard of having third rail penetrate the interior of a passenger car. This is believed to have contributed to the death of five passengers in the Valhalla train crash of 2015, third rail systems using top contact are prone to accumulations of snow, or ice formed from refrozen snow, and this can interrupt operations
11.
Grand Central Terminal
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Grand Central Terminal is a commuter, rapid transit railroad terminal at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States. Its platforms, all ground, serve 41 tracks on the upper level and 26 on the lower, though the total number of tracks along platforms. The terminal serves commuters traveling on the Metro-North Railroad to Westchester, Putnam, until 1991, the terminal served Amtrak, which moved to nearby Pennsylvania Station upon completion of the Empire Connection. The East Side Access project is underway to bring Long Island Rail Road service to the terminal, Grand Central Terminal has intricate designs both on its inside and outside. In addition, it contains a vast interior main concourse, the terminal is one of the worlds most visited tourist attractions, with 21.9 million visitors in 2013. Unlike other Metro-North stations, Grand Central Terminal is not owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Grand Central Station is the name of the nearby U. S. Post Office station at 450 Lexington Avenue, but may refer to the Grand Central – 42nd Street subway station that is located next to the terminal. The tracks are numbered according to their location in the terminal building, the upper-level tracks are numbered 11 to 42 east to west. Tracks 22 and 31 were removed in the late 1990s to build concourses for Grand Central North, Track 12 was removed to expand the platform between tracks 11 and 13 and track 14 is only used for loading a garbage train. The lower level has 27 tracks, numbered 100 to 126, east to west, currently, only tracks 102–112, odd-numbered tracks are usually on the east side of the platform, even-numbered tracks on the west. Grand Central Terminal has both monumental spaces and meticulously crafted detail, especially on its facade, in a February 2013 BBC News article, historian David Cannadine described it as one of the most majestic buildings of the twentieth century. In 2013, Grand Central Terminal hosted 21.6 million visitors, among them are chain stores, including a Starbucks coffee shop, a Rite Aid pharmacy and, as of December 2011, an Apple Store. Other chain restaurants include a Shake Shack, Grand Central Terminals 49-acre basements are among the largest in the city. This includes M42, a secret sub-basement under the terminal that contains the AC to DC converters used to supply DC traction current to the tracks. The exact location of M42 is a guarded secret and does not appear on maps, though it has been shown on the History Channel program Cities of the Underworld. Two of the rotary converters were not removed in the late 20th century when solid-state ones took over their job. During World War II, this facility was closely guarded because its sabotage would have impaired troop movement on the Eastern Seaboard. It is said that any unauthorized person entering the facility during the war risked being shot on sight, abwehr sent two spies to sabotage it, they were arrested by the FBI before they could strike
train at Marble Hill–225th Street
NYCT Bus: Bx7, Bx9, Bx20
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