MTA Arts & Design

Grand Central Terminal Dining Concourse West

Lynn Saville

Grand Central Revealed: Photographs of the west façade

In a new series of eight photographs commissioned by MTA Arts & Design for the Lightbox program, fine-art photographer Lynn Saville captures a unique moment at 42nd Street and Vanderbilt Avenue in New York’s ever-changing architectural landscape. For the first time in nearly a century, the western façade of Grand Central Terminal has been revealed to uninterrupted, sweeping view. Five buildings spanning an acre-size city block were demolished to prepare for the construction of One Vanderbilt, a 1,401 foot office tower due to be completed in 2020. This impressive view of Grand Central will be visible until One Vanderbilt starts to rise above ground level later this year.

Lynn Saville specializes in photographing “the boundary times between night and day” such as early morning or in the evening. Her long exposure, large format photographs are typically of built spaces and artificial as well as natural light, often in contrast together. Saville reimagines an everyday environment as a cinematic film set discovered by the artist’s eye through framing and timing.

The images in this series show dappled light refracted from nearby glass skyscrapers, creating patterns of light on stone and pedestrians passing by. The train terminal juxtaposed with the Chrysler building creates iconic imagery of historic Beaux Arts and Art Deco monuments, underlined by the One Vanderbilt foundation site, the architecture of the future. Visiting multiple times at dawn, midday, and dusk, from different heights in nearby buildings and on the ground, Saville skillfully captures the changing light across the western face of the terminal, and the humans that that activate the space during classic New York City rush hour, as well as at quiet moments of everyday life.

Saville’s photographs are published in two monographs, and her newest book, Dark City, published in 2015.

Grand Central Revealed: Photographs of the west façade was generously sponsored by Duggal and Kodak alaris.