American Experience

Pete got drafted in '42. And I got drafted in '43. He was one of my best friends. So I figured when he was leaving, I was going to go see him off.

They used to bring them all to Grand Central Station and put them on the train to take off. I walked in there. I'd never seen anything so big in my life with thousands of people in it, mostly GIs going off to war...

Pete got shot down and they never found a trace of his plane or the crew or nothing.

When I visit Grand Central, I think about the last time I seen Pete alive and when he was leaving and how I hugged him and he hugged me and I said "I'll be seeing you," you know. Terrible feeling, when you lose a friend like that.

Charlie Pappas

The first time I saw Grand Central was when I was seventeen with my mother. And coming from and growing up in the plantation in East Java, it was just incredible.

It was rush hour and people, streamings of people, were just coming out from various directions and we just got stuck in the middle of that. They were in suits, had briefcases and faces full of purpose.

My mom was holding onto my hand and she leaned over and said to me, she whispered, "someday you will be one of these people, someday you will live here and you will be one of them."

Every morning I pass by that corner and I feel I can be anybody I want.

Prima Soemijantoro Wilson

I got to know Grand Central really well when I was in college and would take the train down from New Haven all the time. And you felt as if you were arriving in the place. This was it. If you had any doubt when you got off the train and walked into that incredible concourse, you knew it was the center of the world...

Paul Goldberger
New York, NY

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