Grand Central Terminal Tour: Every Way to See It

Side by Side

The figures below come from the tour listings as published. Both operators sell free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead, and neither includes tips. The official tour is run by Walks - US, while the secrets tour is run by Untapped New York. Ratings come from the listings themselves.

One honest note on what a tour does and does not include. Neither listing promises entry into any building or any paid attraction. Both are walking tours inside and around a public terminal, and Grand Central is open to everyone daily from 5:15 AM to 2:00 AM, so no tour holds a key you cannot otherwise use.

Which One to Pick

Choose the official Grand Central Terminal guided tour if you want the canonical route. It starts at the GCT Tours booth in the Main Concourse, just right of the Harlem and Hudson Line departures, and it covers the four names every visitor asks about. The listing carries a 4.7 rating from 283 reviews.

Choose the Grand Central Station Secrets Small Group Tour if you have seen the concourse before, or if you travel with children who like stories about hidden tennis courts and speakeasies. It meets in front of Track 29, caps the group at 15, issues an earpiece to every guest and holds a 4.9 rating from 2,029 reviews. It is also the pick among the two for reviewers' scores.

Want more than the terminal? Midtown's Art Deco towers are a separate subject, and the Art Deco Midtown walk covers Grand Central together with the Chrysler Building and Rockefeller Center on its own page.

The Main Concourse and the Ceiling

Is it free to visit Grand Central Terminal? Yes. The terminal's own website says it is open to the public daily from 5:15 AM to 2:00 AM, with shop and restaurant hours that may differ. No ticket is needed to walk the Main Concourse, which sits at 89 East 42nd Street and is served by the 4, 5, 6 and 7 trains plus the 42nd Street Shuttle.

Look up at the ceiling, which carries a mural of the constellations. A restoration finished in 1998 cleaned the painted sky, and conservators left a 9-by-18-inch rectangle untouched in the northwest corner, near the Cancer constellation, so future restorers can test how the cleaning chemicals affect the paint. The dark grime you still see is popularly blamed on cigarette smoke, but History.com reports the restoration found the real culprits were car and truck exhaust, industrial emissions and incinerator soot.

The Clocks

The four-sided brass clock above the central information booth is the meeting point of the whole concourse, and it dates to about 1913. Walk outside and look up at the facade, where a Tiffany clock has faced 42nd Street since it was installed in 1914. That one stands about 14 feet tall and was restored in 1992.

The Whispering Gallery and Vanderbilt Hall

Near the Oyster Bar, the ramps that drop to the lower level span 302 feet and carry Guastavino tiling on their undersides. Rafael Guastavino brought the tile system to the United States in 1885 and patented it in 1892, building vaults from interlocking terracotta tiles less than 1 inch thick laid in herringbone patterns. Stand facing a corner and whisper. A person in the diagonally opposite corner hears you through the curve of the tiles.

Vanderbilt Hall measures 65 by 205 feet and was formerly the main waiting room for intercity travelers. It was renovated in 1991. The Oyster Bar, which opened with the terminal in 1913 under the name Grand Central Terminal Restaurant, still serves on the lower level under its own Guastavino vaults, with a single black brick left from the 1998 restoration as a reminder of what indoor smoking once did. A 1997 fire had briefly closed it for renovations.

How Long to Spend

Google searchers often ask how long to budget. No official source states how long a self-guided visit takes, so plan around your own pace. Add time if you eat at the Oyster Bar or browse Grand Central Market. Roughly 750,000 people a day pass through, according to History.com, so the concourse photographs best early on a weekday.

If you want narration, the Grand Central secrets tour hands each guest an earpiece.

The building itself has a story worth knowing while you walk. Reed and Stem and Warren and Wetmore designed it in the Beaux-Arts style, it opened on February 2, 1913, and it holds 44 platforms and 67 tracks, of which 41 are in passenger service. New York landmarked the facade on August 2, 1967 and the interior on September 23, 1980, and the terminal became a National Historic Landmark on December 8, 1976. The Supreme Court case that saved it from Marcel Breuer's proposed 55-story tower above the concourse was decided 6-3 on June 26, 1978. You can read more in the guide to famous buildings in NYC.

Key Dates in the Building's Story

The table gathers the years that matter most. Cornelius Vanderbilt's New York Central Railroad built the terminal we know, and later generations fought over whether it would survive. The most important date is 1978, when the US Supreme Court decided the case that kept the building intact and shaped preservation law across the country.

The 1978 Supreme Court Case

Penn Central wanted to build above its terminal. The Landmarks Preservation Commission rejected two proposals drawn by Marcel Breuer, a 55-story cantilevered tower and a 53-story structure that would have required demolishing part of the building. The railroad sued, and the case reached the US Supreme Court.

On June 26, 1978 the Court ruled 6-3, in an opinion by Justice William J. Brennan Jr., that landmark restrictions were not a taking. Penn Central could keep using the property as it had for the previous 65 years. The decision set the multi-factor test still used for regulatory takings claims: economic impact, interference with investment-backed expectations, and the character of the government action. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis supported the preservation effort and travelled to Washington for the oral arguments.

The guided options, from the official Grand Central Terminal guided tour to the secrets small group tour, walk the same building, and this case is the reason the concourse ceiling still stands for anyone to look at.

The Ceiling Restoration

The 1998 restoration cleaned the Main Concourse ceiling and left one 9-by-18-inch rectangle untouched in the northwest corner, near the Cancer constellation. The MTA says the patch was left so future conservators can test how the cleaning solutions affect the paint. Conservator John Canning calls it a scientific reference.

There is a second dark detail. A popular story blames decades of cigarette smoke for the grime. History.com reports the restoration found it came from car and truck exhaust, industrial emissions and incinerator soot instead. The Oyster Bar ramps restoration left a single black brick in place as a reminder of the effects of indoor smoking.

The Ceiling and the Clock

The Main Concourse ceiling carries a constellation mural, cleaned in the restoration that finished in 1998 with the small patch left bare. At the center of the concourse stands the four-sided brass clock on the information booth, dating to about 1913. Outside, the Tiffany clock facing 42nd Street was installed in 1914, stands about 14 feet tall and was restored in 1992.

History.com reports that around 750,000 people pass through the terminal each day, so pausing to look up is easier said than done. The official guided tour at $39 per person lists the information booth clock and the Tiffany clock, and the secrets small group tour at $39 per person covers the main concourse and ceiling.

Guastavino Tile and the Whispering Gallery

Rafael Guastavino introduced his tiled vaulting to the United States in 1885 and patented it in 1892. The vaults use interlocking terracotta tiles less than 1 inch thick, laid in herringbone patterns and set in three courses. Under the Oyster Bar ramps landing, this tiling covers the underside of the bridge and forms the Whispering Gallery, where a whisper in one corner can be heard in the diagonally opposite corner.

The ramps connecting to the lower level span 302 feet. Wikipedia lists the Oyster Bar and the Whispering Gallery among Guastavino installations, alongside the Boston Public Library and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

The Oyster Bar and The Campbell

The Oyster Bar opened with the terminal in 1913, first as the Grand Central Terminal Restaurant, and still has its vaulted Guastavino-tiled ceilings on the lower level. A 1997 fire closed it briefly for renovations.

The Campbell cocktail lounge sits just south of the 43rd Street and Vanderbilt Avenue entrance, in what was the 1920s office of John W. Campbell. He decorated it to resemble the galleried hall of a 13th-century Florentine palace. The space opened as the Campbell Apartment bar in 1999 and was renamed the Campbell in 2017. The official guided tour includes a stop here, while the secrets tour covers a former cocktail bar that once served as an office, a speakeasy and a jail.

Vanderbilt Hall, the Biltmore Room and Track 61

Vanderbilt Hall measures 65 by 205 feet and was formerly the main waiting room for intercity travelers. The Biltmore Room is a marble hall serving tracks 39 through 42, nicknamed the Kissing Room for the greetings exchanged there, and it now connects to Grand Central Madison. Giorgio Cavaglieri was hired in 1985 to restore its cracked marble and makeshift lighting, and the room reopened in 2023.

Track 61 is a private track under the Waldorf Astoria, part of the hotel's original design and mentioned by The New York Times in 1929. General John J. Pershing is recorded as the first person to use it, on April 20, 1938, and Franklin D. Roosevelt later used it. It is one of twelve Lex Yard tracks numbered 51 through 65, and tracks 57, 58 and 62 do not exist. The secrets small group tour also covers the hidden tennis court and the lost movie theater in the building.