17 November 2017 WHEN JACKIE SAVED GRAND CENTRAL: THE TRUE STORY OF JACQUELINE KENNEDY’S FIGHT FOR AN AMERICAN ICON by Natasha Wing and Alexandra Boiger, ill., Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, March 2017, 48p., ISBN: 978-0-547-44921-0

“I want to stand beneath the clock just one more time

Want to wait upon the platform for the Hudson Line

I guess you’re never really all alone

Or too far from the pull of home

And the stars upon that painted dome still shine”

-- Mary Chapin Carpenter, “Grand Central Station” (2004)

“A forest of silver struts and perforated metallic arches surrounded Peter Lake, who reclined comfortably in a bent and fruitless grove, where riveted limbs were lit here and there by the backwash of small electric lights on the floor. The floor itself was a great half-barrel, the ceiling a grid of steel. All this was warmed by nearly visible streams of air rising above the lights, which were the stars of the constellations in the great vaulted roof of Grand Central Station--recently built with the notion of installing the sky indoors to shine permanently and in green. Peter Lake was one of the few who knew that beyond the visible universe were beams and artifice, a homely support for that which seemed to float. And he had returned by craft and force to the back of the sky, where once in another life he had helped to forge the connections between the beams, to rest now amid the props of the designer’s splendid intentions. He had provided himself with a plank platform of solid oak; a soft feather bed; a makeshift kitchen neatly tucked into a corner (canned goods and biscuits were stacked among the beams); a pile of technical books for late-night reading; a little lamp that had once been a star and had then disappeared without being missed from below; and a long rope on a drum, part of an elaborate escape system worthy of Mootfowl’s best and brightest pupil.”

-- Mark Helprin, from “Winter’s Tale” (1983)

Despite having often passed through Grand Central Station as a child in New York, it was in the wake of reading Helprin’s WINTER’S TALE as an adult that I began taking the time to pause and really look around at what is one of the world’s most-visited tourist attractions.

“Jackie had taken the train countless times to and from Grand Central. It stood close to where she had grown up on Park Avenue and was at the heart of the glamorous city. After her time in Washington, D.C., ended, Jackie moved back to New York City to live among the parks, museums, and magnificent buildings she adored.

By the time Jackie returned, Grand Central had been at risk of losing its magnificence. Its owners wanted to build a skyscraper right on top of it. New Yorkers were outraged! Their historic building must be protected!”

In the midst of what became a historic, precedent-setting Supreme Court case regarding New York City’s Landmarks Law, former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy spearheaded an effort to build public support for saving and restoring New York City’s Grand Central Station to its former glory.

WHEN JACKIE SAVED GRAND CENTRAL begins with the story of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy restoring the White House, which had become quite a dump prior to the time when she and President Kennedy moved in. Many Americans first got to know Jackie Kennedy when, in 1962, she hosted a television special tour of the White House whose restoration she’d undertaken.

“‘Is it not cruel to let our city die by degrees, stripped of all her proud moments, until there is nothing left of her history and beauty to inspire our children?’”

-- Jackie Kennedy

Jackie Kennedy’s successful campaign to save Grand Central is fun to read about. It involved committees and fund raising and letter writing and even a “whistle stop crusade” in which Jackie and other supporters traveled by train to Washington, D.C. where the Supreme Court was about to rule on the Station’s fate. The train trip included “mimes, musicians, clowns, and fire-eating jugglers.”

JFK’s presidency at the dawn of the 1960s, dubbed the New Frontier, marked a turning point in America. WHEN JACKIE SAVED GRAND CENTRAL is a wonderful tribute to a woman who many consider America’s last royalty, and to a pair of campaigns that significantly changed America’s attitudes about historical preservation.

Richie Partington, MLIS

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