Put a Ring on It: Grand Central Redesigns Unveiled

From the bold to the incremental, SOM, WXY, and Foster+Partners presented their competing visions for MAS's Grand Central The Next 100 project last week at the non-profit's annual Summit for New York City. Jaclyn Hersh discusses the designs, which each, "used the existing Grand Central as a springboard to create infrastructure that stimulates and interacts with the public realm, connecting the terminal to the street and larger neighborhood." A neighborhood, it should be added, which is destined for a significant transformation in the Bloomberg administration's proposed upzoning for the area.

According to Laura Kusisto, writing in The Wall Street Journal, "The most visually striking proposal, designed by Skidmore Owings, is a halo suspended between two new office buildings that would move up and down. It would give visitors a view of the city from different heights, similar to the London Eye."