better left unsaid

Well, I do love me an old, stately train sta­tion and the grandaddy of them all is Grand Cen­tral Ter­mi­nal in New York City. You hear lots about it, you see it all over the tele­vi­sion and movie screen, but being there really is some­thing spe­cial. It just feels good to be in a place devoted to mov­ing peo­ple around in a classy way.

The sta­tion itself is gor­geous. It’s a bit of a tired cliché, but we really don’t build like this any­more. So grand and ornate. Mas­sive blocks and com­pli­cated pat­terns. And per­haps the most strik­ing of it all, the clean­li­ness. I may be gush­ing here, but it felt almost holy stand­ing in the mid­dle of the main con­course. Many thou­sands of peo­ple make their way through this sta­tion every day and it was spot­less. The crowd was hushed, per­haps in awe of where they were. What­ever the rea­son, it’s a spe­cial place.

On our way back out to E 42nd Street — my brother and I did an epic walk­ing tour of the city that day, 16km in total — I spot­ted a lone per­son tucked into the cor­ner work­ing on his lap­top. With the sun stream­ing in the front win­dow and the beau­ti­ful chan­de­lier hang­ing, it was another shot I couldn’t resist. I can’t wait to get into the dark­room and print this one.

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Cam­era: Mamiya 6 medium-format rangefinder
Lens: Mamiya 75mm
Fil­ter: #15 deep yel­low
Film: Fuji Acros 100
Devel­oper: Rod­i­nal 1+100
Devel­op­ment: Small tank for 18 min­utes at 20 degrees Cel­sius. Agi­ta­tion was for the first 15 sec­onds of the first three min­utes, then one inver­sion every three min­utes.
Date: May, 2010
Loca­tion: 40.752291,-73.977534
Copy­right: 2010 Chris Jones. All rights reserved.

Tags: architecture · blackandwhite · historicsite · interior · mamiya6 · mediumformat · newyorkcity · people
Posted in: Photographs
Permanent link: http://betterleftunsaid.ca/alone-grand-central-terminal/
Short link: http://llvn.ca/3x

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