3. There is a Top Secret Room in Grand Central Terminal That Doesn’t Even Appear on Maps or Blueprints

M42 basement
One of the remaining rotaries inside M42

In a story long told by Daniel Brucker, the former docent-in-chief at Grand Central, a hidden room known as M42 does not appear on a single map or blueprint of Grand Central Terminal. Brucker said that this part of the basement played an important, clandestine role in World War II — it was so secret that you risked being shot on site if you went down there. It was allegedly the target of German spies during the war. In truth, while there were spies in America focused on destroying infrastructure, there is no contemporary evidence as of yet that Grand Central, or the M42 basement specifically, was a target.

M42 does exist however, and it houses converters that are responsible for providing all of the electricity that runs through Grand Central. Here, alternating current becomes direct current and provides power for the transportation of more than one million people each week up and down America’s East Coast. Check out our photos of this room deep below the terminal.