Archives & Libraries

The Secret Library High Above Grand Central

A small, undigitized collection, the Williamson Library gives insight into the earliest days of New York’s High Line.

By Jennifer Krichels, Superscript October 11, 2013

Sitting largely unnoticed in a secluded spot above the Apple Store, the Williamson Library is a private research collection housed inside Grand Central Terminal. Facing the main concourse, the library was founded by Frederick Ely Williamson, the president of the once-mighty New York Central Railroad (NYCR) in the 1930s and 1940s. The library can be visited only by appointment. Once the appointment is made you have to meet the sole librarian in spy-like fashion at the concourse’s clock; from there you will be led through the station’s rafters to two anonymous gunmetal gray doors, beyond which lies an archive of more than 3,000 railroad-related books, periodicals, and objects.

Frederick Ely Williamson, founder of the library and president of the New York Central Railroad from 1935–1944. Photo courtesy of Fortune magazine via iridetheharlemline.com

The Williamson’s holdings have never been translated into digital form. Some, like the original red carpet for the NYCR’s Twentieth Century Limited express passenger train, never can be. Others that have been crucial to the city’s development, like the bulk of historical records on New York Central’s West Side Improvement—what we today call the High Line—have languished here for decades.

One of the jewels of the library’s High Line holdings is a collection of advertisements projecting the elevated railroad’s development as the birth of a new West Side, of rail living comfortably alongside the automobile. The car will not kill the train, the ads collectively say, an irony that puts into perspective the High Line’s later transformation.

The Book

High Line: The Inside Story of New York City’s Park in the Sky Joshua David
Robert Hammond

The High Line we know today has taught us that technological obsolescence is not necessarily a terminal fate—and in fact it can inspire transformative ideas. The same can be said of the Williamson Library and its yet-to-be-digitized collections. Though often forgotten high above Grand Central’s hustle, it stands as a reminder that each era can build upon the previous one with great success.

Clockwise from top: A Time magazine advertisement for the "Magic Carpet" ride—the high-speed overnight commute between New York and Chicago. Now in the Williamson Library's collection, the red carpet is rolled out for commemorative events at Grand Central. Red Cap attendants rolled out the carpet for New York passengers from the late 1930s until the trains stopped running in the late 1960s.

The Williamson Library and its unassuming entrance, located on the first floor of Tower C in Grand Central Terminal. Photos via iridetheharlemline.com.

A 1938 advertisement for the New York Central touts the railroad as "The Life Line of New York."

Loeb at First Sight: The Classics Come in Red and Green

Highlights from the Paul Rand Library

comments powered by Disqus

Announcements

Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister

Now is Better

By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023

Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.

Order the book.

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future

By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022

Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.

Order the book.

Love Letter to a Garden by Debbie Millman

Love Letter to a Garden

By Debbie Millman
Contributions by Roxane Gay
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: April 15, 2025

From the award-winning artist, designer, and the host of the podcast Design Matters, Debbie Millman, this book tells the visual story of falling in love with gardening—and the philosophies that work conjures. Spread throughout are simple recipes using the garden’s ingredients from Millman’s wife, best-selling author Roxane Gay.

Order the book.

Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber

Milton Glaser: POP

By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023

This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.

Order the book.

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall

By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022

Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”

Order the book.

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)

By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023

This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.

Order the book.