Episode 1 New York: America's Busiest City

The world's most famous skyline.

A symbol of ambition, success and wealth.

Welcome to New York.

We're going to show you how this city works.

We've gained privileged access

to some of New York's most iconic places.

In this series,

we're revealing the hidden systems and armies of workers that keep

everything on track.

This is a place under pressure.

The population's hit 8.5 million.

Transport, food supply and housing are struggling to keep up.

Tonight, we're kicking off at the world's largest railway terminal -

Grand Central.

We'll show you what it takes to keep this crowded metropolis on the move.

Engineer Ant Anstead heads beneath the terminal to visit America's

biggest rail construction project.

It is vast.

Journalist Ade Adepitan takes an eye-opening ride in a yellow cab.

Would you pick me up, then?

Let me tell you something, you're black, in a wheelchair.

One and one equals blind.

I get up close and personal with New Yorkers.

Ooh...

The cameraman just took someone out.

And historian Dan Snow delves into Times Square's murky past.

A gunman managed to get into the building

and rob one of my colleagues at gunpoint,

at her desk, on the weekend.

This is your access-all-areas pass

to America's biggest and busiest city.

Welcome to Grand Central Terminal -

the most spectacular railway terminal in the world,

slap bang in the heart of New York,

in the city's commercial centre, the Midtown area of Manhattan.

It's just after 8am in the morning,

which, as you can see, is rush hour here, and get this -

each weekday, the population of Manhattan almost doubles,

from 1.6 million to 3.1 million people.

We're going to show you what's going on behind the scenes during

rush hour this morning, and how New Yorkers get to work on time.

This is the largest railway terminal in the world.

It has 46 platforms, it intersects with the subway,

it dwarfs anything we have in Britain.

Waterloo, in comparison, only has 19 platforms.

Now, looking around this rather beautiful concourse,

it doesn't seem that big at first glance, and that's because

the business end is underneath me.

Look below the building's facade and the essential infrastructure

of the station - cafes, shops, tracks and platforms -

are all buried beneath the city's streets.

It's 8:05am and rush hour is in full swing.

A train has just come in.

This one is the Bridgeport train on the New Haven line.

It connects this city to upstate New York,

Connecticut and all the suburbs.

And, if you take a look down the platform, you can just see

hundreds and hundreds of people coming in,

most of them commuters.

At peak time,

one of these trains comes in every 47 seconds,

and carries about 1,200 passengers. Sorry, sir.

It's pretty busy, isn't it?

Now, to understand this city, you really have to get to grips

with the way it travels.

And that's precisely what Ade, Ant and I got up to.

Four out of every five New Yorkers use its enormous public transport

network to get to work each day.

Sitting at the heart of it is Grand Central.

Spanning over 5,000 square miles, this complex system of trains,

subways, buses and boats link New York's commercial centre, Manhattan,

to its four outer boroughs -

Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens,

the Bronx and beyond.

Depending on where you live,

your experience of commuting here can be very different.

That's where I'm heading -

Manhattan, over the water from here, Staten Island.

We're heading to Grand Central,

like the 200,000 commuters who travel there every day.

I'm coming in with the mainly blue-collar workers who use

the Staten Island Ferry.

5.5 million New Yorkers rely on the subway each day.

And today, I'm joining the hipsters of Williamsburg in Brooklyn.

I'm going in.

I'm taking the L train to Union Square

and then changing to get to Grand Central.

It's one of the city's most overcrowded routes,

with passenger numbers doubling over the last 20 years.

I'm travelling with the affluent out-of-towners...

..coming in from Greenwich, in the neighbouring state of Connecticut,

on one of the city's 30 suburban railway lines.

I'm keen to see how wheelchair-friendly

my journey will be.

-TANOY:

-The express train to New York,

stopping only at 125th Street, then Grand Central.

So a monthly ticket from Greenwich into New York City

is going to cost you about £200.

In comparison, if you're getting a ticket from Guildford in Surrey

into London, it's going to be about £400, which is double.

It's pretty decent.

OK, let's get a ticket.

Start.

A single subway ride costs a flat rate of 3,

about £2.25,

whereas a single on the London Underground

can easily set you back over £5.

But low subsidised fares mean stations are dilapidated and

technology outdated. There's no contactless payment here.

Here we go.

"Please remove your cash."

It won't let me pay.

Over on Staten Island, there's no need for ticket machines.

Not a single person here is paying for this ride.

This is all for free.

And it's been this way since 1997,

when the city's mayor decided the ferry charge was unfair.

And like clockwork, the ferry's here.

Busy.

On a typical weekday, there are over 100 crossings.

Time it wrong...

PASSENGER SHOUTING

..and it's a 15 minute wait for the next one.

Out in Connecticut, I think I'm on the world's easiest commute.

Look at this. Very little step and very little gap.

No palaver. I love it.

New Yorkers have the longest commute in the US,

spending an average of over 6.5 hours

travelling to and from work each week.

It's all right. It's not too busy, plenty of spare seats.

Not that I'm worried - I've brought my own.

If only the subway was so straightforward.

So, let's swipe it.

Other way.

TURNSTILE BEEPS

Then swipe again.

New York Subway has 469 stations -

more than anywhere else in the world.

I want to get the L train...

Manhattan. There we go.

Just missed one. Oh!

And half of the 24 lines are running at or near capacity,

making this an up close and personal experience.

Oh, gosh...

We're cramming in.

Ooh!

The cameraman just took someone out with the... Sorry.

Sorry, sorry.

For me, it's plain sailing.

I'm halfway through the five mile crossing, and it feels more like

a pleasure cruise than a commute.

This is great. Imagine this every morning on the way to work.

But my smugness might be misplaced.

I'm still five miles from Grand Central,

and I'll be cycling the rest of the way.

In 2013, the city introduced a bike hire scheme

like those in London and Paris.

So this is my chariot.

Now, similar to the Boris bikes back in London, it works on a key.

Perfect!

Now, I've not cycled for at least a year...

but how hard can it be?

Woo-hoo-hoo...

Whoa!

Morning.

The number of cycling commuters has doubled in the last five years.

But they still account for just 1% of work journeys.

And I soon see why.

It's not for the faint-hearted.

Oh, my God.

It's not really a great place to be on a bike.

Aargh!

-CAR HORN BEEPS

-What are you beeping for?!

Converging on Grand Central, from north, south and east,

we've seen for ourselves how the day starts for 80% of New Yorkers.

-TANOY:

-Stand clear of the closing doors, please.

We made it! Yeah!

I could do that every day. I like it.

Well, it had a few moments, but I rather enjoyed that.

That, my friend, was surprisingly simple.

In London, when I'm going on a train,

I have to call 24 hours ahead,

they bring out a ramp - it's a massive palaver.

I really enjoyed that trip.

I enjoyed mine too. It was really calming.

I mean, what better way to go to work than on a boat?

Plus it's free.

The reason travelling seems so seamless is because of

all the efforts that go on behind the scenes,

and a lot of it happens in this office here.

These guys are the rapid response team at Grand Central.

They're juggling all the incoming and outgoing rush-hour trains,

responding to and solving problems as they crop up.

This is known as the Track 25 office.

It's peak rush hour and the man in charge is Emiliano Perez.

-Emiliano.

-How are you doing?

-What's going on this morning?

We have a couple of delays and also we had a situation on track 19 -

a suspicious lady.

So we had to go there too, and the train was delayed two minutes.

Wow, so you've got two delays, this morning, and one suspicious lady.

-Absolutely.

-Emiliano, what do the screens mean?

The screen is a tracking system for us.

We track every train.

-So they are all the lines going out of the station?

-Yes.

So this is a live map?

-This is everything that's going on, in Grand Central, this morning?

-Yes.

-We make sure the trains are posted on the right tracks.

-Right.

Throughout the whole day, 700 trains.

We've got to manage the whole system.

So this is 700 trains? Blimey.

-Through the whole day, yes.

-Going throughout the whole day.

-And I guess, here, where you've marked it, that's where you've had to make changes.

-Right.

We make changes because sometimes the train has to go for cleaning,

or we make changes because the train has mechanical issues.

We deal with that every single day.

How many changes have you made so far, this morning?

Today, I would say, we have... Let me see...

one, two, three, four...about six changes today.

So, it's not even 9am and you've already had to make six changes.

Six changes, provided that everything is running smooth.

Metro.

We've got problems. On 111, we've got problems.

Actually, Emiliano might have spoken too soon.

1320. Got it.

105. A 1320.

111 - what's the 34, Mike?

There's an unattended bag, they're phoning the police, they're dealing with the incident right now.

Emiliano's quick to dispatch a canine unit.

-So that track's out of action?

-Absolutely, yes.

And what's going to happen with that bag?

Well, the police goes there with the canine unit and they have to OK

the train or say "not good", and then we've got to evacuate.

So it's potentially a serious problem?

Absolutely.

The dogs are trained to sniff out the ingredients

that make up explosives.

There's a lot going on and I feel like I'm kind of getting in the way.

It's a false alarm and the bag is taken to the lost property office.

33. 25 track. The bag's been cleared off 111.

All track 111. All track 112.

There's just constant things happening.

Incidents are coming in, everybody's reacting to it.

Although it seems and feels a bit chaotic,

these guys have got it all under control.

-Amazing.

-Amazing, yes.

Look, you're obviously having a busy time -

-I'm going to leave you to it.

-OK, thank you.

Back on the concourse,

10,000 people are on their way to work, oblivious to this

behind-the-scenes operation keeping them safe.

The reason this place is so busy is because 300,000 people work within

a ten minute walk of here, in 70 million square feet of office space.

But its location wasn't always so central, as Dan Snow discovered.

Today, Midtown is the heart of Manhattan.

But 150 years ago, it was an area on the outskirts of town.

The main action was happening down south.

This is Lower Manhattan.

In 1870, the population of New York was around 1.4 million,

and most of them lived packed in down here,

because New York was a city founded on trade.

It was surrounded by the water.

There's the Hudson River out there, and ships from all over the world

carrying their trade goods would come in here, and then goods would

be shipped all over the United States.

The men who controlled this lucrative trade

became very, very rich indeed.

And the richest of them all was Cornelius Vanderbilt.

He realised steam trains could deliver his goods more quickly

and more cheaply than steam ships.

So, in 1871,

he bought six blocks of land in Midtown

and built America's largest railway station,

at a cost of 6.4 million.

That's 100 million today.

Grand Central Depot was New York's first major rail terminal -

the original incarnation of the building we know today.

This is a plan of New York from the time.

You can see down here, the heart of the city on the southern tip of

the island, and the rest of it has been subdivided,

waiting for future development.

What's interesting is that Grand Central might have been grand,

but it wasn't central. It's way up here on 42nd Street and that's

because the planners did not want dirty, nasty, sooty steam trains

belching out their mess right in the heart of the city.

But this became such an important transport hub that the area

around it became very desirable,

and that was the birth of fashionable, expensive Midtown.

By the turn of the 20th century,

15 million passengers a year were using the station,

but it was over-capacity and stretched to breaking point.

In 1902, there was a devastating crash just outside Grand Central.

15 people died at the scene, and it was the catalyst for change.

Without room to expand, a radical solution was proposed -

knock down the station and build a modern version in its place.

Key to this plan was replacing steam trains with cleaner electric ones.

It had a huge safety benefit, but it also had an enormous financial

benefit, because it meant the trains could be buried below the surface of

Manhattan and the ground could be sold off for commercial development.

The cost was huge, nearly 3 billion in today's money,

but they recouped a lot of that by selling the land above.

And in doing so, created a little street you might have heard of -

Park Avenue.

Work on Grand Central began in 1903 and took ten years to complete.

Throughout the building project, rail services ran uninterrupted.

From the excavation of 2.3 million cubic metres of rock

and demolition of 200 buildings, an icon was born...

..an enduring monument to the wealth and determination of New York's

original transport tycoon.

It's now 8:20am.

With 19 trains due in the next 15 minutes,

there's no space to cram any more into the schedule.

They've reached a crunch point.

New York is in desperate need of extra rail capacity.

But where do you put new train lines in this already crowded city?

There's only one solution.

Dig down. And that's exactly what they're doing.

At the moment, the Long Island Railroad,

America's busiest commuter line,

comes into Penn Station on the west side of Manhattan.

They're re-routing this line through Queens, via eight miles of

underground tunnels, to surface here at Grand Central, on the east side.

That's going to cut down the travel time of 162,000 commuters

by up to 40 minutes a day.

They've just completed the main stage of construction,

which has been going on right here underneath my wheels, without

anybody up here having any idea about it.

Ant went underground to see what the future of this terminal looks like.

'The building site below Grand Central is accessible only

'by special invitation.'

Hey, man.

'I'm heading 13 storeys deep.'

Going down.

Here, an army of underground workers are busy grafting away.

It's a long way down.

My guide through the labyrinth of tunnels is the project's manager,

Michael Horodniceanu.

This is incredible!

For the past ten years, more than 2,000 workers have been digging...

..hammering and cutting round the clock.

It's a huge undertaking,

and one that will cost more than 10 billion.

It's America's biggest transport project.

This is amazing.

Yes, it is. It's something that is a work of love.

I've done it for the last eight years and there was nothing here.

All rock. Now we have caverns,

we have tunnels and, hopefully, in about six years from now,

we will have trains and passengers going straight in there.

Once completed, these tunnels will bring in up to 24 trains an hour.

So whereabouts are we in New York?

-What is above us here?

-We are around 50th Street, above us.

And what you're looking here at is, in effect, the bedrock.

It was created with a tunnel boring machine,

22 foot wide - seven metres, approximately.

-A massive drill?

-A massive drill that came through here.

So these massive drills, these tunnel boring machines,

cut holes in the rock and then what happens to those?

We left the machine in place.

What does that machine cost?

-About 10 million.

-So you left a 10 million drill underground?

Well, it was not worth 10 million when we left it there.

Stripped of its expensive components,

the body of the drill was sealed into the walls.

What I really like is that actually, when you get under here, it's noisy,

it's busy, it's a construction site, there's a sense of loads going on,

and yet the people upstairs, they have no idea this is happening.

That's why we like it.

It's a stealth project and people upstairs can sip wine...

-Cos you can't hear this upstairs.

-No, you cannot.

This is astonishing,

because a key part of the construction -

explosives.

LOW RUMBLING

Just 45 metres below the busy platforms of Grand Central,

more than 2,500 of these blasts were conducted...

..possible because New York's bedrock,

the so-called Manhattan schist,

is dense enough to tunnel through

without the need for concrete supports.

And the guys who did it, they're called the sandhogs.

-Hey, how are you doing?

-How's it going?

Men like Richard Fitzsimmons Jr have built every tunnel in New York,

and the foundations of many of the city's bridges.

Is what you do dangerous?

Yes. The real dangerous part is the first initial phase,

which is your drill and blast.

It's where you have all your hydraulic drill equipment and

dynamite explosives.

So, why did you choose to work underground?

It's kind of to follow in my family's footsteps.

I'm apparently a third-generation miner.

My grandfather and father have both done it before me.

So you guys are clearing up?

Pretty much. We're clearing everything out of here.

A lot of stuff to get out of a big space.

Definitely. And there's only one way in and one way out here.

It's not like the street, where you have multiple access.

And that's on these tracks?

Everything is one rail all the way out, two miles to the shaft.

They've excavated one million cubic metres of rock, and it's all

being taken out through this single tunnel.

What they've created is on a scale

just as astonishing as the terminal above.

Two cathedral-like spaces, 90 metres in height,

that will house the new station.

This is the western cavern.

We are 160 feet down here, at the deepest point, that we are.

And the length of this cavern is four football fields.

It is only down here, now,

that you get a, sort of, sense of the sheer scale of it.

It is vast.

In the next two months, they'll begin fitting out the station,

splitting this space into three levels.

A lower track level with two platforms.

A middle mezzanine floor, allowing people to move around the station.

And an upper level, with platforms serving two more lines

coming in from Queens.

So trains are going to be running two tracks on this lower one.

And two tracks on the upper one.

And then on the other side, we will have another four.

So at any given time you can have eight trains here.

This station will future-proof New York's transport system

and when trains begin running in 2022,

this secret subterranean world

will be an everyday part of New Yorkers' lives.

Back upstairs, directly underneath the main concourse,

sits the food court.

It's 8:30am and these 35 outlets are busy with the breakfast rush.

But there's a bigger job ahead.

10,000 people will head here just to have lunch today,

in the famous Oyster Bar,

trading since the day the terminal opened in 1913.

They're preparing for service.

This is chef Sandy, head chef at the restaurant.

Sandy, what time does this place open?

We open at 11:30am every day except Sundays.

How many people come into the Oyster Bar over the course of a lunchtime?

Right now, we're running about 1,200 people all day,

and then at our season, which is between Thanksgiving and Christmas,

it could be up to 2,400.

-2,400 people?

-Every day.

That's a lot of oysters.

And I sense this is the quiet before the storm, before it all goes crazy.

Tell me, what do you have to do to get this place prepared

and ready for all the people?

Between 50 and 100 boxes of oysters every day come in.

They have to be organised, counted, put into baskets, iced down.

It's all about the organisation.

So whilst we're talking here,

behind the scenes, you've got a frenzy of activity going on with

-people getting it all ready?

-We do.

I've got six cooks working from 8am in the morning,

two full-time fish butchers.

How many different varieties of oysters have you got?

Today we have 22 different oysters plus three jumbos.

Of those, one-third are from the west coast,

two-thirds from the east coast.

And what's the most popular oyster? What one sells the best here?

The one that sells the best is this oyster.

It's Blue Point, it comes from Long Island Sound and it's local.

Everybody knows the name Blue Point.

Sandy, thank you so much for letting me visit the Oyster Bar

and good luck today. I hope it all goes well.

-Thank you.

-Cheers.

Sharing basement space with the Oyster Bar is another crucial

behind-the-scenes operation.

With hundreds of thousands of people passing through every day,

it's inevitable that things will get lost and they end up here,

at Lost and Found, to be processed by Raymond Rosario.

He's responsible for trying to reunite the 3,000 items that come

through here each month with their owners.

-Hello, Raymond.

-How are you doing?

I'm very well. I'm happy to be in your Aladdin's Cave of stuff.

So, what's the process if something gets handed in to you?

All items in the window are processed as quickly as possible,

only because the customers can, actually, still be in the terminal.

It will go into our database and from there we'll see

if anybody filed an enquiry.

-For instance, this right here...

-So this is something that's come in today? A telephone.

So, basically, we'll enter it in here.

For the most part, for the phones,

when we get them in, a lot of them are locked. But a lot of the

passengers put family pictures and stuff like that, so what happens is,

when they come looking for a phone and you do the enquiry,

put down a description of the picture that's on the lock screen.

Has this one got a picture on?

Oh, yeah - it's got a very fuzzy,

out of focus picture of the back of someone's head.

It's the back of one lady shaking hands with another lady.

And we'll put that in the description

and then we'll look for that description in the actual enquiries.

What's the most common thing to be left?

I'll be honest, if I had to pick one, it would probably be between cellphones and wallets.

What's your success rate of getting things back to their owners?

On average, I think it's like 60%.

Definitely more than half the items get sent out.

And when it comes to items like laptops,

it's somewhere between 75% and 80%.

Tell me some of the weird and wonderful things you've seen, Raymond.

I've had... It looked like a regular shopping bag until you opened it.

There was a HUGE amount of sex toys.

You name it, it was in the bag.

Somebody was having a huge party that day. I don't know if they were selling it or whatever it was.

It was a lady - she came in, she picked it up,

and she was definitely... she had a very red face.

And what about things that really surprise you. And you think,

"How has somebody managed to leave this behind?"

I'll be honest, nothing really surprises me any more.

We get...

We've had prosthetic legs. We've had a canoe -

a seven to eight foot canoe.

We get canes, crutches, wheelchairs.

-Wheelchairs?

-Like, as a matter of fact, right here.

-That's somebody's walker.

-That's...

And that was left, actually, a couple of days ago.

What happens if it doesn't get collected?

Well, there's a Salvation Army luggage company,

they pretty much pay us per box,

and we ship all the boxes to them, but it depends on the item.

Some items are held for three months,

some items are held for six months and, then,

if it's, like, a laptop or an iPad, we'll hold it for up to year.

Raymond, thank you. You said it took 30 seconds to process a phone and

I've been chatting away to you, so I'll let you carry on.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

This place is pretty busy, clocking up over 20 million visitors a year.

But there is another location

that claims the crown for New York's busiest place.

We sent Dan to explore the past and present of Times Square.

More than 50 million people visit here every year.

America's Piccadilly Circus.

Famous for its 230 illuminated advertising boards.

Their fortunes, the fortunes of the Square itself,

have echoed those of the city over the years.

The boards are worth 60 million to the economy of the city.

It's a legal obligation that every building on the Square has to have

an illuminated sign.

Even the subway has a special version of its logo here.

Electrician Nick Bonavita and the team at Landmark Signs

look after the boards.

-What's the plan? Someone's going up in that?

-Yeah, sometimes they're

rear service - you can climb from behind and fix them.

Other times, front service - you need to go on a suspended scaffold.

OK, so sometimes you go in through the front,

-other times you can climb up the building?

-Yes, exactly.

Yeah, they're getting close...

Nick works with a team of 12

to maintain 95% of the signs in Times Square.

-Do you like heights?

-I don't mind heights, but if I don't have to be on them, I'd rather not.

-You chose the wrong job.

-I certainly did.

Bad news for Nick -

today's job is on Toshiba's hoarding, 25 storeys up.

He's taking me behind the board, for a privileged look at its mechanics.

So, here we are, top of the... Whoa, look at that view!

This is the sign the guys are working on right now.

So here we're looking at the back of the displays.

-What are they made of?

-The signs are made up of LED panels.

And pretty much, this is what the entire sign is made out of.

OK, so that's one big panel. Those are individual LEDs, right?

-Yes.

-How long will they last?

-Life expectancy varies on different ones but they should last around ten years.

-Ten years?

How do you know when one of these needs replacing?

Just look around on the way into work?

Some signs do have a diagnostics that will tell you when something is out, and you'll get an e-mail

or a picture sent of what's out but, mostly, you just look at the front

of the sign and you're able to tell what needs to be replaced.

Sometimes is there a fault that goes a few days without anyone noticing?

It can happen, but for the most part we're on top of things.

We normally see them and they're changed out right away.

And if they go down, do you replace the whole panel or do you bother replacing LEDs?

No, we replace the whole panel.

Can you create any kind of graphic design?

Absolutely, yeah. Once they're all put together, you know,

piece by piece, anything you want to put on there can be put on there.

Red, blue and green can make up almost any colour on the spectrum so

you can make up anything you want. A computer controls all these signs

so every sign will have its own computer that will put content out

there and a computer can be accessed wirelessly through the internet from

-anywhere in the world.

-So I could put up a sign from the UK and control it?

-Absolutely.

Advertising puts this place on the map today, but it's the building

this hoarding is mounted on that holds the key to Times Square's

place in the history of New York.

It was called the Times Tower. It was built in 1903,

and from 1905 to 1913, it was the headquarters of

the New York Times newspaper.

MUSIC: Take The A Train

The turn of the 20th century, when Times Tower was being built,

was an exciting time for the city.

It was embracing new technologies,

like electricity and motorised travel.

And this vital traffic junction, the crossing of 7th Avenue and Broadway,

was the most happening part of town.

The theatre district here boomed

and it was soon the cultural heart of the city.

Advertising pioneers, the so-called Mad Men, saw an opportunity here,

installing brash, show-stopping billboards

on every available surface.

But when New York came close to bankruptcy in the 1970s,

respectable businesses and people fled this part of town.

The glitz and glamour of Times Square was gone,

as a fresh-faced John Humphrys reported in 1972.

Prostitution and pornography are just as much a part

of the Times Square scene today as the old electric news headlines.

Someone who worked here in those dark days

is New York Times journalist David Dunlap.

He joined the paper in 1975.

Was this like a no-go area, 20 or 30 years ago?

Absolutely. There was an episode in the 1980s when a gunman...

..managed to get into the building and rob one of my colleagues,

-at gunpoint, at her desk, on the weekend.

-You're kidding?

The amount of prostitution and drug dealing that was going on just made

it an entirely unsavoury zone.

-So what changed?

-Business, money.

It's what changes everything in America.

The city gave preferential rates

to shops willing to open in Times Square.

Once high street favourites appeared here, the visitors flooded back.

So we're now on 42nd - this, you said, was a no-go area.

Now it looks like a gentle day in Disneyland.

I wouldn't have walked down 42nd Street 20 years ago for the crime.

Now I avoid it because of the tourists!

Busy, brash and bright, this place has certainly had its ups and downs.

Times Square is a symbol of this city

and a barometer of its fortunes.

When things are good, this place is buzzing.

When things are bad, this is where it shows.

Judging by today, I'd say it's in pretty good health.

It's just gone 9am.

Commuters are being joined by some of the 60,000 tourists

who'll head here today, making it the busiest period

for one very identifiable meeting point.

You only need one. You're going and you're coming back?

Enjoy your stay, OK?

I'm now in the epicentre of the terminal.

This is the information office and these two gorgeous women here,

arguably the most important women in the entire place.

CP and Cheryl.

Ladies, how long have you worked here?

27 years.

25 years.

What is the best thing about working here in the information desk?

We communicate with people.

We meet a lot of...

Like, strangers become friends.

And you are the front line facing the public.

-Yes.

-Definitely.

-So you have a very important role to play...

-Yes.

-..giving them the information.

-Yes, we do.

-Mmm-hmm.

And what is the most frequently asked question?

-What would you say?

-Restroom.

"Where's the bathroom?" Yes.

And some strange questions as well?

"Can I eat my banana?"

That lady, remember her?

I just told her, the other day somebody said,

-"Will they run out of tickets?"

-Yeah.

That's the first time I ever heard that one.

How long did it take you to learn the timetable?

-Well, it's not that long.

-Not long.

-Not long.

-Not long, cos it's already...

it's been in my head, cos I've been in Grand Central since 1990,

so listening to the PA and people saying things...

-You learn it.

-..you learn it.

So I just had to learn the branches in between.

How many questions an hour do you answer?

Oh, God...

-Oh, we don't even, I don't even know.

-About a thousand or more.

Maybe so. Yeah, have to be.

I think I can see a queue forming behind the window.

-Let's let the floodgates open.

-All right.

-All right.

-Let's allow the people to come...

-Let's allow them to come.

-..to the ladies.

-All right, cool.

-Hi. May I help you?

-Thank you.

-All right.

CP and Cheryl are at the heart of Grand Central,

but just outside the station is another American transport icon.

There are 13,500 yellow cabs on the streets of New York.

And I'm hitching a ride.

So where are we heading towards now?

We're going to go up to 5th Avenue.

Frank Metzi has been scouting fares for over a decade,

and is typically outspoken.

Would you pick me up, then?

Cos I've had a few issues, actually,

when I've tried to get taxis in New York.

Let me tell you something - you're black, in a wheelchair.

One and one equals blind.

-Seriously?!

-I'm only...

It depends on the drivers.

I mean, at the end of the day, we're not supposed to do that,

-but it happens.

-You can't say stuff like that, Frank!

In a wheelchair or not,

the worst time to catch a cab is between 4pm and 6pm.

Drivers change shift then, and only 60% of cabs are on the roads.

The best time to hail is weekday mornings and afternoons,

when the highest number of cabs, more than 11,000, are available.

All yellow cab drivers are self-employed,

but only 25% own their vehicles.

It's like renting a car. You rent the car, you lease the cab,

and there's a certain fee that the garage wants.

Up and above that lease, that's what you get.

-Is it expensive to own it?

-It is expensive. It's up to...

-It used to be at

-1 million. What?!

-Yeah, the medallion, the medallion.

-What medallion?

-You see that piece on top?

-Right there?

-Oh, yeah.

-That's what they...

You have to buy that.

Allows you, legally, to pick up passengers in our city.

-And that medallion costs a million bucks?

-A million bucks.

That prevents individual cars just picking up anybody.

-You have to have that by the City of New York.

-So it's a way of

regulating the drivers and making sure you've got

-the right standard of drivers.

-Exactly.

Essentially, a licence that allows a car to pick up paying passengers,

the medallion system was introduced in the 1930s.

Back then, they sold for just 10.

To own a medallion in our city, it's the American dream.

Once you've got one, that's it - you're set for life?

Exactly, exactly.

And so we have garages here that own...

..bundles of medallions and they lease it to the drivers.

And that's how it works.

Frank rents his taxi for 145 for a 12-hour shift,

from this garage in Queens.

It's one of 67 fleet garages across the city.

So this is where you come, where you drop off.

This is where we drop off the cab.

It's run by Richard Wissak, who has 140 yellow cab medallions.

Tell me about this place.

How long have you had it and how long has it been here?

We've had it for about 40 years now, and it was a cab company even before

the family took it over, so this location has been

a yellow cab company for probably close to 75 years.

It takes 15 mechanics working around the clock

to keep the vehicles roadworthy.

Each one clocks up 70,000 miles a year -

the equivalent of driving around the world nearly three times.

And how do you work out the allocations -

who drives when and times?

The drivers come in when they apply for the job.

We ask them if they're interested

in working the daytime or the night-time.

Some drivers that have been with us for years and years have

what we call a "steady car".

So, if there's any noises or any problems with the car,

they're quick to alert the mechanics to keep it in tip-top shape.

But there's a threat to the dominance of the yellow taxi.

Since 2011, there's been a 68% increase

in private hire vehicles on the roads,

and it's taken a serious chunk out of Frank and other drivers' income.

We had a monopoly, it's over.

The technology is catching up with every industry

and it has caught up with us.

Many cab apps, like Uber, can offer a cheaper and more convenient ride.

In January, yellow taxis made 60,000 fewer trips

than in the previous year.

Uber made 70,000 more.

In this new age, where kids and young people are into their apps

all the time, we have to progress to that.

The day of putting your hand up in the air may be over.

Yellow taxi firms are fighting back with their own apps.

You have to adapt. You cannot say, "OK, we're not doing that."

So you're changing, you're moving with the times.

You have to. You have to move with the times.

Medallion prices have still plummeted by as much as 50%

as yellow cab drivers defect to the competition.

Is this the end of New York's legendary yellow taxi?

Frank thinks not.

He's banking on tourists to keep this New York icon on the road.

There are so many people that see movies and they get into a cab

and they think, "Oh, my God, we're in a yellow cab.

"I saw this in a movie!" kind of thing.

-They go crazy.

-Do you want me to let you into a little secret, Frank?

I felt exactly the same way.

You're not like the taxi driver from the movie.

-Oh, Taxi Driver?

-Yeah, Robert De Niro.

No, no. Are you talkin' to me?

Are you talkin' to me? You ain't talkin' to me.

Don't you say you're talkin' to me. Are you talkin' to me?

TANNOY ECHOES

As Dan said earlier, this entire place is testament to the ambition

of Cornelius Vanderbilt and, later on, his family.

When they built it, they wanted to use the latest technology,

and back in 1913, that was the electric light bulb,

so they had 35,000 of them installed

and exposed so everyone could see just how wealthy they really were.

Also, there are acorns and oak leaves

dotted around the entire building, if you look carefully.

Like these acorns here,

even in the back staircase, which isn't even accessible to the public.

And that's because the family motto was,

"From a little acorn, mighty oaks will grow."

Now, you might think that's a little bit flash but, quite frankly,

if I'd built the place, I'd want people to know about it.

It was grand, it was modern, it was seriously impressive,

so it's incredible to think

that there was a time it was threatened with demolition.

The second half of the 20th century signalled the end of

the American railroad's golden age.

Passenger numbers plummeted by 60% between 1946 and 1964,

lured away by the convenience of road travel

and affordable air fares.

With dwindling revenues,

it was all too tempting for the rail companies to sell off assets

and cash in on valuable Manhattan real estate.

The first casualty of the wrecking ball was the original Penn Station.

It was demolished in 1963, to make way for a giant office block

and Madison Square Gardens.

Just 12 years later, Grand Central was threatened with the same fate.

The normally reclusive Jackie Kennedy Onassis

joined the fight to save it, in 1975.

If we don't care about our past,

we can't have very much hope for our future. And we've all heard that

it's too late or that it has to happen or that it's inevitable,

but I don't think that's true,

because I think if there is a great effort,

even if it's at the 11th hour,

you can succeed, and I think...and I know that that's what we'll do.

It took a further three years, until 1978,

for the station to be landmarked and protected forever.

But it was in desperate need of restoration.

One of the architects who was responsible for overseeing

-the restoration is Frank Prial. Hi, Frank.

-Hello, Anita.

So what was it like in the '70s and '80s?

The '70s and '80s were tough times for Grand Central Terminal.

It really suffered from a lack of appreciation,

it fell into disrepair.

-What did it look like?

-The building fell into very bad condition,

mostly from neglect.

For the most part, they tried to take advantage of it by putting

advertising in inappropriate places.

For many, many years there was an enormous, three-storey-high

Kodak sign with a changing scene,

they changed four times a year.

It blocked a good three storeys of the natural light that comes through

-from the east.

-So those spectacular windows were behind it and a huge

-Kodak sign in front of it.

-That's correct.

Just how dirty was this place?

The building was very, very dirty and, again, mostly through neglect

but also through existing conditions at that time.

The windows, which were open to allow natural air to come through

to ventilate, also allowed in car pollution,

smoke from coal-fired boilers and then, most importantly,

the cigarette smoke, the nicotine that came from the cigarette smoke,

made their way up and stuck to the top of the ceiling so the ceiling

was completely filthy. We did an exhaustive and very comprehensive

cleaning process, all by hand.

A magnificent truss was built on scaffolding on either side of the

main concourse, and when we were all done we left one small part behind -

a 12 inch by eight inch rectangle

which shows the condition of the original ceiling.

It's black.

That's what the ceiling looked like.

-That's disgusting. And that was from nicotine...

-Yes.

-..and smoke?

-Smoke.

-That's absolutely horrendous, cos this ceiling is magnificent.

How expensive was the project?

The project started at 200 million...

..grew quickly to 250 million.

And how long did it take?

It started in 1988, until we completed construction in 2000, so about 12 years.

And what was one of the biggest projects that you had?

We learned that the stair that you see on the east side of

the main concourse did not exist.

The original architect, Whitney Warren,

had intended it to be built but because they needed to save money at

-that time, it was not.

-So that's new?

That's an entirely new stair, intended to look exactly like

a stair that Whitney Warren would have designed, but with some changes to make it more modern.

And when you look out, now, over this magnificent temple

to transport, if you like, do you feel very proud?

What do you feel, looking at it, as someone who's worked on it for a lot of your life?

We feel like we've contributed

to the quality of living in New York City.

This is not just a temple to transportation, as you say, but

it's also a town hall where special events take place.

It's where people come not only to be with others like them but to also

take part in the everyday events of New York City, so we are very proud

of being able to encourage that.

-Frank, thank you so much.

-Thank you.

As rush hour starts to wind down,

there's one final behind-the-scenes area left to explore.

And it's one that powers this whole place.

I'm now heading to a top secret part of the terminal.

I'm not actually allowed to tell you where I am, due to security,

but you can clearly see I'm heading underground.

I'm about ten storeys below the terminal above,

and the room has the tantalising codename M42.

It's like a set of James Bond!

This crazy laboratory is run by this man, Nick DeFusco.

Nick, what happens in here?

Basically, here you have all the DC power that runs all the trains

throughout the terminal. We have 13,800 volts of AC current

coming from the Power Authority,

goes over to the transformer and then goes into the rectifier.

The rectifier takes the power,

it converts it into DC power at 700 volts.

This runs most of the trains that run throughout the terminal.

So basically, loads of power - 14,000 volts -

comes into here from the grid in AC, alternating current,

goes into the first machine, where it gets reduced,

then the second machine, where it gets flicked to DC, direct current,

and then it goes into each one of these little boxes here,

-and is distributed to the tracks.

-Yes, you got it. Definitely.

So why don't they just use the AC that comes in here?

None of the trains here run on AC, they run on DC.

So this is fairly modern, state-of-the-art,

-up-to-date technology?

-Yes.

So what would be the ramifications if this place went down?

They do have a backup plan in contingent.

They have another substation, that's at 50th Street.

It would hurt the system a little bit, but you could still get trains

in and out of the terminal.

Nick, it's been a thrill to be down here. It's like a movie set.

-Thank you.

-You're welcome. Thank you.

This room is the secret heart of the terminal,

keeping this morning on track.

Another secret operation, just as crucial to the city,

takes place every night.

At 4am, the world's biggest package delivery service kicks into action.

100 45-foot lorries stream into this 400,000 square foot

UPS customer service centre.

In the next five hours,

the packages they contain will go on a carefully planned journey.

They will speed along the depot's 833 conveyor belts,

through four storeys of sorting floors and the hands of 150 staff,

finally landing in a dispatch van, ready for delivery.

New York's three airports receive nearly 350 tonnes of mail

from all over the world every day.

This is swiftly transported by road

to over 20 sorting hubs dotted around the city.

This facility in Manhattan is one of the largest.

Due to the boom in internet shopping,

it's had to cope with a 14% increase

in package deliveries in the last ten years.

Manager Leo Cummings is doing his early morning rounds.

How are we all going? Everything going well?

This is where we process all the trailers

coming in for tonight's operation.

All these packages, roughly about 150,000 of them today,

will be delivered in the Manhattan area.

The first job is getting the packages off the trucks.

A good unloader like Gregor can empty the 1,500 packages off these

trailers in just 50 minutes, with the help of a conveyor belt

known as the "extendo".

The belt basically moves

so it can go all the way to the end of the truck,

so every time the wall gets broken down, we're moving in,

so that means we're getting closer to finishing the whole truck.

Packages come out of Gregor's truck and straight into the sorting areas.

Small items and envelopes head one way, while large items

spin off in another direction.

Here, Logan and the team of sorters scan the barcodes on wrist-mounted

computers and print on a new tracking code.

This is a map for each parcel's journey through the depot.

If it scans blue or green it goes here,

if it scans orange it will go here,

red will go here and yellow goes down there.

Different colours relate to different districts of Manhattan.

The barcodes also detail which delivery van the parcels will be

loaded onto and even their location in the van.

It took 14 mathematicians to perfect the algorithm that ensures the

packages end up where they are meant to be in the shortest time possible.

But there's one thing it can't predict - a package jam.

Joel has a crisis to deal with.

I'm breaking the jam, and I'm letting my co-worker know on

-the primary to run the other belt.

-'Clean up your belt, copy.

'We're going to have a gap of maybe, maybe ten minutes, copy?'

Sometimes that, right there, will jam up.

Run the belt, Ron. Have it slow coming down the chute.

Make sure you jog it out, copy?

Jogging it out means starting

and stopping the belt, so that it runs a little more smoothly.

Blockage cleared - everything's back on schedule.

Everything's good. We've got our last trailer in now.

-We should be good with the DDU.

-OK.

-Popping out the smalls.

-All right.

We'll be in good shape.

Hector and the team of loaders are putting packages into the vans.

Each of these will contain around 300 items.

This whole belt, you can see, it's all Radio City,

around...Midtown, I guess.

Parcels are grouped within the van.

The further back they're placed,

the later in the driver's route they'll be delivered.

Express items, where customers have paid extra for early deliveries,

are put closest to the door.

They have a 1 or a 1P -

that tells us we have to keep them in the front,

cos that's going to be his first stop he has to do.

The 500 delivery drivers collect their hand-held computers,

pre-programmed with their route.

Tony gives his van a quick once-over.

I just want to make sure that everything is in place so that,

when I go out on the route, I don't have any surprises.

But it looks good.

The packages have completed their journey through the depot.

Manhattan's post is ready for delivery.

At 8:55am,

500 vans loaded with 150,000 packages

stream out into the sunshine.

We got a little help from the City, we need that.

It's a big intersection for us.

When it gets congested, we can't get across town quick enough.

We're going to make it happen today.

Post delivered, commuters at work,

New York's ready for the working day.

It just goes to show how much time pressure cities are under and,

first thing, it's all about getting everything and everyone to where they need to be.

That's rush-hour done for the morning - everybody's got themselves to work,

but they only get a short respite, because they'll be doing it all again this evening.

This time we've shown you what it takes to keep the city moving.

Next time we're revealing what it takes to keep this hungry city fed.

We'll be in the Bronx, at the largest food market in America -

Hunts Point, where Ant drives a hard bargain.

A dollar ten, that's no good.

Haggle harder.

40 cents?

Are you out of your mind?

Ade travels upstate to find out how the Big Apple gets its apples.

This is not what I'd expect of New York.

Dan discovers the dirty secrets of New York's rubbish.

Without these guys,

New Yorkers would soon be drowning in their own trash.

And I head 67 storeys up...

..to meet some busy bees.

How many bees are in this hive?

-There are probably about 50,000 in this hive, right now.

-Incredible.

There's just enough time for us to say a massive thank you to everyone

at Grand Central and the Metro-North Railroad.

Thank you at home for watching and goodbye from New York.

-BOTH:

-Goodbye.