MTA Wants Your Old Grand Central Merch for the Terminal's 100th Birthday

via Art.com

The MTA has tired of taking your money. They would like to take your possessions now. Specifically, your possessions related to Grand Central Terminal for an exhibit commemorating 100 awesome years of Grand Central-ness. (The birthday goes down on February 1, 2013, but they're planning ahead.)

In that regard, they especially would like uniforms, caps, badges, ashtrays, coat hooks, clocks, baggage carts, and "gate curtains" with old train names, as well as tickets, timetables, menus, and matchbooks, and old ads for events held in the Terminal. Basically, whatever it is should say Grand Central. They'll take donations, or even loans! How open-minded.

Howard Permut, President of Metro-North, says, "We are grateful to the stewards of our history and recognize that many of these vintage items were literally rescued from trash bins as one railroad failed and another took over."

Somewhat ironically, the MTA has also been involved in a crackdown on illegal subway sign selling of late, most notably in the case of Billy's on Houston. Cops raided his store in April and confiscated the signs, then charged him with possessing stolen property. He says he legally purchased the signs from an MTA subcontractor. The case has been adjourned until September 22. Wonder if he had any Grand Central signs in that stockpile...

Anyway, civilians: If you have any of cool GCT stuff lying around and you want to do the MTA a favor, contact Archivist Carey Stumm to describe the item and its provenance. Stumm says "We would love to have donations of photographs, especially of people and events in the Terminal, as a lot of what we already have are mostly architectural shots. We would also love any three dimensional objects that people might have in their homes related to GCT."

No word on whether unlimited Metrocards will be offered as incentive. Still, we're excited to see what vintage memorabilia comes out for this event.

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