As New York's Grand Central celebrates its 100^th anniversary, New York Times reporter Sam Roberts writes a book as a tribute to the building.

The enormity of New York's Grand Central is the first thing a person notices about the station. As it turns 100 years old, New York Times reporter Sam Roberts bases his new book "Grand Central: How a Train Station Transformed America" on the station and how it was built.

Roberts revealed that when Cornelius Vanderbilt first built this station, it was originally called a depot. Slowly as more passengers started to use it, it became a station.

"Finally, in 1913," the author tells NPR's Robert Siegel, "it became a terminal because the trains terminated here."

There's two parts of the station, reveals Roberts. "There's a Grand Central Station on the subway, and there's also a Grand Central Station that's the post office," Roberts says. "But this is officially - although I think most New Yorkers probably don't know it for sure - this is Grand Central Terminal."

The depot was there for decades before the terminal opened. Then, in 1902, a catastrophic underground train crash forced the construction of Vanderbilt's palatial terminal.

"A train coming out of the tunnel under Park Avenue - under steam control - couldn't see because of the steam, the cinders, the heat, the fog, the snow, and wound up crashing into another train with multiple fatalities," Roberts says. "And the railroad, if not the politicians who licensed it, in effect said we can't go on with this anymore - we've got to make a change, otherwise we're going to ban your railroad from Manhattan. So instead, they switched to electricity, which allowed them to get rid of the steam, get rid of the smoke, build the two-level station for incoming and outgoing trains and deck over Park Avenue, and create some of the most valuable real estate in the world."

Roberts also says that the terminal is now like a cathedral and compares it to an art museum. He marvels that such a great work of art is open to the public at large and not just the elite class of people.