NEW YORK (AFP) – Built in palatial style, celebrated in movies, and narrowly saved from the wrecking ball in the 1970s, New York’s Grand Central Terminal turned 100 Friday.

The iconic building no longer has long-distance trains, but its commuter services and multiple subway lines ensure that Grand Central remains at the heart of the Big Apple’s teeming daily commute, even while being one of the world’s biggest tourism sites.

With staircases recalling the Paris opera, an elaborate depiction of the Zodiac across the vast ceiling, chandeliers and a famed, multimillion-dollar clock, Grand Central still has the power to awe visitors.

Incredibly, though, the soaring building erected by the Vanderbilt family and opened in 1913 came close to being razed and replaced with an office tower before it was saved in a campaign led by John F. Kennedy’s widow, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

“It’s not easy to last 100 years in a city of constant change,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at the start of anniversary celebrations in the terminal on Friday.

About three quarters of a million people enter Grand Central daily. In honor of the 100th birthday, station shops and food outlets were charging 1913 prices, such as 10 cents for a shoeshine and six cents for a loaf of rye bread.

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