Gray, Christopher. "Streetscapes/Grand Central Terminal; How a Rail Complex Chugged Into the 20th Century", The New York Times, June 21, 1998. Accessed October 27, 2007. "According to Carl Condit's 1980 book, The Port of New York, in 1860s Cornelius Vanderbilt sold his shipping interests to get control of the New York & Harlem, the New York Central, and the Hudson River Railroads.... From 1869 to 1871 the first Grand Central Station was built, 249 feet wide on 42d Street, 698 feet long on newly created Vanderbilt Avenue."
