Grand Central Station is always hopping. The busiest place in the most bustling city in the world has a pulse of its own, and now celebrated artist Maira Kalman shows us what makes it tick. Sweeping panoramas show us this magnificent structure and some of the 500,000 people who walk, dash, rush and eat their way through it. Smaller portraits introduce us to a few of the hundreds of real-life workers who keep Grand Central working from Ed, who changes some of the 45,000 light bulbs, to Frank, who collects unusual things while running The Lost and Found. Each day over 548 trains come and go and with them come endless stories of the epic mechanics and romantic personalities that fill this monumental place. After all, "Trains are trips, and trips are adventures, and adventures are new ideas, and romance, and you can't ever know what in the world will happen, which is exactly why you are going and leaving and coming." Maira Kalman's murals of Grand Central are the back-drop for the terminal's current renovation. She is the creator of the Max books, of which Booklist said, "In words, in pictures, in typography this saga has vaulted across genres, between audiences and beyond expectations."

Author Biography

Maira Kalman (www.mairakalman.com)'s artwork was featured in New York's Grand Central Station during its renovation several years ago. She is the author-illustrator of numerous picture books, including Looking at Lincoln, Fireboat and What Pete Ate from A-Z, as well as adult hits such as And the Pursuit of Happiness and The Elements of Style Illustrated. She is a prolific artist whose work has been featured on a dozen New Yorker covers, and her watches, clocks, accessories and paperweights have been featured at the Museum of Modern Art store in New York City. She lives in New York City.