The Masterpiece

AUTHOR’S NOTE

On June 26, 1978, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 6–3 in favor of Grand Central Terminal’s landmark status, guaranteeing that it would never be demolished nor dwarfed by Penn Central’s proposed skyscraper. The splendid building we see today was restored and rededicated on October 1, 1998, after a renovation led by the New York architecture firm Beyer Blinder Belle. A plaque dedicated to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis for her role in the preservation hangs in the main entrance of the terminal.

The Grand Central School of Art, founded by the painters Edmund Greacen, Walter Leighton Clark, and John Singer Sargent, opened in 1924 and enrolled as many as nine hundred students a year before closing in 1944. While this is a work of fiction, I was inspired by two former faculty members at the Grand Central School of Art—Arshile Gorky and Helen Dryden—and by the real-life fight to save Grand Central Terminal in the 1970s. Penn Central did incorrectly allocate their expenses to try to show economic hardship, but the stolen balance sheet and scenes involving the Municipal Art Society are fiction. Several books were incredibly helpful during my research, including Arshile Gorky: His Life and Work by Hayden Herrera; Rethinking Arshile Gorky by Kim S. Theriault; Lee Krasner: A Biography by Gail Levin; Women of Abstract Expressionism, edited by Joan Marter; An Evening in the Classroom by Harvey Dunn; Grand Central Terminal: 100 Years of a New York Landmark by the New York Transit Museum and Anthony W. Robins; Grand Central: How a Train Station Transformed America by Sam Roberts; Grand Central Terminal: City within the City by the Municipal Art Society of New York, edited by Deborah Nevins; and Grand Central by David Marshall. I’d especially like to thank Sarah Marie Horne, who provided me with research from her groundbreaking dissertation on Helen Dryden.