Long Island Rail Road trains can now use Grand Central as the result of a project known as East Side Access. It was supposed to be completed in 2009 at a cost of $3.5 billion. It opened in early 2023 at a cost of $11 billion. Still, that's better than the Second Avenue Subway, "coming soon" for 100+ years.

This may seen needlessly pedantic, but we all have our pet peeves ...

A terminal is the end of the line; a station passes traffic, and a depot is a place where goods or equipment are unloaded and stored. The term "passenger depot" gets thrown around, I know, but a depot is supposed to indicate the use of the tracks and sidings, and may be part of a terminal or a station. The term passenger depot was uncouth because it implied that passengers were no different than coal or cattle (insert joke here).

The railway right of way up Park Avenue dates back to 1832, and the tracks that became the NY Central originated on the Bowery somewhere and went north into Harlem. A structure built at 42nd Street before 1854, when steam locomotives were outlawed below 42nd Street, would have been a station (and also perhaps a depot). When the 1869-1871 "Depot" building in the link above was built, I believe that service still extended southward to at least 14th Street pulled by horses, but I could be wrong. When the current GC Terminal was built in 1913, however, it was truly a terminal.

There is still a Grand Central Station, however! It's below the Terminal, and part of the NYC Subway system. The mosaics on the 4/5/6 line are suitably ambiguous, but the MTA's signs respected the distinction.

Here is a well written history of Grand Central Depot/Station/Terminal. It includes a photograph very similar to this one. Cornelius Vanderbilt was ruthless in his drive to be ever richer. But we wouldn't have Grand Central today if it weren't for him.

Grand Central is a terminal, not a station.

[Grand Central Terminal opened in 1913. Before that, there was Grand Central Station. Which was an enlarged version of Grand Central Depot. - Dave]

Yup. I forgot to look at the year of the photo. ;-)