You wouldn't know it from street level, but one of the largest public works projects is taking place 100 feet under midtown. The MTA's long planned "East Side Access Project" to bring the LIRR to Grand Central Terminal has been under construction for the last couple years and they are really making some progress. There are some amazing pics recently posted to the MTA's new and improved website showing the newly excavated station cavern (pictured above) as well as the station concourse which, which is being built on an old lower level of the Grand Central known as the Madison Yards.
In addition to this new station, there are two tunnel boring machines working to dig out tracks from the 63rd street river tunnel to the station. So far more than 22,000 feet of tunnel have been carved out of bedrock and they still have a couple more years of tunneling to go. This is the first expansion of the LIRR in over 100 years. It's all expected to be open and operating in 2016.
