He used the office until 1940 after which time it was used as a holding ell for the police, CBS’s executive offices, before being left empty and abandoned until it reopened as a public cocktail bar in 1999. At once, Campbell furnished it with oriental rugs, 13th-century Italian furniture, priceless porcelain vases, a huge leaded glass window and a stone fireplace. After making a fortune in steamships and buying up the railways, Mr Vanderbuilt – once one of the wealthiest men in America – decided to rebuild Grand Central to reflect his wealth, at the same time letting his friend, tycoon John W Campbell, set up a private office inside the station in 1923.
To fully appreciate the Campbell Apartment, it helps to know a bit about its history. If you close your eyes, you can almost hear Billie Holiday and Count Basie playing softly in the background, cocktails being shaken up and stirred, New York’s finest artists and writers of days gone by chatting and laughing… To the left of the lift, head up the small set of stairs into the pink light…Īt the top, you’ll find what just could be one of the most beautiful sights in the city – a Jazz Age-style cocktail bar known as The Campbell Apartment. Press the button, step inside and head down to the basement. Head towards those enormous gold light fixtures that hang from the high ceiling in the south-west wing of the station to an old-fashioned guilded lift. Of the 1000s of people that pass through Grand Central Station each day, only a few know about its most magnificent secret… an incredible Jazz-Age cocktail bar hidden in the once private office of a New York railroad millionaire.