Franklin D. Roosevelt used a secret basement train platform.
The hotel’s murky basement holds an abandoned subway station, known as Track 61, that’s connected to nearby Grand Central Station. The once-secret entrance was designed to serve VIP guests with private rail cars, and the paralyzed Roosevelt used it as president as part of the effort to shield his use of a wheelchair from the American public. Roosevelt’s special train could pull into the platform, and his armor-plated Pierce Arrow limousine could drive down a ramp and into an elevator that led to the hotel’s garage.