The 19,000-square-meter, or 205,000-square-foot, air-conditioned concourse also houses facilities and amenities including offices, retail outlets, courtyards, a medical clinic and the university gymnasium.
A new redbrick block has been discreetly built to the west of the train concourse, which houses the bulk of the 245 bedrooms.
The concourse also houses separate men's and women's locker rooms for employees who pull all-nighters or want to freshen up after working out in nearby gyms.
In addition, planners have gone ahead with plans for the revamping of Lower Manhattan's transportation system, complete with extensive underground concourses that will house retail stores.
Officials said the fire broke out about 9 45 p.m. on an upper floor of 131 East 169th Street, a five-floor apartment building west of the Grand Concourse that also houses a grocery store and a barber shop.
In 1927, the palace's Shuvalov wing housed a sanatorium "10 Years of October," while the palace's main concourse became home to Alupka resort's polyclinic and spa baths.
In the less tony Williamsbridge section, said Floyd Cooper, president of the Cooper Group on the Grand Concourse, a two-family house on East 225th Street sold in June for $265,000 after being listed for $285,000.
"As I went up the Grand Concourse past the Amalgamated Houses, I thought, That is what it is all about, the civic process, the art of cities," he said.
But conditions remain wearisome at buildings like 34-15 Parsons Boulevard, a seven-story building in Queens, or 2842 Grand Concourse, a six-story apartment house in the Bronx.
