new shuttle station was to be built to the east. The construction of the narrow island platform station required building two new trackways extending east under 42nd Street. Although the platform was constructed, it was never used. The Lexington Avenue Line was to run diagonally under the former Children's Hospital on the north side of 42nd Street east of Park Avenue. The route would connect the original subway under Park Avenue, on the west, to the new line under Lexington Avenue, on the east, at a point between 43rd and 44th Streets. This alignment also ran under the Grand Union Hotel at the southeast corner of 42nd Street and Park Avenue. The Public Service Commission had to acquire an easement from the New York Central Railroad, the owner of the Children's Hospital site, but the commission was unwilling to pay New York Central's asking price for the easement. Consequently, in April 1913, the plan was modified so that the line made an S-curve under 40th Street. The Public Service Commission voted on the modification in June 1913, and the modified route under 40th Street was adopted that November. The commission voted in favor of the original diagonal route in February 1914, at which point the Grand Union Hotel was condemned via eminent domain. The condemnation proceedings for the hotel cost $3.5 million, then a very high sum. The commission also acquired an easement from New York Central in February 1915 for $902,500. To pay for the station's construction cost, the Public Service Commission approved the construction of a 25-story building on the Grand Union Hotel site. The structure was not erected as proposed; it would later become the Pershing Square Building, which opened in 1923. In 1912, in coordination with plans for the new station, a new passageway was planned to replace existing entrances at the corner of Vanderbilt Avenue and 42nd Street. There were plans to build a new entrance to the northwestern corner of this intersection into the United Cigar Stores Company building. In Fiscal Year 1913, work to connect the Grand Central subway station and Grand Central Terminal was authorized, as was the extension of the eastern mezzanine to connect with a building at the northwestern corner of Vanderbilt Avenue and 42nd Street. Work to build a new mezzanine at the western end of the station, and with new stairways, including an entrance to the building at