Sept. 5, 1964 - Robert F. Kennedy dropped in at Grand Central Terminal during the evening rush hour yesterday and was mobbed.
Women screamed and girls squealed. Men pushed and boys shoved as they tried to shake the hand of the Senatorial nominee. Most of those in the crowd, departing for the long Labor Day weekend, were friendly to the candidate, but there was some booing.
The visit was to last an hour, but because of the near hysteria it created, Kennedy cut it to 20 minutes.
“I wonder if this sort of thing really does any good,” he said later.
Kennedy arrived at the terminal shortly after 5 p.m. and entered through an entrance on West 44th Street, near Vanderbilt Avenue.
He stopped to speak to the crowd but could not until several of his aides lifted him to their shoulders.
“I think somebody’s going to get killed,” he said.
“This is worse than the Beatles,” a young girl shouted.
The crowd pressed him and carried him toward the escalators leading down to the main concourse. One woman fell and was almost trampled at the foot of the escalator, but Kennedy leaped up on the banister between the escalators and shouted, “Get back! Get back!” The woman was not injured.
On the main concourse, it was the same until police locked arms around the candidate — creating a safety pocket similar to the one football teams try to make for a quarterback — and he was able to make his way across the floor to the Kodak exhibit, where he stood on the stairs and said:
“If I’m elected to the United States Senate, I hope all of you will come and visit me in Washington — but I hope you don’t all come at once.”
On Vanderbilt Avenue and West 44th Street, where the candidate’s car was parked, Kennedy demonstrated what may be a new technique in campaigning in New York City.
He stopped to shake hands with taxi drivers and their passengers, as well as the pedestrians. This caused a sizable traffic jam, but no one, except the police, seemed to mind too much.
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