After a fantastic trip to England and Morocco this weekend, today I headed back to New York. Whenever I’m back home in the U.K., it never feels long enough and I have to tear myself away. But the minute I land and see that skyline, I realize exactly why I came back.
It was late when I got home so I only fancied something quick. I headed north to get my fix at Grand Central Station. Yes, I sought out another of its secrets.
When you arrive at the Main Concourse, it’s easy to be wooed by its glorious size and grand decor – and sometimes hard to remember to look up. Yet if you look above, you see a gorgeous sky painted with constellations.
Now, go to the west side of the roof and look up near to Cancer, the crab. See it?
Follow the line of the zodiac to the wall and do you see anything? A little dark patch where the green meets the cream?
This dark brick is a nod to what the station’s ceiling used to look like before it was cleaned in a massive MTA restoration project in 1988. Disgusting eh? The concourse is so beautifully manicured and well lit now, that I can’t imagine how dark, dingy and dirty it would have been back then.
(Today it’s very nice)
You might think the dark patch came from soot from the trains, but after teams carried out research following the clean-up, they learned it’s actually mostly nicotine and tar – and therefore the result of the cigarette smoke that used to swirl inside the terminal.
Now it’s here as a reminder of how the terminal used to be before the restoration. So it also serves as a reminder of how grand and tidy it is today. (Plus, it’s a pretty good anti-smoking ad.)
This is another little gem in Grand Central and definitely one of those things you wouldn’t even notice if you checked out the ceiling without knowing about it. So if you’re there, don’t forget to look up and appreciate that gorgeous clean ceiling.
Another fab grand central blog 🙂
How do you learn about this stuff?
Haha, the wonders of Google and guide books…
Mum – two other things about Grand Central’s ceiling:
1) It’s not an accurate portray of the night sky. The painter was given a sketch with an accurate copy of the night sky. Owing perhaps to the difficulty of painting a ceiling, he made an honest mistake and drew a mirror image of the sketch rather than the sketch itself.
2) There’s a hole in the ceiling! It was created in the 1960s to support the tip of a rocket ship. No joke, NASA made it during a space exploration promotion. They now use the hole to take birds-eye views of Grand Central.
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For the true story about the dark patch and its composition plus why the ceiling is reversed, see here.
https://johncanningco.com/blog/sky-mural-restoration-at-grand-central-terminal/
Thank you, Dennis — this is fascinating!