Sam Johar, 17, Hunter College High School, New York, N.Y.
Sam Johar, 17, takes readers behind the scenes of Grand Central Terminal’s celestial ceiling.Credit...Zack DeZon for The New York Times
Any New Yorker walking into Grand Central Station’s main concourse will immediately encounter an unusual sight: gaggles of tourists, phones outstretched, for once looking up — a result of the sweeping gold lines and twinkling stars that adorn the ceiling, turning the terminal into a work of art.
Grand Central’s celestial ceiling is a rare New York City landmark appreciated by tourists and residents alike. The mural invites watching eyes to dart east to west across a tapestry of gold constellations, where many stars are real lights, casting a subtle glow around them. Tourists are often so full of wonder that they block the way of the poor New Yorker running for a Hudson Line Metro-North train (I may be speaking from experience).
Normally, I’m a typical New Yorker about tourists — vaguely fond, but prevailingly annoyed. Here, though, I understand — I’ve been to Grand Central more times than I can count and I still stop. I still take a picture, still find Orion and wish him well.
Grand Central Station’s ceiling is the image that the city shows the rest of the world: a gilded sky of constellations, a future-looking metropolis rising ever upward. Excelsior. However, this surface-level story is incomplete.
For starters, the constellations are wrong. When the mural was constructed in 1913, the astronomer Harold Jacoby consulted Bayer’s star atlas to create a diagram, which was projected onto the ceiling. In the process, the whole illustration was reversed, save Orion. Nobody is sure of the reason for this inconsistency, though it’s speculated that the artists wished to portray Orion facing Taurus.
A closer look at each constellation leads to an interesting discovery — the ceiling actually consists of small square boards, creating checkerboards behind each constellation. Why? It’s not the original. The constellations were originally painted directly onto the plaster ceiling, but, thanks to the leaky roof, the mural was damaged. Rather than restore it, the city covered it up with a less detailed copy.
Despite its history, Grand Central Station’s constellations are undeniably beautiful — the faces turned up in wonder speak for themselves. Ignored, the ruined artwork below wonders, “Did anyone consider the irony of an incorrect map in a train station?”
New York City’s Excelsior motto leaves no room for what we’ve left behind in our climb higher. We’ve tried to bury a darker version of our city to make room for a metropolis that is the nation’s cultural and commercial center. However, as a New Yorker still looking up at Grand Central’s constellations, I have to believe in both New Yorks. There may be a darker truth behind the panels, the constellations may be wrong, but the ceiling is unique in its flaws — acknowledging its history only makes its beauty more striking.