THE HIDDEN STAIRCASE Inside the information booth are doors leading to a spiral staircase (Navid Baraty) The theater mostly featured "up-to-the-minute" newsreels, so commuters could keep up to date with the latest headlines. In an article upon its opening in 1937, the paper reported that they witnessed Sarg telling a painter, "Paint the ceiling a flat sky blue, and sometime tomorrow I'll come around and paint the stars on it myself." In its glory days, the theater housed 242 seats, with some standing room in the back, and a bar by the entrance. The New York Times reported that the mural was painted by the theater's designer, Tony Sarg. During the Terminal's renovations in the 1990s, a false ceiling was removed to uncover the original mural in the theater, which remains today. But this space was originally created for a different purpose: it used to be part of the Grand Central Theatre, which opened in the 1930s.
#GRAND CENTRAL STATION CLOCK MOVIE#
This is common practice among restoration artists." THE OLD THEATER The old movie theater ceiling (Navid Baraty) The old theater mural (Navid Baraty) These are also from the old theater and remain today (Navid Baraty) The old theater (Courtesy of Grand Central Terminal)Ĭentral Cellars Wines & Spirits (across from Track 17) is a great spot to pick up a bottle on your way out of, or back into, town. The MTA's Marjorie Anders once explained, "The area was left untreated by the cleaning solutions so that future preservationists will be able to tell if those solutions had any impact on the ceiling materials themselves.
The decision to keep this 9” x 18” patch of ceiling dirty came in the 1990s, during a major restoration and cleaning effort, and now offers and a satisfying before-and-after for anyone paying attention.
It serves as an example of how the entire ceiling would look if it weren’t routinely cleaned, shaded by ages of exposure to pollutants (mainly cigarette smoke, from an era when that was allowed). This small, dirty patch can be spotted from the floor of the main concourse, and sits in the northwest corner of the vibrant constellation-filled ceiling.
0 kommentar(er)
