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Tales from The Social Club: Holiday Spirit and Splendor in the Heart of NYC

Writer's picture: Shane HolmesShane Holmes

Meeting Date and Time: Tuesday, December 17, 2024 from 5 PM to 7 PM

Meeting Location: Grand Central Terminal, 89 E. 42nd St., New York, NY 10017


As part of the holiday season, we visited Grand Central including the Holiday Fair that was going on and the New York Transit Museum. For me, having an event in Grand Central is convenient as I take a Metro-North train directly into that station from the nearest station to me in Pelham, NY. The trip takes about 30 minutes.


We met in the Main Concourse, just underneath the USA Flag.


Image Source: Wikimedia Commons | Theo Winter
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons | Theo Winter

Also, the green ceiling of the Main Concourse is a zodiac mural that has constellations on it. Below is a picture so you can see what I mean.


Image Source: Wikimedia Commons | Warren LeMay
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons | Warren LeMay

One of my passions is astronomy so this is one of my favorite things at Grand Central. What I find fascinating about this is the orientation of the stars are based on if you are looking from outer space down towards the Earth instead of from the Earth up to outer space. In 1913, shortly after the mural was completed, a commuter and amateur astronomer from New Rochelle, NY noticed this orientation and felt mislead claiming that the painters should have held the star chart with the stars pointed at the ceiling instead of on the floor and transposing the chart from the floor to the ceiling. The New York Times made public that one of the main artists, Charles Basing, was undaunted by the blame game, and Grand Central Terminal simply "held that it was a pretty good ceiling for all that." Additionally, the constellation orientation has been hypothesized by certain people that Basing intentionally did this in line with medieval manuscripts that traditionally showed the star orientation as seen from outer space. You can read about this by clicking here.


The bottom line is whether or not the orientation was a mistake or not is unclear based on my research in which I found that different online sources disagreed with each other on the matter. For example, John Canning & Co., the firm who was chosen to carry out the restoration of the artwork in the late 1990s, states on their website that "there is simply no evidence of the mural’s orientation being a mistake – or intentional for that matter – either on the part of Paul Helleu, the artist who designed the mural, or of those who painted it."


After meeting in the Main Concourse, we proceeded to the Holiday Fair which was located in Vanderbilt Hall. One thing I found fascinating about Grand Central is that it is a National Historic Landmark as described by the sign below.


Grand Central National Historic Landmark Sign
Grand Central National Historic Landmark Sign

We then proceeded to start to browse the holiday shops. I will highlight a couple that had NYC themes. The one below not only sold models of NYC landmarks such as the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty but also landmarks in countries outside of the United States such as the Big Ben Clock in England, the Eiffel Tower in France, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy. As someone who studied Civil Engineering in college, I do find architectural landmarks to be fascinating.


Worldwide Landmarks in Grand Central Holiday Shop
Worldwide Landmarks in a Grand Central Holiday Shop

Next we visited a holiday shop that highlighted the NYC Transit System and MetroCard (which is used to pay the fare on buses and the subway). The pillow below says NYC Metrocat which I can only assume is a parody on the MetroCard. The map below displays all of NYC's 5 boughs plus places you can go and things you can do.


Holiday Shop with a Metrocat Pillow and NYC Map


After this shop, we walked to a whole different part of Grand Central called the New York Transit Museum Gallery & Store which is a combination of a small museum and gift shop (both part of the same single room which I estimate is twice the size of an average living room in a house). Inside the museum is a large table set up with model electric trains on model tracks.


Counterclockwise from Top Right: Model of Grand Central Side View, Model of Grand Central Front View, Model of Grand Central Side View, Model of Manhattan Skyline Near Grand Central


I had a model train set similar to these trains on tracks growing up in my childhood but with far less elaborate surroundings around the track. My interest in these trains also stems back to that every Christmas vacation I went on growing up my grandparents (on both sides of my family) would have model electric train sets, set up for the holiday season. On Christmas in my late elementary school years, I was gifted with a model electric train set. For those years and at least a couple of my middle school years, I had that train set up on a table in my room year round.


I also want to provide you with some pictures of the Transit Museum Model Train Display consisting of a tunnel and forest as well what appears to be a small neighborhood.


Model Train Display with Tunnel and Forest
Model Train Display with Tunnel and Forest

Model Train Display Through a Small Model Neighborhood
Model Train Display Through a Small Model Neighborhood

After finishing up looking at trains in the museum, we proceeded to go to Zaro's Family Bakery where I ordered a Black and White cookie and some seltzer. We then headed down a ramp to the lower level where, not me, but other members and our group leader, Juliette, ordered dinner at Shake Shack. We then discussed how public seating in Grand Central Terminal Lower Level Dining Concourse has disappeared outside of restricted seating at restaurants where you have to place an order to sit there, making it harder to use the space to stay warm while passing time without spending any money.


After finishing eating, I then conveniently headed to my track to catch my train home.

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