Grand Central Terminal celestial ceiling and whispering gallery

Grand Central Terminal's main concourse features a painted celestial mural of constellations on a turquoise background that dates to the terminal's opening in 1913 and has been restored multiple times. The constellation map famously displays the stars in a mirrored or 'reversed' orientation compared with modern star charts; historians debate whether this reversal was intentional or a copying error. Beneath the main concourse, near the Oyster Bar dining concourse, there is a popular acoustic 'whispering gallery' effect where whispers at certain locations on the tiled arches can be heard clearly across the opposite archway.