Grand Central Terminal

The stars on the ceiling are backwards, and the official explanation is magnificent nonsense. The zodiac mural that spans the main concourse ceiling features twelve gold-leaf constellations and two thousand five hundred stars — fifty-nine of which are illuminated — and all of them are painted in reverse. Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose family built the terminal, claimed this was intentional: to show the sky from God's perspective, looking down. Astronomers have pointed out this is not how anything works.

There is also a dark rectangle on the ceiling near the northwest corner. During a nineteen ninety-eight restoration, cleaners left one small patch untouched to show how decades of tobacco smoke had stained the entire surface. The rest of the ceiling had been nearly black.

Downstairs, outside the Oyster Bar, is the Whispering Gallery. Stand in one corner of the arched Guastavino tile ceiling, have someone stand in the diagonally opposite corner, and whisper. The sound follows the curve of the tiles and arrives perfectly clear across the crowded hall. Nobody knows whether this acoustic effect was designed or accidental.

And somewhere above the main concourse, accessible by elevator from the Oyster Bar ramp, there is a full-size tennis court. The space was previously a CBS television studio, and before that, in the nineteen sixties, a sixty-five-foot indoor ski slope.