A false ceiling of square boards, installed in 1944, bears an elaborate celestial mural painted with more than 2,500 stars and several bands in gold set against a turquoise backdrop.

The ceiling of the Main Concourse at Grand Central Terminal features a magnificent celestial mural depicting the Mediterranean sky during the October-to-March zodiac. It includes 2,500 stars, 59 of which are illuminated by LEDs to represent the constellations. Interestingly, the mural is famously backwards; the stars are depicted from a "divine perspective" (looking down from above the sky) rather than from a human perspective looking up. This error was noticed shortly after it opened in 1913, but the artist, Charles Basing, never corrected it. In 2026, visitors still look for the small "black patch" near the constellation Cancer—a tiny brick-sized square left uncleaned during the massive 1990s restoration to show how dark the ceiling had become from decades of tobacco smoke and coal soot. The current version of the mural is actually a 1944 recreation painted over the original, which had suffered from water damage and flaking.