When Grand Central Terminal was renovated in the late 1990s, it seemed churlish to criticize the effort. It was wonderful to see the clean ceiling and walls, and the reopened vistas. One felt reluctant to voice concerns about how the renovation had been done.

My own principal objection had to do with the new east staircase in the main concourse. It was a travesty. The Landmarks Preservation Commission supposedly required of the architects, Beyer Blinder Belle, that the new staircase be different in design from the existing west staircase. This was based on intellectually indefensible ideas about not allowing “faked historic material.” We were furthermore enjoined to think that the new staircase represented some fulfillment of the vision of Grand Central’s original architect, Whitney Warren. Not only was it nothing of the sort, but the suggestion struck me as cynical, for it seemed the real reason for the staircase was to allow people to ascend to the new restaurant planned for the east balcony.

I’d have vastly preferred no east staircase at all, but I was willing to let it go. But now is the time of reckoning for the most ballyhooed renovation in New York history. And I am not sanguine.

What finally flipped me was what I saw the other day when I passed through the main concourse. On both the east and west ends of the concourse floor were platforms displaying automobiles. Granted that it’s just a temporary exhibition of fancy cars, still I am incredulous that the Grand Central management does not get the potent symbolism of the car displays.

Back in the bad old days of our train stations, it was routine to see such car displays in stations. Not only did such displays blunt the visual appreciation of great spaces, they seemed a rebuke to train riders – i.e., why ride trains from seedy stations like this when you could instead be driving one of our air-conditioned cocoons?

At Grand Central, I’d honestly thought the post-renovation concourse would be kept forever free and clear of such blighting intrusions. I was sadly mistaken. Seeing the cars made me think of everything else that is wrong with Grand Central. Look around the concourse today, and you will see a volume of advertising equal to that of the worst days of Grand Central. When the renovation was first done and hyped, none of those ads was there. They have stealthily multiplied over the years, and one must presume that was the intent all along.

And what of the complete commercial takeover of the balconies? I was told to my face by a Grand Central representative that the southwest balcony would remain forever open to the public, and indeed the Grand Central management suggested as much to a public that paid for the renovation. (I suppose technically the restaurants on all the balconies are “open to the public,” but it is not quite what anyone intends by that phrase.) The presence of Cipriani Dolce on that balcony, the cars, the multiplying ads – these are unconscionable betrayals of the public trust.

fmorrone@nysun.com