He always took care to approach the station in the same way, for the best effect: first, the Seventh Avenue entrance with its wide, many-columned facade. Then, the vestibule and the high, narrow barrel of the Arcade, the windowed arch at its end. Through the arch, and down the stairs—and the view opened into the soaring marble expanse of the Waiting Room, with its ornate mosaics and soaring columns, its electric candelabra that rose, treelike, from the floor. Across this shining plaza, and through another towering arch, to the Concourse: and now the ribs of the building changed from stone to steel, a framework of arches and vaults all set with glass panes like an enormous greenhouse. Even the floor was steel, and pierced like a screen so that one might gaze below one's feet, to the waiting trains.
―Helene Wecker, The Hidden Palace
