When people compare New York to Rome, the reference is not usually meant to be flattering. But our town shares at least one inspiring quality with the Eternal City. Just about anytime you knock an old wall down, there is an even older wall behind it.
Columbus Circle mosaic The old mosaic’s guilloche pattern can be discerned under the decorative plaque by Grueby Faience.

Another keyhole to the past opened recently on the uptown platform of the No. 1 train at the 59th Street-Columbus Circle station. Through a gap in the current wall, under one of the ceramic plaques of Columbus’s flagship, an unusual pattern can be discerned dimly: an interwoven guilloche pattern — sort of like a two-dimensional challah crust — in red and yellow mosaic tiles....