New York City's iconic Grand Central train station is getting a major tech upgrade

Antonio Villas-Boas/Business Insider

The board being replaced in Grand Central Terminal is actually just a re-creation of the original look.

• Grand Central Terminal is an iconic, gorgeous, massive train station in the middle of Manhattan.
• Within Grand Central is a classic departures and arrivals board that hearkens back to a time before digital screens were everywhere.
• The board is in the process of being replaced by a newer, digitized version.
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New York City's iconic Grand Central Terminal is full of its own iconic little touches.

The information desk in the center, for instance, has a gorgeous golden clock. The ceiling is covered in constellations. The floor is a beautiful, polished marble.

Even the arrivals and departures board is an iconic component, with its "split-flap" design hearkening back to a time before everyone had a supercomputer in their pocket.

Antonio Villas-Boas/Business Insider

And that's why people are reacting so strongly to the board getting a digital overhaul:

As it turns out, the boards currently being replaced are from way back in ... 1996. The board being replaced is actually just a re-creation of the original look. The "split-flap" design that was popular in train stations before digital screens became ubiquitous was replaced over 20 years ago.

Still, the new departures board looks pretty different from the one installed in 1996 that was intended to mimic the original design:

The project has been ongoing since March, and the Metropolitan Transit Authority told Gothamist that it plans to finish the update by June.