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The park’s iconic Roman arch had been scrawled over, the fountain gurgled with some kind of detergent stuffed in one of its nozzles, and glass shards, needles and pizza boxes littered the ground.

It did not have the high-low smack of Union Station, where travelers are welcomed by the Roman arches of Constantine but digested through a boarding area that feels like the waiting room of an ER.

Plazas are nearly empty, long corridors of Roman arches are blank, sharp perspective lines don’t quite match up, which sends the ground plane tilting up and down.

Although the arrangement can be dressed up in impressive clothing and nice sets—triumphal Roman arches or the fountains of Versailles—the basic facts don’t alter.

In one work area, students drilled large, nail-like rock bolts feet deep into the granite to form a Roman arch above them.