Grand Central may be the holiest place in the transit system.
Orthodox Jews gather in a corner of the terminal near Eddie’s Shoe Shine and Repair, bobbing their heads slightly as they recite their ancient prayers.
One flight down, dedicated Jehovah’s Witnesses sit silently on benches near the main bank of subway turnstiles, holding up their Watchtower magazines to the hundreds of thousands of passing riders.
And a group of devout Catholics form a small circle and say the rosary in the space between a subway token booth and a MetroCard vending machine beneath 42nd St. and Lexington Ave.
The Witnesses take their posts during the morning rush.
The Jews gather weekdays at 1:40 p.m.
The Catholics assemble Tuesday and Friday evenings when commuters head home.
“We’re bearing public witness to religion,” the Rev. William Shelley, the 86-year-old spiritual leader of the rosary group, said. “We’re trying to advertise prayer.”
The rosary circle starts to form when Ray Reyes, 65, who manages the shoe department of a nearby clothing store, arrives with a metal folding chair for Shelley. He sets it up against the wall next to the booth.
Shelley arrives next, leaning on a walker as he makes his way across the growing tide of commuters. Eight more of the faithful arrive one by one. They take out their beads and, at 5:45 p.m., the praying begins.
“I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of eaven and Earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.”
Streams of commuters rush past the group. Many don’t pay any attention. Some cast brief glances. One man in a suit makes the sign of the cross without breaking stride as he heads from the subway to a Metro-North train out of the city.
“I think so many people are walking around disheartened,” Mary Moore Danner, a retired nurse from Brooklyn, said after the last rosary. “They don’t know what they’re looking for. If they see us praying, maybe they’ll see that it’s prayer they’re looking for. It’s God they’re looking for.”
Five of the rosary devotees this night are men and five are women. More than half the worshipers are emigrants, hailing originally from Ireland, the Caribbean, Africa and Eastern Europe. All but one are senior citizens.
Danner is 70. Richard Harris, a retired financial analyst from Brooklyn, is 67. Mary Harrington, a waitress at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central, is 66.
The Grand Central rosary sessions were launched 25 years ago by the Legion of Mary and parishioners from the Church of St. Agnes on E. 43rd St.
Harrington was there. The group was bigger and the faces were younger. The message hasn’t changed.
pdonohue@nydailynews.com
