For four decades the Eastman Kodak Company occupied some of the most valuable advertising real estate in America: the vast wall above the east balcony in Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan.

Every weekday, 650,000 commuters and visitors who jostled through the main concourse could gaze up at Kodak’s Coloramas, the giant photographs that measured 18 feet high and 60 feet wide, each backlit by a mile of cold cathode tubing, displaying idealized visions of postwar family life — not to mention the wonders of color film.

Happy families in bucolic settings, scuba divers in magical waters, and skiers amid majestic mountains floated above the harried and tired office workers who slogged to and from their trains.

Shortly after the first Colorama went up in May 1950, the renowned photographer Edward Steichen, then director of the Museum of Modern Art’s photography department, telegraphed Kodak: “EVERYONE IN GRAND CENTRAL AGOG AND SMILING. ALL JUST FEELING GOOD.”