Bienvenue A La Porte Authorité

The Port Authority continues its frankly daunting rebranding campaign:

A white tablecloth brasserie, Metro Marché, officially opened its French doors yesterday across the hallway from the Peter Pan ticket counter at the Port Authority Bus Terminal — a place where until yesterday the only French fare could be found at the Au Bon Pain.

Once occupied by the Silver Bullet Saloon, the Metro Marché space above the A, C, and E subway station stood vacant for several years. Now it is being filled with the bus terminal’s first fine-dining facility, an early step in a long-term plan to revamp the dingy station into something more modern and elegant.

The terminal, known for its badly lit corridors and low ceilings, is often associated with gloomy scenes of urban life, a memory of the days, not so long ago, when its walls were covered in graffiti and loiterers were a common sight in front of bus gates.

Yesterday, the deputy executive director of the Port Authority, James Fox, spoke of a station “renaissance,” and pointed to Grand Central Terminal as an example of what the bus terminal aspires to become.

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The restaurant is paying $90 a square foot to rent the 5,000-square-foot space from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.