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Building of the Week: Washington Union Station


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#1 CNJRoss

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Posted 01 December 2017 - 12:28 PM

Greater Greater Washington, 11/27/17:
 

Building of the Week: Washington Union Station

 

 

American train stations are great expositions of art in public places. Washington’s Union Station is one of the grandest examples of this, and it typifies early 20th Century ideals in urban planning.

 

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While the first half of the 20th Century was the golden age of American train stations, the second half saw their precipitous decline. With the rise of the Interstate Highway System and jet travel, passenger rail became increasingly irrelevant in American life.

 

Nothing symbolized this quite as much as the 1963 destruction of the original New York Penn Station. Much like Washington’s Union Station, it encompassed great Greco-Roman designs on a grand scale, but railroad executives opted to raze the building for easy cash. Union Station luckily did not suffer as horrible a fate (although it was considered), but the station fell into disrepair during the subsequent decades.

 

SNIP

 

Considering the station’s poor condition, making it usable for train service again was no small feat. Congress passed the Union Station Redevelopment Act of 1981, which created the largest public-private partnership in the United States at the time. Beyond the massive restoration plan, Union Station also benefited from the new Washington Metro and the restoration of rail commuter service to the DC region.

 

Although the restoration suffered bumps along the way (such as the 2011 earthquake,) the revival of Union Station has been spectacular. Today, Union Station has over five million Amtrak riders alone, making it the second busiest train station in the country. As passenger train service continues to rebound, Amtrak is looking to further modernize the station in order to triple passenger capacity in the next 20 years.

 

Union Station continues to stand the testament of time combining train travel, retail, and architecture.

 

Feature article here w/photos.






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