here
are grooves in the marble steps leading down to the Great Hall of Union
Station, smooth ruts worn by the drumming feet of countless passengers
throughout the twentieth century. You don't hear much drumming anymore--in
part because the main entrance for daily commuters to the city's oldest
remaining passenger station in use is the escalator under a modern office
building across the street, and in part because trains today, with air
and highway travel now routine (and, sadly, much better funded by the government),
are mostly ghosts of the country's past. Indeed, that underground escalator
ensures that the cavernous but majestic Great Hall is mostly empty space,
sparsely sat in and stared at by tourists. The escalator allows you to come and go from the trains themselves without
setting foot in the Great Hall--although I beg you not to.
Call me raptured by railroad romance,
but I love fitting my feet into those ruts in the marble stairs, even if
they make it harder to keep my balance as I lug my suitcase to catch the
Amtrak back to Michigan. I think of all the feet that wore them down over
the decades, and the sights and sounds that filled the Great Hall as they
did. I mostly agree with author Jonathan Franzen, who writes in his essay
"First City": "I generally resist wishing I'd lived in an earlier era (I
always imagine myself dying of some disease whose cure was just around
the corner), but I make an exception for those years when the country's
heart was in its cities, the years of ... trolley cars, fedoras, and crowded
train stations."
Amid this age--during the Roaring
Twenties--Union Station was constructed. Opened in 1881 as Grand Passenger
Station, Union Station was
rebuilt over 11 years starting in 1914 to provide bigger space and deliver
a more powerful architectural punch. Completed in 1925, it resumed its
role as the nation's crossroads, the pit stop between Penn Station in New
York and transcontinental routes reaching West. (See the link to Jazz Age
Chicago below for a more complete history of Union Station's construction
and architecture.)
In a way, it's a shame that a city
whose name is synonymous with the ascent of railroads in American history
(an ascent that seemed complete by the time of the Civil War) has no functioning
train station that dates back as far as World War I (Dearborn
Station is older but is now an office building). Still, Union Station
is a magnificent landmark, a living, breathing museum.
I've never seen The
Untouchables, which was filmed here, but I suppose I owe it to myself
as a Chicagoan to rent it soon. I did see My Best Friend's Wedding, whose climactic bakery truck chase ends here (with Dermot Mulroney telling Julia Roberts in the Great Hall that her jealous sabatoge of his wedding was rotten but also "pretty flattering"). Meanwhile, TV
Guide relates that William Holden's first movie after Sunset Boulevard
was called Union Station
and cast him as a Chicago detective here, but the entire movie was filmed
in Hollywood--I want to watch it to see how they pulled this off.
Today, the station's vitality is
constantly threatened by the perpetually imminent demise of Amtrak, and
its structural purity is challenged by developers' plans to build offices
over it, but Union Station will always be a proud reminder of Chicago's
heritage. -NB
From Citysearch.com:
During Union Station's boom years
in the 1940s, more than 300 trains arrived or departed daily and 100,000
passengers passed through the terminal. These days, about 50,000 commuters
scurry through Chicago's most magnificent transportation terminal every
day. Unless you enter Union Station on the west side of Canal Street, it's
entirely possible to buy your tickets and board your train without ever
seeing the Great Hall, the surviving half of the original 1925 station.
Take a few extra minutes, though, to take it in. The pink Tennessee marble
floors harmonize with the marble walls, Corinthian columns and bronze floor
torches. The soft light filtering through the Great Hall's vaulted skylight
immediately puts you at ease. The room's size tends to hush people, so
its long wooden benches are a good place to relax, admire the architecture,
or just daydream.
-More
about Union Station from Citysearch.com
-Map
of Union Station from Citysearch.com
From Jazz Age
Chicago:
1913, the Chicago Union Station
Company authorized construction of a replacement station. The railroad
companies involved, most notably the Pennsylvania Railroad, hoped the new
Union Station would be a world-class facility, an architectural and engineering
marvel that would befit the importance of the railroad industry to America's
rise as an economic powerhouse. Chicago's business leaders and politicians,
likewise eager to boost the image of the city, heartily backed the expansion
plans. Accordingly, the new station was designed to be not only a highly
efficient and fully modern transportation facility, but also a monument
to the city and the social confidence of its most powerful citizens.
-More
history of Union Station from Jazz Age Chicago
-See "Where All The Trains Ran: Chicago" from Common-place.org
-More
about Union Station, including a great exterior picture, from Doug Kaniuk
-Picture:
Illinois native and 1928 Olympics gold medalist Betty Robinson arrives
in Union Station, from the Riverdale Historical Society
-More
about passenger rail in Chicago from Bill Vandervoort
-More
about Chicago trains from 20thCentury.org
