(rshsdepot) Washington DC (Union Station)

[I95BERNIEW_@_aol.com]

From The Associated Press.
 
Bernie Wagenblast
 
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
Washington`s Union Station celebrates 100 years

By SARAH KARUSH 
 
Less than 30 years ago, Union Station, the grand gateway to the nation`s  
capital, seemed to be going the way of the steam engine. 
 
Like passenger rail itself, the Beaux Arts building was in decline, with  
chunks of the ceiling falling off and mushrooms growing on the floor. 
 
Today, the 100-year-old building is a thriving transportation hub, a  
shopping mall and one of Washington`s most visited sites with more than 32  million 
people passing through a year. The station will celebrate its centennial  this 
weekend (Oct. 4-5) with a display of historic locomotives and rail cars  
rarely seen in one place. 
 
``The history of this station tracks in some ways with the railroad  
industry,`` said Joe McHugh, vice president for government affairs at Amtrak.  The 
railroad, which is headquartered at Union Station, is taking the lead in the  
anniversary celebrations. 
 
Amtrak was formed out of the ruins of once-grand private passenger rail  
service, which declined in the mid-20th century with the rise of air travel and  
the automobile. Recently, rail travel has undergone a modest resurgence. Some  
25.8 million passengers took Amtrak in the last fiscal year—the most since the 
 government-owned corporation started business in 1971. 
 
The Union Station centennial falls on the 20th anniversary of the station`s  
1988 rehabilitation, and Amtrak is using it as an opportunity to showcase one 
of  the nation`s most successful makeovers. 
 
``The restoration of the building gave us back one of the great  
architectural landmarks of Washington,`` said Dwight Young, who works for the  National 
Trust for Historic Preservation. 
 
Daniel Burnham, the principal architect of the 1893 Chicago World`s Fair,  
designed the station to serve as ``a monumental gateway to Washington,`` Young  
said. His creation opened in 1907, though it wasn`t completed until the  
following year. 
 
In the early decades, nearly everyone, including presidents and visiting  
royalty, arrived in Washington by train, making Union Station the first thing  
they saw. 
 
On Jan. 15, 1953, a runaway train crashed through the main concourse. The  
floor collapsed under the weight of the locomotive, but nobody was killed. Just  
four days later, the damage was hardly visible when a special train for  
President Eisenhower`s inauguration rolled into the station, according to an  
official station history. 
 
But as passenger trains fell out of favor, so did big train stations. New  
York`s original Pennsylvania Station, a similarly grand, classically-inspired  
structure, was razed in 1964. 
 
Union Station survived, thanks in part to an ill-fated project to remake  the 
building into a national visitor`s center for the country`s bicentennial.  
The marble floor was torn up to carve out a theater for an elaborate slideshow  
presentation. 
 
The visitor`s center was a flop, and soon the station was shuttered because  
of structural problems. Passengers used a makeshift Amtrak terminal behind 
Union  Station, with a covered walkway around the building to get to the street. 
 
A public-private partnership spent $160 million to restore the building. It  
reopened in 1988—once again a train station, but this time with high-end 
retail  and restaurants. 
 
Amtrak has been trying to foster similar efforts—albeit on a smaller  scale—
around the country through its Great American Stations program. A  renovated 
station can help spur development of neglected downtowns, advocates of  such 
projects say. 
 
Before Union Station`s renovation, the thriving Capitol Hill neighborhood  
where it is located was ``depressed,`` said David Ball, president of Union  
Station Redevelopment Corp., the nonprofit that holds a long-term lease to the  
building from the U.S. Department of Transportation. ``We were sort of the  
catalyst.`` 
 
The centennial celebration is Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., and Sunday, noon-4  
p.m. The free event will feature an exhibit of historic locomotives and  
passenger cars from the heyday of rail travel, as well as modern Amtrak  equipment. 
Visitors will be able to walk through the cars and even buy souvenir  stamps 
inside an old railway post office car. Archival photos of the station  will 
also be on display. 



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