Union Station opened in 1894 as the largest and busiest railroad terminal in the world. Designed by Theodore Link in the Romanesque Revival style, the station's headhouse is a masterpiece of 19th-century civic architecture: a 280-foot clock tower, a vast train shed of iron and glass spanning 11 tracks, and an interior grand hall with a vaulted ceiling decorated in gilded plasterwork and stained glass. At its peak, Union Station handled 100,000 passengers a day and served 22 different railroad lines.
During both World Wars, millions of soldiers passed through these halls, kissing loved ones goodbye, shipping out to wars in Europe and the Pacific. The station's decline tracked the rise of automobile culture and commercial aviation. Passenger rail traffic dropped steadily after World War II, and the last train departed Union Station in 1978.
The station was preserved and converted into a festival marketplace — shops, restaurants, a hotel — reopening in 1985. Today it also houses an aquarium and a Ferris wheel. The reinvention has been imperfect but the building endures.
Stand in the Grand Hall and look up at those arches. Imagine 100,000 people a day moving through this space, the din of trains and humanity echoing off these stones.