Existing comment:
Union Station; outside
Union Station was designed by Daniel Burnham and completed in 1908. It was built to replace and consolidate the city's two major railroad stations: the B&P Railroad Station (which stood where the National Gallery of Art now stands) and the B&O Railroad Station (which stood where Union Station was constructed). The B&O Station was the station where Abraham Lincoln arrived incognito for his first inaugural in 1861 and from which his funeral train left for Springfield Illinois in 1865. The B&P Station had been where President Garfield was fatally shot in 1881. The MacMillan Commission in 1901 recommended that all Victorian architecture on the Mall be replaced by a unified Beaux-Arts complexion which led to the tearing down of the B&P.
The Main Hall in the station features statues of Roman Legionnaires, designed by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. These statues were original nudes and shields were quickly added to cover up their private parts.
In 1912, the very first commercial film to use a Washington setting, "Filial Love," used the Columbus statue out front in one of its scenes.
In 1951, the station provided the backdrop for the opening scenes of Alfred Hitchcock's thriller "Strangers on a Train".
In 1953, a runaway train, "The Federal Express," en route to Boston, slammed into the main concourse at the station. The station was packed with visitors arriving for President Eisenhower's inauguration. The crash caused millions of dollars in damage but, surprisingly, no severe injuries. The crash was used, in part, as the basis for the 1976 Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor movie "Silver Streak".
In 1964, the Beatles arrived by train at Union Station after their first US appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, performing their first real concert just up the street at the DC Colliseum.
Like most railroad stations in the second half of the 20th century, Union Station had started to go downhill until it was restored, at a cost of $160 million, in a project which ended in 1988. Now it is occupied with the typical restaurants and such. |