Union Station in Kansas City opened in 1914 as the second largest train station in the country. The decision to build a new station was spearheaded by the Kansas City Terminal Railway, a switching and terminal railroad that was a joint operation of twelve railways. An example of the Beaux-Arts school of architecture, it was designed by architect Jarvis Hunt.
In 1945, annual passenger traffic peaked at 678,363. I remember going down there in the 1950s. Nobody in my family flew on airplanes back then. They all took the train. It was so exciting to take relatives to the train or pick them up.
I remember huge crowds and the station filled with soldiers in uniform and nuns in old fashioned habits.
By the sixties passenger train traffic was declining and by the seventies the building was deteriorating. The city made a development deal with a company called Trizek Corporation. The agreement was supposed to include renovation of the station, but it didn’t happen. Instead the company began to erect office buildings around the station, perhaps thinking once the station was hidden they could tear it down and no one would notice. In 1988, the city filed suit against Trizec for failure to develop the station; the case was settled in 1994. For most of this time period, the building continued to decay.
In 1996, residents in five counties throughout the metropolitan area in both Kansas and Missouri approved the so-called "bi-state tax", a 1/8 of a cent sales tax, part of which helped to fund just under half of the $250 million restoration of Union Station. Renovation began in 1997 and was completed in 1999. The remaining money was raised through private donations and federal funding. Today it includes a interactive science museum, a planetarium, a live action theater, a 3D movie theater, two restaurants, shops, and the Amtrak station is back, which is how I happened to take the picture of the ceiling at the top of the page while I was waiting for my train last summer.
And every Memorial Day there is a Celebration at the Station with the Kansas City symphony, guest artists, fireworks, and cannons!
Looking for some abstract image to put at the top of my diary, I came across the Union Station ceiling and it just went from there. I was going to include some topical tweets, but everything in my feed is so negative, I couldn’t handle it. I’m doing what I can, which is donating to Claire. Others are doing what they can. What will be will be.