There have been two disastrous days in the history of Washington's Union Station. The first was Jan. 15, 1953, when a train hurtled beyond the tracks, through a newsstand and into the main concourse, where it smashed through the concrete floor and landed in the baggage room. Miraculously, no one was killed. The second was Feb. 29,1968, when Congress decided to save the magnificent old building. From this intrusion, Union Station has never recovered.
Today, 20 congressional hearings and $83 million later, the station is closed, too dangerous to use. Parts of the roof have caved in. Leaking water has spread sepia stains on the gilt-edged ceilings and knocked loose hefty chunks of plaster. Pipes have burst, leaving muddy lakes. Toadstools grow from urinals and floors. Beneath 36 granite Roman soldiers encircling the balcony of the musty waiting room, rats and roaches prowl.
To reach their trains, passengers walk a zigzag detour one-third of a mile around the boarded-up building. At the end of this trek is a jerry-built replacement station. "This long walk is for the birds," groused New Yorker Aileen Gravelle, 71, dragging her suitcase along one muggy day. "And it used to be such a lovely station."
Indeed it was. Union Station's architect, Daniel H. Burnham, operated on a simple motto: "Make no little plans." He modeled his beaux-arts palace on Rome's Diocletian Baths and the triumphal Arch of Constantine. When it opened in 1907, luxuriously appointed with mahogany, crystal, brass and marble, its 760-ft.-long, 45-ft.-high concourse was the largest room in the world under a single roof. Niches in the façade held carved avatars of fire, electricity, agriculture and mechanics, each weighing 25 tons.
But by 1960, the falloff in rail travel had turned the white granite building into a mausoleum. The railroads were eager to raze it and put up an office building. There was no longer any need for a station that could support crowds of 175,000, as it had during World War II, or a staff of 5,000 to operate the city within the station: bowling alley, mortuary, bakery, butchery, YMCA hotel, ice house, resident doctor, liquor store, Turkish baths, first-class restaurant, basketball court, swimming pool, nursery, police station and silver-monogramming shop.
Preservationists had the station designated as a national landmark, making it virtually impossible to tear down. So the railroads offered it to the Federal Government. The National Park Service had been hankering for a place to tell tourists about the delights of the capital. It seemed a perfect match. In 1968 Congress enthusiastically passed the National Visitor Center Facilities Act. The bill called for the Department of the Interior to lease the building for $3.5 million annually for 25 years, after which the Government would own it. The owners of the terminal, the Pennsylvania and the Baltimore & Ohio railroads, would spend $19 million for a parking garage, replacement terminal and conversion of the station into a visitor center. The bill's sponsor, former Illinois Representative Kenneth Gray, a Democrat known for his dynamic style and patent-leather shoes, assured his colleagues that the annual rent could be recouped from parking fees and concessions.