Washington, DC

In 1901, the U. S. Senate Park Commission invited master American architect Daniel Burnham to orchestrate a sweeping City Beautiful plan for Washington, D.C., and make it into a setting that was both practical and grandly befitting a world capital. Burnham’s work would help create the colossal architectures that we now associate with the National Mall. As part of this work, Burnham designed a Union Station that removed the rail lines from the center of the Mall, which had become a tangle of streets and buildings, and brought two major railroads, the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, into one terminal.

 

This Beaux Arts national historical landmark inspires with its classical architecture even though its bones are modern concrete and steel.  The front of the station, on Columbus Circle, presents travelers with a soaring vaulted entryway and heroic statuary on its 600-foot length. The 96-foot high coffered Main Hall ceiling shines with gold leaf, reflecting light onto the expanse of its marble floor through spacious skylights and windows. The former Main Concourse, now the heart of the station lift its barrel-vaulted glass and coffered plaster ceiling 45 feet above the main floor and stretches 760 feet long. It was once said to be the largest single room in the world. 

 

Today, 32 million visitors pass through Union Station each year, including passengers using Amtrak, Maryland Area Regional Commuter (MARC) and Virginia Railway Express (VRE) , the Washington Metro subway, taxis, city buses, tourist buses, intercity buses; as well as shoppers and diners. Behind the station, above the train sheds, stands a parking structure offering over 2,000 spaces. The station, bringing all these modes of transportation together,  makes it easy for people to move from private automobile to Amtrak to taxi or from commuter rail onto the subway and still have time to buy a meal, a gift, or a cup of coffee on their way. 

 

The station has evolved through a vivid history of bustling use during its early years, to a period of decline, to a $160 million restoration in 1988 as one of the nation’s most successful examples of adaptive reuse through a private and public partnership. Today the station, which is larger than the U.S. Capitol and sees approximately 77 Amtrak trains per day, is itself the number one destination for visitors to Washington, D.C.  The station houses an indoor mall in the former Main Concourse, with many shops and kiosks throughout the station, providing ample space to meet, greet, and shop. There is more than 210,000 square feet of retail space, including six full service restaurants and many other smaller eateries providing quick meals. Amtrak’s corporate offices are located in the station as well. Since its re-opening, Union Station has hosted a large variety of cultural and civic events, Presidential Inaugural Balls, free concerts, art and photography exhibits, and many other activities.

 

The District of Columbia was established in 1791 as a Congressionally-designated federal territory, a location for the nation’s capital that would take up a diamond-shaped ten mile-by-ten mile tract at a major fork of the Potomac River. This permanent location was intended as home for a capital city which did not originally fill the entire area, as well as the President’s home and that of each branch of government. Designed by Major Pierre Charles L’Enfant, a Frenchman who had come to know George Washington during the Revolutionary War, the city was one of the first pre-planned cities in the new nation. Even with 200 years of growth, L’Enfant’s symbolic and innovative plan for the capital of a new nation has survived remarkably unchanged.