photo by Nixter, via Flickr creative commons
Nice view of the old St. Louis train station, which was once the among the busiest in the world but ceased operations in 1978. It’s now a marketplace and hotel. More info here.
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Categories: The Art of Transit
I hope Los Angeles never goes the “let’s turn our historic train station into a shopping mall/ hotel/ tourist trap” route.
Los Angeles Union Station is doing pretty good these days, and each new rail line brings more people and more business to the area. Furthermore, we’ve managed to bring new retail in without violating the historic nature of the place.
It’s not a “this used to be historic Penn Station” or a “this USED TO BE a railway terminal”; we have the full package. True, there’s no hotel in Union Station, but it doesn’t need one (or they can take MTA HQ and turn that into the hotel, ha ha).
St. Louis got clever with their Gateway Station (2008) but it looks to me like basically an “AmShack” with a lot of bus platforms added. Never replace L.A. Union Station.