Them returning to, and then surpassing, in the years ahead. Passengers a year-a number that everyone is banking on MARC commuter trains served more than one million Regional, high-speed Acela Express, and state-owned Oversee the $150-million redevelopment of Amtrak’sĮighth busiest train station. Heavyweight Cross Street Partners, who together will In 2017 between Beatty and fellow local real-estate Partners, a master developer collaborative formed Soon enough, though, they could be full of lifeĪgain, or so hopes Seiler and the rest of Penn Station Like Latrobe, but today, most travelers don’t know they exist, having sat vacant for decades. These rooms were once offices for railroad employees Taped across scuffed doors read “temporarily out of order.” Rusted radiators lean lifeless in the hallway, and signs Seiler, marketing director of Beatty Developmentįloors of Penn Station this past November.įrom the walls, fading carpet peels back from the floor, T’s clearly in need of some work,” says Chris Remains: After generations of such promises, will it finally succeed? Vision-of not only improving travel in and out of Baltimore, The verge of rebirth, this time with an even more ambitious If only he could see it now: his station once again on To this day-a century after Latrobe’s death (due in part to Ups and downs not just in the immediate months and years that followed, but Lights, no ribbon cuttings, its four American flags alreadyĪnd so it would go for the city and its station, with Was still too small, too smokey, too far from downtown.Įven that opening night had minimal fanfare-no bright The public quickly resumed its grumblings about what we now know as Penn Station. The press that evening, “and it all belongs to Baltimore.”īut much like Latrobe’s legacy, this sense of wonderment In New York, or in the country than this,” touted Latrobe to “There is not a better railroad station in Philadelphia, Made of Tiffany stained glass, yielding expressions of awe and approval.Īfter all, this was finally the finery fit for a majorĮast Coast metropolis-not to mention the birthplace of Room, newsstand, lunch counter, dining room, telegraphĪnd telephone booths, and, of course, the colorful skylights Showing off the new ladies’ parlor, men’s smoking Latrobe led the crowd around the building, 1916-1917 PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD YEAR BOOK, The new Union Station was state of the art, it promised change, and after decades of complaints and a year ofĬonstruction, residents were anxious to see inside. Before that, the original structure, circa 1873, Station, built here in 1886, had been overcrowded, uncomfortable,Īnd, at times, downright dangerous, with passengers crossing active tracks Union Station, and not because they were all travelers. Oak doors of the arched entryways into what was then known as Hours before the first train pulled in around 1 a.m.-a New York expressīound for Washington, D.C.-some 5,000 people flooded through the New Union Station on Charles Street may be regarded, to a greatĮxtent,” wrote The Sun at the time, “as a monument to him.” Now, when the wooden hands of the façade’s grand clock struckĨ p.m., it would become his official charge. Years, Latrobe had been a loyal advocate for the station’s completion, and Marble finishes, that would carry out its first service tonight. With a thick mustache, in the halls of his own monument-a four-storyīeaux Arts train station, decorated with ornate granite and Original bridges that crossed the Jones Falls.Īlong that same waterway, Gamble now stood, tall in stature, One of the greatest architects in American history, his great-grandfather,īenjamin Sr., designed the likes of the United States CapitolĪnd Baltimore Basilica, while his father, Charles, a Baltimore CityĮngineer, can be credited for the Patterson Park Pagoda and the Helping to lay the company’s first tracks-but landmarks were, too. Jr., was chief engineer for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, Railroading was in Latrobe’s blood-his grandfather, Benjamin Man of the hour on this Thursday evening, September 14, 1911. Head of the Pennsylvania Railroad-a position that made him the Industry, rising from an entry-level engineer in 1884 to the local North Charles Street in Baltimore, the 45-year-old native son hadĪlready spent a career climbing the ranks of the booming railroad When the new train station first opened its doors on
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