By G. Michael Dobbs
news@thereminder.com
It’s been a long time coming, but the renovation of Springfield’s Union Station is nearing completion.
I was trying to figure out how many years I’ve covered the transformation that sometimes moved forward with the speed of a glacier.
I also remembered that I was about a year or so too late to have gone through the station while it was still in use in the 1970s. I took my then-girlfriend for a day trip to New York City in 1973, which meant I missed the Union Station experience by about a year.
At that time travel on Amtrak meant buying a ticket in the ground-level Lyman Street lobby and ascending the stairs to the appropriate track – not very glamorous.
I’ve been told by that time, the station was in disrepair and was a shadow of its former glory.
At that time The Hotel Charles was still standing, also a reminder of an earlier period. It was a railroad hotel, the closest accommodations to the station for travelers.
Unions Station at that time seemed to be a metaphor for train travel in general – an outmoded almost quaint antique.
Built in 1926, Union Station reflected the role that trains played in our region. It was Springfield’s fourth and final train station – unless you want to count the Amtrak structure built on the tracks as a station. It was preceded by a beautiful station designed by H.H. Richardson, which in turn replaced a structure with a curved brick roof that was where Gridiron Street and the Paramount Theater now stand.
During the time of that station the east-west trains crossed Main Street. That must have been a sight.
The city’s first station was built of wood and burnt down when the ceiling caught on fire from a spark from a coal-fired locomotive.
The current Union Station told a story, though, of how after the Second World War the fortunes of rail travel changed. It was during the 1950s and the development of the interstate highway system, as well as the growth of the suburbs, that owning a car and driving everywhere became the American way.
According to contemporary press accounts, by the 1950s the owners of Union Station were seeking to sell the white elephant with the decline in the use of passenger rail. The huge structure with its many offices, the baggage and mail buildings had become outdated.
By 1972, the station was deemed to have outlived its usefulness. It has since been closed from about half of its lifespan as a building.
When I first went through the building, which I think was about six years ago, it was a ghost. There were the long wooden benches piled in one area. The huge clock stilled. In the baggage area there were still several wooden carts that had been used to unload and transport the luggage of travelers. There was a blackboard on which the departures and arrivals were posted.
Water dripped from everywhere and the tunnel that connected the terminal to Lyman Street was closed off by a wall. The smell of mold and dust was everywhere.
It made me think, as I’ve yet to see archival photos of the interior of the station in its heyday, what it was like in the 1930s and ‘40s. What shops were there? I know there was a barbershop, as one of the chairs exists. I believe there was a lunch stand as there were stools visible. Was there a shoeshine stand – a staple for train stations decades ago? How about a bar at which travelers could get quick refreshment?
Today, thanks to the persistence of Congressman Richard Neal, as well as mayors Charles Ryan and Domenic Sarno, and the vision of the Springfield Redevelopment Authority, the region will have a transportation hub that could be transformative. Pioneer Valley Transit Authority buses, taxi, Amtrak trains and starting 2018 commuter trains linking Springfield to Hartford and New Haven, CT and, hopefully, intercity buses will all operate out of one building.
The building is now remarkable in its reuse of the old and the creation of the new.
If Union Station was indeed symbolic for train travel back in 1973, its rebirth with additional north south commuter rail service speaks of a new era for mass transportation and for Western Massachusetts.
