Transportation
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Designed by Daniel Burnham in the Beaux-Arts style and completed in 1908, Union Station was the world's largest train station when it opened, with the station and terminal zone covering approximately 200 acres and including 75 miles of tracks. For more than half a century, its coffered ceilings and granite walls formed an impressive gateway for travelers to the nation's capital, including kings, queens, presidents, and millions of Americans and visitors from around the world. As air travel grew, the station increasingly fell into disuse, and a mid-1970s effort to revive it as a National Visitor Center failed. The building closed in 1981, but later that year Congress passed the Union Station Redevelopment Act, and a renovation project from 1985 to 1988 restored its grandeur. Today it serves Amtrak, MARC, and Metrorail travelers, contains more than a hundred shops and restaurants, and hosts exhibitions and international cultural events. In front of the entrance stands a 45-foot-tall marble fountain monument to Christopher Columbus, topped by a 15-foot figure of the explorer, created by sculptor Lorado Taft, who worked with Daniel Burnham on its design.
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Washington, District of Columbia · United States
