The crap they built where the beautiful old train stations were
Jebediah sez, "This is a tour of impressive American train stations that were demolished in recent decades -- with photos of the original buildings are "after" pictures showing what's at the various sites today. It's a strange contrast in most cases between the grandeur of the train station and shabby replacement structure. In some cases it's just a parking lot. The most famous example, of course, is NYC's old Penn Station. But there are many other notable cases, including Memphis's amazing station that was replaced with a bunker of a postal facility surrounded by barbed wire."
Demolished! 11 Beautiful Train Stations That Fell To The Wrecking Ball (Thanks, Jebediah!)
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Here we could learn something from the French…
Rather than tearing down their beautiful train station, they turned it into the world's leading impressionist museum, while keeping the architecture intact:
The Musée d'Orsay
cf Euston Station, London
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euston_railway_station
"one of the greatest acts of Post-War architectural vandalism in Britain"
It´s just gross to tear down such beautiful buildings. If railroad is in no use you can turn it into a museum, a mall, a cinema or a gov building, it´s far more profitable than a parking lot.
In Spain, lots of old train stations from the 1890s and 1920s had being turned into useful building both in cities and small towns.
Brutal civil(?) engineering without even the finesse of Brutalism.
What an Australian politician once termed "public lavatory architecture".
@2: At least the British learn from the mistake of demolishing (and rebuilding) Euston station. St Pancras (10 minutes walk from Euston) was kept and was beautifully restored a couple of years ago. King's Cross (next to St Pancras) was kept, and although an ugly extension was added in the 1970s there are plans to remove it and restore the building to how it used to be. (And there's no way something like the station in Detroit would be considered for demolition.)
I like to pretend that I prefer the new ones, just on principle - the enemy of Prince Charles is my friend!
Can reinforce the comment about the d'Orsay in Paris based on recent visit. Beautiful adaptive reuse. Also, kudos to Denver for preservation and productive future plans for their Union Station. Sign inside still points to Telegraph window.
wow...that is just sad, sad, sad.
Very sad. Some of my favorite buildings in the US are train stations.
Thought I'd share Bristol, Tennessee's train depot from 1902, that was renovated in the 80's and currently being (denovated?) restored back to original condition..
Unfortunately only freight trains pass by, that time has passed.. (for now?)
I think I'm going to load up the camera and make my own local list of 'things that are still here'. That's one benefit of the real estate bubble burst.. they're safe, for the moment, and many of them have been declared historical, so as long as they hold together they'll stick around.
Makes me glad Buffalo is trying to save their magnificent Central Terinal:
http://buffalocentralterminal.org/
St. Louis Union Station is still around, now used as a shopping center and hotel; what an awesome way to show it off. Though not the best of malls, it's a great place to visit, and the architecture really benefits downtown.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Union_Station
Even though surrounding all the financial and political turmoil, they are building a magnificent new station at the WTC.
A phoenix, emerging from its ashes.
http://www.panynj.gov/wtcprogress/transportation-hub.html
At least the era for that sort of thing seems to be over, at least in New York. Penn Station is such a universally reviled, enormous momument to hideous architecture that at least the lesson is learned. Nobody is going to tear down Grand Central Station.
@#4: The funny thing is, a lot of gilded age public lavatories are actually rather attractive.
And when they tear down Madison Square Garden to make way for a new office building, everyone will be up in arms about that too.
It's best not to get too nostalgic, especially about old buildings. It only gets in the way of progress.
That's one huge difference between the US and some countries in the EU. There's no sense of beauty, only utility (in some cases).
"They paved paradise. They put up a parking lot"
You could write a song about that...
You are right, endospores. At least Victoria Station in London and Atocha in Madrid keep their charm. (Atocha is where Dr. Zhivago was filmed, btw, although in the movie it is said it was Moscow train station)
There is a ted-tv speach given by James Howard Kunstler where he complains about the post WW2 US suburbia with many examples of structural vandalism, including buildings where nobody wants to walk around and high schools that look like prisons. A must see, one of the best talk tv videos I have seen.
http://blog.ted.com/2007/04/james_howard_ku_1.php
Makes you want to curse the car companies for killing passenger rail.
Worcester, MA went the other way with their Union Station: http://www.vistadome.com/wus/index.html
Sadly, however, you still catch the train at the dingy concrete platform a block up the street.
The pre-restoration photos show why a lot of these buildings went away though. It's significantly cheaper to bulldoze and start from scratch when decay has advanced that far. If only we'd spend a fraction of the government money we waste maintaining what we already have.... Instead of giving healthcare to unemployed people, we could give them a job that included healthcare...
Well, some U.S. cities got it right. Here in Richmond, VA, our state science museum is the stunning old train station you can pretty much see as it was in its glory. http://www.smv.org/aboutus.html
Old South got it right...
Sad that "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" got so much right. Of course the real trick to the conspiracy against public transport is to do everything possible to make people forget what they enjoy now.
The amtrack sign on one of the new depots made me think about this issue in the light of hard choices that were made to save passanger rail in the US. Was it worth it? I don't really ride trains but I do like to look at cool old buildings.
robot mistake
Thankfully my original local train station ( Huddersfield, UK) is still standing , and a Grade I listed building as well.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2135/2259455689_8f2590a8a6.jpg?v=0
"many of them have been declared historical, so as long as they hold together they'll stick around."
Sadly, that's not really the case. We've had a few places here that were on the National Register of Historic Places that were torn down in the last decade or so. Apparently it benefits the owner without any major restrictions?
"a museum, a mall, a cinema or a gov building, it´s far more profitable than a parking lot."
Again, sadly, parking lots make a lot more money than you would think. Assuming that's your definition of profitable, of course. Parking frequently makes more money than many of the other, more attractive uses. Especially if they're near an entertainment venue or two.
What is the case with modern train stations in the US? They are some of the most oppressively ugly buildings I have seen outside of second-tier former soviet states. Milwaukee Intermodal Station is especially bad (or at least was before the renovation in 2007), especially considering what it replaced.
Then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everett_Street_Depot
Now:
http://milwaukeestreets.blogspot.com/2007/10/train-station-progress.html
So glad Penn Station is at the top of that list..
One of the greatest mistakes ever made.
I'm amazed! I thought all you boingboing folks LOVED modernism. Beautiful beaux arts structures all across the U.S. were bulldozed to make way for these poured concrete pieces of s***. You should see what they're planning to build in Saratoga Springs, next to some 19th century masterpieces. That's right... another modernist box.
Le Corbusier would be proud!
such is the same for everything. what happend to craftsmanship?
speaking of brutalist architecture, i think prince charles put it perfectly when he said:
"You have to give this much to the Luftwaffe... When it knocked down our buildings, it didn't replace them with anything more offensive than rubble."
aside from train stations (that Euston station example was beautiful) is the old and new Boston City Hall.
Old (Second Empire Architecture, a personal fave)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Boston_City_Hall.jpg
New (Brutalist, somehow award winning, the inside shaped as an inverted pyramid. Hopelessly confusing. Helplessly inefficient.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:03-30-07-BostonCityHall.jpg
Couple of comments about this: one, if you're not familiar with some of the cities, you may not know that there are a couple of places (Union Station in Chicago and Central Station in Memphis) that have renovated and kept in place at least one of their old stations, sometimes at enormous pressure to knock them down and replace them with some sort of Penn Station-type solution. Absent a serious resurgence of rail travel, there isn't the demand for multiple facilities as used to exist in these cities.
Which leads to the second point: yes, it's all well and good to point to the Chicago facilities that got torn down and haven't had anything built on the sites and tsk-tsk at the waste, but... where do you get the money to maintain the buildings that were designed for one specific purpose that they are no longer needed for? Historic building/landmark commissions are equally resolute in insisting that old buildings not be torn down or altered, and in ignoring the question of funding. Memphis' Landmark Commission objected to developers tearing down an old mule barn that had been used as a warehouse for decades to make way for a beautiful new ballpark because, well, there just weren't very many mule barns around anymore. Never mind that the infrastructure that created and maintained these structures (in particular, the stonecutting profession) has either disappeared or shrunk, and that restoring them would cost many times their original construction costs.
And here's my final point: some of these buildings really aren't that beautiful, in particular Atlanta's Union Station or Boston's North Station. Sticking a clock tower or an entryway arch on a big brick barn doesn't make it something worth keeping. I should mention that I do support the restoration of decent train travel, and I too hate the grotty little Amtrak depots that exist in the few towns that still have stops, but the thrust of this article seems to be that the authors think that the transportation stimulus money will wash over the remaining old train palaces and restore them to the glory of yesteryear (ignoring things like acessibility). I don't think that the goal should be to fund someone's personal hobby horse.
Most art and architecture in any style or period is crap. We romanticize previous styles because the crap has all gone into the dumpster, leaving only the best examples. Tearing down a beautiful beaux arts building and putting up a box is horrible. Would you be happy to see Modernist masterpieces in Brasilia bulldozed to put up faux Beaux Arts? In Southern California, superb Modernist buildings are routinely torn down to be replaced with cheesy pseudo hacienda style crap.
If your interested in stations you may also be interested in the many (over 1,700) equally stunning country houses which have been demolished in England (and all over the UK) over the last 100 years.
My website lists as many as can be confirmed and has images and histories for quite a few:
http://www.lostheritage.org.uk
Matt
There was a great quote about the old Penn Station in Ken Burns' New York, "once we strode into Manhattan like kings, now we scurry in like rats." On the plus side, the destruction of Penn Station led to the historical preservation movement in NYC and saved some other beautiful structures.
Saving historical buildings requires a sh*tpotfull of money and some dedicated people. The money always has to come from the government or an entrepreneur who can make an adaptive re-use profitable. Most train stations were demolished because they lacked government or entrepreneurial funds. Some were demolished for the perception of better civic uses...like a freeway interchange...which can serve tens of thousands in a given day.
BTW, parking lots are very profitable and a productive way for entrepreneurs to hold land until it becomes more valuable.
It is sad that much of this craftsmanship and civic architecture has been lost; because once it's gone, it's gone for good. I suppose this has been the case since Rome and Athens were at their peak. If you don't like it, put your money where your emotions are. The one time I did that I was torpedoed by the San Jose City Council (who did save their small train station BTW)
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diridon_Station[/url]
The 70's architects will go down in history as the worst bunch of self-aggrandizing, incompetent, phonies that ever lived. A parking lot would be preferable to some of the crap they designed - at least it could be more easily replaced.
This one, too, may soon join these ranks...http://www.qctimes.com/news/local/article_7bcbc3f6-345d-11de-bc57-001cc4c03286.html
"Most art and architecture in any style or period is crap. We romanticize previous styles because the crap has all gone into the dumpster, leaving only the best examples."
Not always true. In America, a lot of Victorian era homes and buildings fell into dereliction and got demolished not because they were "crap," but because the Panics of 1873, 1893, 1929, and the Civil and World Wars subjected the owners to the dislocations of the era and the structures were left derelict and deteriorated.
That was the environment in which the modernists of the mid 20th Century were left free to run around like bulls in a China shop. Face it: the Victorians build better. The things they built were more enjoyable to live and work in. The things that came after were less so.
" Tearing down a beautiful beaux arts building and putting up a box is horrible. Would you be happy to see Modernist masterpieces in Brasilia bulldozed to put up faux Beaux Arts?"
Hell, yes. And Brazil's politics would probably improve too.
" In Southern California, superb Modernist buildings are routinely torn down to be replaced with cheesy pseudo hacienda style crap."
And the solution is to build good non-pseudo hacienda style homes instead of modernist boxes with lipstick-on-a-pig pseudo-Latin facades stuck on.
Mmm-hmmm, I'm sure that the buggy-whip factories were very attractive as well. Quelle dommage.
Are we at the point that we can admit that architecture has been an almost total failure since the turn of the twentieth century? Or are the cool kids still too busy talking about transgressive buildings to notice that all their theory has been coopted by corporate monoliths looking to build worker hives as cheaply as possible?
Cheers,
prat
Face it: the Victorians build better.
To the contrary, all that Victorian decoration exists because it was an age of badly mass-produced products. Traditional building techniques like mortise and tenon joints had been replaced by shoddy, out-of-plumb, unskilled construction. The Arts and Crafts movement arose as a reaction to the poor quality of Victorian Era fabrication.
The things they built were more enjoyable to live and work in.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you've never lived in one. Try to figure out what to do with the fainting room. Or the fact that the bedrooms range from colossal to closet-sized in one house/flat. They're set up for a matriarch/patriarch, twelve children of whom six will die in childhood so don't bother with comfortable accommodations, and servants. All those rooms with sliding doors make privacy a nightmare. And then there's the bathroom. Singular.
I once lent my voice to a protest against a project tearing down a beautiful old building to replace it with a squat ugly, such as is pictured at the head of this page.
I thought I could bend a buddy's ear, a guy who was on the zoning commission who had some input to the decision making.
He told me how much it would cost to make the lovely old building accessible to all citizens. That is a laudable goal, and not only is it a laudable goal, it's the law. It was an insuperable engineering and design challenge, and financially it was simply a no-go.
Next time you go into a public restroom in a squat ugly, look around at the design modifications made to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and try to imagine shoe-horning those into the old building.
We talked about having a fund-raiser to help defray the costs of preserving the old building and offsetting the purchase of vacant property upon which to build the new facility, but were reminded that if the old building were to be put to any kind of public access use, it would still have to have the modifications made to it as stipulated in the A.D.A.
We had to let the old building go. It was a bitter lesson in unintended consequences.
Anonymous,
What was this 'beautiful old building' with existing bathrooms so small that you couldn't carve a five foot circle out of the floor? A vintage phone booth? ADA doesn't apply to private homes. ADA generally doesn't require an owner to spend a punitive amount of money to retrofit, except in urban legends. Sounds like the 'damn cripples spoil everything' argument.
In Cincinnati we turned Union Terminal into a museum. Freight trains still use the yard in the back, but Amtrak does not use the Terminal.
The saddest part is that some of the most wonderful old structures were torn down simply because they had gone out of style. They were seen as an embarrassment, a blot upon the modern, progressive image of the city. Even as the government condemned them and reduced them to rubble, many architects cheered them on, sneering at all those past pretensions of tradition and historical significance. It was the average resident who's views were disregarded. After all, what do those plebeians know about city planning or real architecture?
So when do they tear down Mordor Central?
"where do you get the money to maintain the buildings that were designed for one specific purpose that they are no longer needed for?"
Hence my comment about buggy-whip factories, which, somehow, didn't get posted...
Worth noting that every city worth its salts was building these huge and expensive temples to transportation and we can guess who had been living along the tracks and who were displace.
There are interesting parallels between the civic drive for impressive transportation hubs between back then and now. Look what happening to airports. Beijing, Paris, Reagan, Denver...SF's is amazing and at the cost of like 3 billion by the time it's all paid for, it damn well better be. The question remains to answered; "will the architectural monuments were building to today's transportation marvel, the big hub serviced airlines, be around in 20 years?" Smaller, more efficient, jets that will be air traffic controlled by digital satellite and which will safe a huge amount of time; those kinds of airports will spell the end of most of the grandiose hubs that are now being built...testaments to their age and our persistent belief in ostentation.