Union Station

Name, in various US cities, for a railway station or terminal serving a number of passenger lines, either separately owned or merged into a single system. Perhaps the most famous Union Station is in the capital, Washington DC, immediately northeast of Capitol Hill.

Washington's Union Station was designed in the 1890s by Daniel Burnham in the Beaux-Arts style, and served the Baltimore and Ohio, Pennsylvania, and various Southern railways. With the demise of long-distance rail services in the US in favour of air travel, it fell into decline in the 1970s. However, it has since been extensively redeveloped, reopening in 1988 as a combined terminal and shopping mall, and is now a popular tourist attraction. The Union Station in Chicago (1925), just west of the Loop (the central business district) and the Chicago River, served the Pennsylvania, the Milwaukee Road, and several other lines. In Los Angeles, the Union Station is an imposing structure completed in 1939 in the Spanish Colonial-Art Deco style. It lies immediately east of El Pueblo de Los Angeles, and was built on land near the Old Plaza that had formerly been the centre of the city's barrio.