Union Station (Pittsburgh)
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Pittsburgh | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Address | 1100 Liberty Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15222 |
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Connections | Port Authority of Allegheny County | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Code | PGH | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Owned by | Amtrak | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Passengers (2007) | 120,188 ▲ 1.2% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Union Station or Pennsylvania Station (commonly called "Penn Station" by locals) is a historic train station at Grant Street and Liberty Avenue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Unlike many union stations built in the US to serve the needs of more than one railroad, this facility connected the Pennsylvania Railroad with several subsidiary lines; for that reason it was renamed in 1912 to match other Pennsylvania Stations.
The station building was designed by Chicago architect Daniel Burnham and built 1898–1903. The materials were a grayish-brown terra cotta that looked like brownstone, and brick. Though Burnham is regarded more as a planner and organizer rather than a designer of details, which were left to draftsmen like Peter Joseph Weber, the most extraordinary feature of the monumental train station is his: the rotunda with corner pavilions. At street level the rotunda sheltered turning spaces for carriages beneath wide low vaulted spaces that owed little to any historicist style. Above, the rotunda sheltered passengers in a spectacular waiting room. Burnham's firm went on to complete more than a dozen projects in Pittsburgh, some on quite prominent sites. The rotunda is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[1]
The restoration of Union Station in the mid-1980s converted the office tower into condominiums. The waiting room, no longer open to the public, was transformed into a lobby for the condominiums, and the paint cleaned off the great central skylight.
Union Station continues to serve as a train station. It is the western terminus of Amtrak's Pennsylvanian route and is along the Capitol Limited route. For getting to and from Pittsburgh by train, the former route is considered to be far more useful, as the latter passes through Pittsburgh late at night and very early in the morning.
Its Amtrak station code is PGH.
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[edit] PAT Bus Connections
- 3L, 3M, 42S, 58C, 58P, 58V, 63A, 63B, 68A, 68B, 68D, 68F, 68G, 68J, 73B, 78A, 78C, 78E, 83B, 88A, 93A, AV, AVN, EBA, EBS, EBX, G, GR, HP, LP, P, PG, T, U, & W
[edit] Images
[edit] References
- ^ National Register Information System. National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service (2007-01-23).
[edit] External links
- Images of Union Station, Pittsburgh
- Burnham's papers at the Carnegie-Mellon Library
- Port Authority of Allegheny County Station Info
- Pittsburgh Amtrak Station (USA Rail Guide -- Train Web)