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Conclusion
Given the relative merits and demerits of the three union stations, one might have expected that the eventual disposition of each would have been different from what actually happened.15

In Columbus, only the union station arch remains of all of the development that once was Columbus Union Station. Its good location made it perhaps the most vulnerable of the “3-C” stations, as the decline in rail service made the station’s land increasingly desirable for other uses.

As noted earlier, there were no real reasons not to incorporate at least portions of union station into the convention center that today occupies its site. That was not to be, yet Columbus Union Station still affects the city, and not only by the fact that the arch crowns the head of a new urban park. The High Street viaduct, though a new structure, still gives High Street the same curious hump it had at the turn of the twentieth century. The railroad tracks it crosses remain active, so for the foreseeable future there will always be this one hill in an otherwise flat downtown area.

Perhaps even more important, though, is that union station inspired some of the most recent and innovative development in Columbus. For decades, the north leg of the city’s inner-belt highway, which was located below grade, cut off the Short North area of High Street from the rest of the downtown area to the south. A freeway-style bridge crossed the inner belt’s numerous lanes and formed a significant barrier for pedestrians; however, such bridges simply are not a pleasant place to walk, and urban planners know (or should know) how badly they disrupt urban areas. After long negotiation with highway planners, the recently completed rebuilding of the inner belt included a “cap” over the freeway at High Street, built wide enough to accommodate commercial buildings on either side. Taking a cue from union station’s design some eleven decades after the station was built, the developer of the “cap” has built new commercial buildings in a revived version of Beaux-Arts classicism, making the freeway invisible from High Street and restoring the lost pedestrian connection to the lower portion of North High Street. Columbus Union Station indeed lives on, influencing the development of the city some thirty years after its demolition.

Cleveland Union Terminal suffered a less drastic fate, although it underwent extensive alteration. Some fifteen years ago, a Cleveland developer envisioned Tower City Center, a major indoor shopping mall that would integrate the existing hotel, office, commercial, and transportation functions of the Terminal Group. Its purpose was to make use of the outmoded and under-utilized space occupied by the Cleveland Union Terminal, bringing to downtown Cleveland a unique version of the “festival marketplace” urban development concept that was proving to be successful in cities such as New York and Boston.

It has now been more than ten years since completion of Tower City Center. Its long-term viability is still subject to debate, and it has been affected by forces beyond anyone’s control. The former Higbee’s department store, for example, is closed, and planned development on the river side of Huron Road is still in the future. On the other hand, the complex now includes a new hotel and office tower, the former Hotel Cleveland has been well restored and is downtown Cleveland’s premier hostelry; and the former terminal still hosts thousands of daily rail riders. There are no intercity trains, but Tower City hosts all of Cleveland’s rail transit routes in a new terminal that is vastly more efficient and attractive than the old traction concourses. Terminal Tower itself remains the city’s best business address.

All of this rebirth occurred within a context of partial preservation and partial demolition and rebuilding. The arched entry rotunda on Public Square has been restored, and the ornate sloping ceilings of the former main ramps to the terminal have also been returned to their original appearance. The renovation included insertion of new floor levels, which flattened out the sloping ramps, and the former steam concourse is gone, replaced by a glass-roofed, barrel-vaulted gathering space with a large fountain surrounded by two levels of retail space and a large food court. Some original ticket window grilles, light fixtures, brass storefronts, and marble columns have been preserved and integrated into the design of the mall, but it has not been preserved in anything like its original form. This is not necessarily a bad result—much historic fabric has survived, and the former terminal serves an important transportation function. Tower City Center brought new life and traffic to Public Square and reignited interest in the Terminal Group. The former post office and the three original office buildings have been rehabilitated and, even with the demise of the complex’s department store, the level of activity in the Terminal Group is far above what was there fifteen years ago. Though by no means in its original form, Cleveland Union Terminal does in a way live on in the heart of one of the Midwest’s major cities.

Of all the “3-C” union stations, Cincinnati Union Terminal’s prospects should have been the bleakest. After the terminal was closed, its concourse demolished, and its murals removed to the airport, it should have been a candidate for demolition as a hopeless white elephant. It was huge and expensive to run, had a unique and hard-to-alter floor plan, and was not in the downtown area.

The city of Cincinnati, to its credit, took ownership and in the 1980s brought in a developer who gamely tried to make the terminal succeed as a retail facility. This eventually failed, making the building’s future once again uncertain. Again the city and its citizens came to the rescue, voting in favor of bond funding that enabled the terminal’s conversion to the Cincinnati Museum Center, a public facility housing, among other occupants, the Museum of Natural History and the Cincinnati Historical Society. The Railroad Club of Cincinnati maintains Tower A as an exhibit on the terminal’s history; the Rookwood Tea Room is back in service as an ice-cream parlor, and it actually is possible to arrive and depart by train. Amtrak’s triweekly Washington-Chicago Cardinal still calls at Union Terminal (after many years at a miserable little facility down near the river), making it the only one of the “3-C” stations still serving its original purpose. Cincinnati Union Terminal still exists in splendid isolation in an area that has always been largely industrial and has had little if any impact upon the development of the rest of the city. However, the terminal has become part of Cincinnati’s identity and character, remaining the jewel in the crown, and its preservation and reuse are a real credit to Cincinnati’s vision and persistence.

The passenger train created modern America and its cities, operating on a scale that is almost unbelievable today (the Pullman Company, for example, once hosted 100,000 overnight customers daily). Although the legacy of the train lives on in our culture, our history, and our folklore, few today remember the great trains from the golden age of the mid–twentieth century. Amtrak is a modern transportation system and does a good job with woefully inadequate resources, but most people today do not travel by train. The American public’s generally positive image of passenger trains comes mainly from movies and television, stories of family members, or perhaps a ride on a tourist line. The passenger train is no longer a part of most people’s daily lives.

Nevertheless, the train has left its imprint on our cities and towns, in the form of the stations, depots, and terminals, large and small. Many places have lost their stations, while others have been fortunate to save and reuse theirs. The struggle, however, continues, as the number of stations grows ever smaller each time a dilapidated station falls to the bulldozer.

If one message can be taken from the story of Ohio’s “3-C” union stations, it is that these structures will always be, in ways both large and small, a part of our lives. It is our responsibility to think carefully about what that part will be.

Notes

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