1978_33_026 .. A very forlorn scene. Just before being destroyed.
This is a view down the platform toward the station at St Paul Union Depot in 1978.
There are so many footprints here that no one can see. Young men off to war, lovers in a last embrace, children in their sunday best skipping with happiness toward a first train ride, businessmen from Chicago, farm families from Iowa, tourists going west to great adventures in the national parks, a grandma from North Dakota arriving to visit a new grand daughter, college students returning to their schools, children heading off for summer camp fun. All these people and many more passed through here and heard the call 'All Aboard'.
It's not easy to let go of the bricks in the wall of our past. You worry that all those precious footprints will be lost and forgotten when the last little bits of concrete are carried off to the landfill.
But times change. The brick, glass, steel and wood infrastructure of the past gives way to new uses as it did for these platforms. It is our good fortune for the rest of the Depot that St Paul has moved a little slower than other cities. Here, our history could patiently wait for the future to catch up with it. Those old footprints will be back, along with some new ones.
1978_33_026 .. A very forlorn scene. Just before being destroyed.
This is a view down the platform toward the station at St Paul Union Depot in 1978.
There are so many footprints here that no one can see. Young men off to war, lovers in a last embrace, children in their sunday best skipping with happiness toward a first train ride, businessmen from Chicago, farm families from Iowa, tourists going west to great adventures in the national parks, a grandma from North Dakota arriving to visit a new grand daughter, college students returning to their schools, children heading off for summer camp fun. All these people and many more passed through here and heard the call 'All Aboard'.
It's not easy to let go of the bricks in the wall of our past. You worry that all those precious footprints will be lost and forgotten when the last little bits of concrete are carried off to the landfill.
But times change. The brick, glass, steel and wood infrastructure of the past gives way to new uses as it did for these platforms. It is our good fortune for the rest of the Depot that St Paul has moved a little slower than other cities. Here, our history could patiently wait for the future to catch up with it. Those old footprints will be back, along with some new ones.