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Home > Archives > Main Hall of Washington Union Station, 1970s.

Main Hall of Washington Union Station, 1970s.

Color film slide showing the Main Hall of Washington Union Station; image likely dates to the early 1970s.

Main Hall of Washington Union Station, 1970s.

Completed in 1908, Washington Union Station is a neoclassical landmark in the nation's capital. The station had entered a period of marked decline by the early 1970s when this image of the Main Hall was likely taken. To celebrate the nation's bicentennial in 1976, Union Station was turned into the National Visitor Center; a large hole was dug in the middle of the Main Hall to accommodate a theater.

By early 1981, the building was largely shuttered, its fate uncertain until the federal government entered into a public-private partnership to redevelop the structure as a mixed use transportation, retail and office center. The three year, $160 million restoration completed in 1988 is still cited as one of the nation’s most successful examples of adaptive reuse of an historic structure. Today, the soaring coffered ceiling of the Main Hall again shines brilliantly with gold leaf.

As of 2015, approximately 90,000 visitors passed through Union Station each day, whether to catch a train, bus or the subway, or simply to have a bite to eat and shop.

Photographer: Unknown for Amtrak. From the Amtrak Corporate Collection.