Book: America’s Great Railroad Stations. (NEW Oct. 2011)Photos by Roger Straus III and text by Ed Breslin and Hugh Van Dusen.

North Bennington Vermont,(1880) Photo by Roger Straus III

Toward the end of the year, we can count on some blockbuster books emerging to tempt us as we do holiday shopping.  I already told you about one of my favorites, in the Ten Perfect Gifts for Travelers Who Read post. Here’s another one.

At first I thought that America’s Great Railroad Stations would appeal to the narrow range of railroad “nuts”–those people who gobble up everything that has to do with choo-choos.  But as I paged through the book, I realized that even though I don’t count myself as one of that crew, I thoroughly enjoyed the trip across America.  My interest lies in the amazing story the railroad architecture tells us about the power of the railroads in the 19th and early 20th century, about the way that the country’s economy and general sense of well-being affected architectural creations, and how these stations tell more about our country’s history–a subject I’m always interested in.

My interest in railroad history was piqued when I read and reviewed Appetite for America, the biography of Fred Harvey who worked with the railroads to “civilize the west”. There I learned the meaning of “union” station. In the early days of railroading, each railroad had its own terminal, so you’d be faced with several in one city. It was more practical for the railroad companies to pool their resources and operate out of a “union” station.

San Antonio Sunset Station (1902) Photo by Roger Straus III, now home of Sunset Station Entertainment complex.

One more thing that sets the wheels of my brain turning in Great Railroad Stations is the story of preservation. In these pages you will see plenty of examples of where it has been done well (D.C. ‘s Union Station) and some very sad examples (New York’s Penn Station) when it failed. I also like the stories of creative measures taken by communities to save their stations.

The writers, however, apply a rather heavy hand in their appeal for preservation. While the photography is magnificent (and tempts me to look up at least one other travel-inspiring book by the photographer, Roger Straus ,

 Houses of the Founding Fathers) I found the writing awkward and over done. The photographs and their captions say nearly everything you need to know.

Garrison Station, New York (1900). Photo by Roger Straus III. Across the river from West Point, now houses a theater.

Although this book necessarily is limited to some of the grander examples of stations, with a few smaller ones of particular interest included (like Garrison Station- above), it made me think of all those small towns across the country that have rescued their stations to turn them into a tourism center or store. But others  (not all in the book) have become art colleges, sprawling restaurants (San Antonio Sunset Station–above), hotels (Nashville Tennessee houses a Wyndham),  or the home of excursion trains. Don’t you love the creativity that emerges when communities pull together? And how many times have the railroad stations served as that magnet that pulled the community together?

NYC Grand Central Terminal (1913) , Photo by Roger Straus III

My earliest imaginary travels included listening to the radio show, Grand Central Station. Part of the fascination of railroad stations are the stories they hint at. Think of all the literary uses of railroad stations– those movies where the chugging of wheels denotes the passage of time and movement through space. OR all the tearful farewells, with one person on the train and the other following them down the walkway getting one last glimpse. Makes me teary just to think of it.

I should mention that my hometown station, the Tucson Southern Pacific is one of the choices in the book. It is still used as an Amtrak station, but has more business as a trendy restaurant, Maynard’s  and a small railroad museum. My personal favorite railroad stations for travelers, both of which are included in America’s Great Railroad Stations, are Union Station in Washington, D.C., where you can still take trains, but also shop and dine; and Cincinnati Union Terminal, now a museum center, which was one of my absolute favorite visits in Cincinnati. The building is sleek Art Deco, the murals inside show midwestern history, and every inch of the vast space is crammed with delights.

Although I avoid traveling by Amtrak in most parts of the country, I was rather surprised when I stated recalling how many railroad stations (or former stations) I had visited in my travels. Of the ones in the book, I’ve visited Grand Central, Washington Union, Tucson, Santa Fe Sunset, Cincinnati, Sacramento, and Chicago Union, plus many others which did not make the book. Which, I guess, makes rail travel still an important part of the American travel experience, even if you’re not on the choo-choo itself.

Have you visited railroad stations in your travels–or former railroad stations? Tell us about your favorite.

Disclaimers: Amazon links included here are for your convenience. Although it costs you no more to use them to get to Amazon, each purchase provides a few cents to help A Traveler’s Library operate.  All photos are supplied by the publisher, who also supplied a review copy of the book. 

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Paris mystery

We saw this oddity at the Paris Mint–La Monnaie de Paris, which is located on Quai de Conti, at the corner of Guénégaud, the street where our apartment was located when we traveled to Paris last September. These iron bars are on the Guénégaud side of the building.

Here’s another shot:

An Oddity on a Paris Street

Any architectural scholars out there who can explain what this is??

UPDATE 10/26/2011: Still trying to figure out the Paris Mystery Photo?  I accidentally stumbled across what seems to be a sensible answer at this web site which is in Italian. Google translation is not terrific–but at least you’ll be able to figure it out. The Italian site explains similar structures in Venice. A deterrent it is–and although some still say deterrent of urination, the open work in my Paris Mystery Photo leads me to think that the first explanation they offer is more sensible. Can’t really see how this structure would deter a liquid stream! But it would deter a bad guy from lurking. Richard Mussler Wright, in the very first comment to this post, guessed as much. Nice going Richard.

These photos are part of Travel Photo Thursday, and you can see more travel photos by going to Budget Travelers’ Sandbox and checking the list of participants at the bottom of her post.

Once we left Paris, we traveled to Normandy and Brittany. If you have not looked at my post about three “royal” stays in Brittany–please take a look at the Girls Getaway site.

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The Acropolis Museum beneath the Parthenon

Tomorrow, at long last, is the day. After a week of sneak-previews, the Acropolis Museum (having dropped the “new”, I believe) will open to the public–residents, tourists, everybody.  The new web site opened with much fanfare. In typical Greek fashion, it was mostly unfinished as I write this. Whole pages are blank. It reminds me of the houses you see in the countryside in Greece–concrete block walls partly finished with rebar sticking out the top. But eventually it will get done. The most essential page–where you buy tickets–is finished. And this is a big deal, because this is the first museum in Athens to offer tickets on the Internet.

Since I cannot travel to Greece for the opening, I’ve been traveling around the web gathering news. (See links on next page)So much is being written in newspapers, magazines and on web sites about the Acropolis Museum, about Greece, about the British Museum, about the British Museum vs. the Acropolis Museum…… that I decided just to hand you some references and let you go off to read these good sources, instead of risking repetitive redundancy. If you read nothing else, please read the Vanity Fair article by Christopher Hitchens, and then if you like to balance your point of view, read the Guardian article.

• A tour of the permanent collection on display at the New Acropolis (Update July 2011 site removed.)
• Reuters reports that 200 fragments are returned To Greece by various European countries.
• A blog that discusses the ethical concerns of collection of antiquities
• Steven Moss of the Guardian gives the British point of view:
• This site displays some very nice pictures of the new displays in the Museum, as they will be seen to travelers to Greece.
• Vanity Fair’s Christopher Hitchens weighs in. [Note (Added November 2011)For some reason this link is very slow loading, but hang in there. It is worth it.]

Note: Hitchens has written a book called  The Parthenon Marbles, and it is worth quoting a couple of paragraphs from his article in Vanity Fair, particularly since just yesterday we were talking about Euripedes and Sophocles, Medea and Antigone:

“When we think of Athens in the fifth century b.c., we think chiefly of the theater of Euripides and Sophocles and of philosophy and politics—specifically democratic politics, of the sort that saw Pericles repeatedly re-elected in spite of complaints that he was overspending. And it’s true that Antigone was first performed as the Parthenon was rising, and Medea not all that long after the temple was finished. From drama to philosophy: Socrates himself was also a stonemason and sculptor, and it seems quite possible that he too took part in raising the edifice.”

“If the Mona Lisa had been sawed in two during the Napoleonic Wars and the separated halves had been acquired by different museums in, say, St. Petersburg and Lisbon, would there not be a general wish to see what they might look like if re-united? If you think my analogy is overdrawn, consider this: the body of the goddess Iris is at present in London, while her head is in Athens. The front part of the torso of Poseidon is in London, and the rear part is in Athens. And so on. This is grotesque.”

Will you try to get to Athens to see the Acropolis Museum? Do you agree with Christopher Hitchens? Or do you sympathize with the British “Museum of the whole world” point of view?

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