Detroit - Michigan Central Railroad Station - 1927
by John Madison
Title
Detroit - Michigan Central Railroad Station - 1927
Artist
John Madison
Medium
Digital Art - Digital
Description
Michigan Central Railroad Station
“From 1884 until 1913, the Michigan Central Railroad ran out of a depot downtown at Third and Jefferson. The railroad’s business was growing, and the company had started an underwater tunnel in southwest Detroit in 1906. It was decided another, much larger depot should be built near the entrance to the tunnel, and Michigan Central began buying up land in the city’s Corktown neighborhood just outside of downtown in the fall of 1908.
The city forked over $680,619.99 ($14.75 million today, when adjusted for inflation) in condemnation proceedings on Aug. 6, 1915, to acquire the land for the depot and the land in front of it for a park.
Michigan Central Station was an object of great civic pride. The design reflected a return to classicism and romanticized transportation. The station created a majestic setting for passengers, many of whom had come to associate train stations with soot, smoke and noise. And the sheer mammoth proportions of the station was meant to be awe-inspiring and make a statement to travelers about the greatness of the city in which they were arriving and the railroad they were arriving on.The price tag for the station alone was about $2.5 million ($55 million today).
However, passenger trains soon fell into a major decline with competition from government subsidized highways and intercity airline traffic. Even in the 1950s, rail depots were being abandoned because of the decline in business.
When the New York Central and Pennsylvania railroads merged to form Penn Central in early 1968, the depot became known as Penn Central Station. But the merged rail company declared bankruptcy only two years later, the largest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history at that point.
In 1971, the federal government formed Amtrak, which took over MCS that year, though the rail service was struggling at the time.
At 11:30 a.m. Jan. 5, 1988, Train No. 353 bound for Chicago became the last train to roll out of the venerable depot. It was just over 74 years after the first steamed in.”
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February 8th, 2013
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