When we visit familiar places, we instantly set up routines. Over the past decade we have been to NYC a lot, and both kids lived in DC for a total of eight years so we went there A LOT too. I just hope the DD is still there when we can go back to NYC. I wouldn’t even risk mentioning it on this blog, but no one can travel right now so I think our secret is safe. We are always perilously on the edge of missing the express, and the line for DD is very long.Īnd then, the kids discovered that there is a tiny, secret, Dunkin Donuts at the bottom of the stairs that never has a line. As a result, we have spent a lot of time over the years rushing through the station to buy tickets, get coffee, and make the train. The whole trip takes about four hours, we don’t have to drive in Manhattan, and the commuter line is cheaper and runs more often than Amtrak. We typically visit New York City from the Boston area a few times a year, and the best travel plan for us is to drive to New Haven and take the commuter train into the City. In 1985, a newly rehabilitated Union Station once again opened for business and continues to run on a daily basis today.Every time I think about the train station in New Haven, I remember the two Dunkin’ Donuts and laugh. Faced with the growing costs of the 1970s energy crisis, the federal government developed the Northeast Corridor Improvement Project. Local citizens successfully rallied to add the building to National Register of Historic Places in 1975. By the 1970s, Union Station was closed and threatened with demolition. The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad gradually collapsed after World War II due to the prevalence and direct federal support of auto and air travel. In May 1918, during World War I, the station burned down, and was replaced two years later on an adjacent lot by the current station. The coastline came right up to the station which was both and costly in constant necessary repairs. Its location though was inconvenient and being built on filled-in wetlands not necessarily stable, or even fully complete at the time. Its appearance was grand, meant to evoke a regal hotel and the luxurious efficiencies of railroad travel. The new station on Union Avenue was both celebrated and derided in its time. In 1894, fire consumed the old depot burning it down to the ground. Its size and proximity to rail and Long Wharf, along with being in the heart of New Haven’s growing dry goods district made this a popular local shopping destination. The building was converted to a bustling city market. This lead to a new life for the Austin designed landmark. In 1879, the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad opened a new station one mile from the New Haven Green on the filled-in marshlands of Union Avenue. The son asks his father “Is this hell?” and his father replies “No son, it is only New Haven.” The statement is clearly humorous and sums up the deficiencies in the station’s design, as thick smoke, soot and flames were omnipresent on the platforms as passengers got on and off the trains. This building inspired a famous quote featuring a father and son disembarking a train on the crowded platform that was located below the station. The Italianate inspired building sat above the railroad cut on the old Farmington Canal, located on State Street next to Custom House Square (today located approximately between the Knights of Columbus Museum and the current State Street Station). In 1848, the first union station, a depot building designed by prominent local architect Henry Austin, opened to the public. During the heyday of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad, the station was designed as a physical symbol of the railroad company’s conglomerated size and strength as the largest railroad company east of the Mississippi.
The station is a union point of different rail services and companies. The name, Union Station, is actually literal. This station is the third Union Station in New Haven, and the second in its current location on Union Avenue. The building was designed by the renowned architect Cass Gilbert, whose other prominent works included the Woolworth Building in New York City (the tallest building in the world from 1913 to 1930), and the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington D.C. New Haven’s current Union Station was completed and opened in 1920. This week we’re going to look back at highlights of all three Union Stations that have served the Elm City since the 1840s.
This past spring in April 2020, New Haven’s Union Station celebrated its 100th anniversary.
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