I took the MARC train down to Washington, DC, today and visited the American Museum of African American History and Culture (a post on that coming soon) but along the way I saw some progress being made on the upgrades to Baltimore’s Penn Station.
The bulk of renovation and restoration work to the main station and its planned addition by Lanvale Street isn’t scheduled to begin until later in the year but work on new platforms is coming along nicely.
Meanwhile, a planned renovation and upgrade of Union Station in Washington, DC, is still years away from even beginning construction but a target date of 2040 is being mentioned. It has a tentative budget set at nearly $9 billion dollars.
I’ve been through Union Station dozens of times now.
The inside track platforms are definitely showing signs of age as you can see by the crumbling concrete and chipped facades on aged posts that have seen millions of passengers walk through for over a century.
The concession and retail area took a hit during the pandemic but is slowly bouncing back.
Overall, it’s still a marvelous structure.
By the way, Union Station isn’t the only famous structure getting a facelift…
The US Capitol is in the midst of a years-long preservation effort.
And, finally, I walked past what was formerly the Newseum. It was closed a couple years ago and saw the building bought by Johns Hopkins University to house its DC-based graduate programs. It looks like they’re almost finished work on it.
I had a great day in our nation’s capitol. The NMAAH was incredible and I have lots of photos and videos to identify, process and post. That will be coming soon!
Some shots of the museum this morning…
