Present Day
The building is currently owned by Amtrak and houses many Amtrak corporate offices (although Amtrak is officially headquartered in Washington, D.C.). The 562,000 ft² (52,000 m²) facility features a cavernous main passenger concourse with ornate art deco decor.
Prominently displayed is the Pennsylvania Railroad World War II Memorial, a bronze statue which honors Pennsylvania Railroad employees killed in World War II. It consists of a statue of the archangel Michael lifting the body of a dead soldier out of the flames of war, and was sculpted by Walker Hancock in 1950. On the four sides of the base of that sculpture are cast the 1,307 names of those employees in alphabetical order.
The Amtrak 30th Street Parking Garage was designed by BLT Architects and completed in 2004. This nine-level, double helix garage provides 2,100 parking spaces and glass enclosed stair tower and elevator to offer views of Philadelphia. The following year (2005) the Arch Street Pedestrian Bridge was completed and designed with contribution from BLT Architects. The Arch Street Pedestrian Bridge provides direct access for pedestrians from 30th Street Station to the parking garage and Cira Centre; this prevents pedestrians from interacting with heavy traffic from PA 3 and I-76. When the station was renovated, updated retail amenities were added. They include several shops, a large food court, car rental facilities, Saxbys Coffee (formerly Bucks County Coffee), Dunkin' Donuts, and others. The station was featured in the 1981 film Blow Out, the 1983 film Trading Places, the 1985 film Witness starring Harrison Ford, and the 2010 videogame Heavy Rain.
Read more about this topic: 30th Street Station
Famous quotes containing the words present and/or day:
“History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.”
—Henry Ford (1863–1947)
“My paternal grandmother would not light a fire on the Sabbath and piled all Sunday’s washing-up in a bucket, to be dealt with on Monday morning, because the Sabbath was a day of rest—a practice that made my paternal grandfather, the village atheist, as mad as fire. Nevertheless, he willed five quid to the minister, just to be on the safe side.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)