Building
The station is located on the western edge of downtown Hartford, on a three-acre (1.2 ha) block between Union Place and Spruce Street on the east and west and Church and Asylum streets to the north and south. Opposite the main building on Union Place are a mixture of other old buildings and parking lots. To the west is a triangular parking lot and the viaduct carrying Interstate 84 and U.S. Route 6, which curves around the north of the station as well. Across Asylum on the south is Bushnell Park, also listed on the Register.
The main building is located between the tracks and Union Place. It is a three-story rectangular building in rough-faced Portland brownstone with two smaller, similarly shaped two-story wings on the north and south. The main building has a flat roof; the wings are gabled and tiled, with dormer windows piercing them at regular intervals.
On the east (front) facade, a wide set of steps rises to the main entrance, beneath a flat hood at the springlines of three of the large segmental arches that run across the first story. Above these is a stylized floral molded course. The second story has similar but smaller segmental arches set with a recessed panel and four-pane windows. The central bay has "1914" carved into its panel; all others are blank. The two wings have four-pane rectangular windows.
At the station level are four tracks divided by a platform in the middle. Two sets of iron roofs create a train shed. On the wall side those roofs are supported by spiral-shaped iron brackets. In the middle columns and simple curved brackets support the trusses that hold up the shed roof. All are made of iron.
The interior has been thoroughly remodeled since the station was rebuilt. It is a mostly open area with stairs along the west wall leading up to the elevated tracks and benches along the east. Flooring is red tile. There are offices on the north and south; some look out over the main space.
Read more about this topic: Hartford Union Station
Famous quotes containing the word building:
“Whoever places his trust into a system will soon be without a home. While you are building your third story, the two lower ones have already been dismantled.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“We have our little theory on all human and divine things. Poetry, the workings of genius itself, which, in all times, with one or another meaning, has been called Inspiration, and held to be mysterious and inscrutable, is no longer without its scientific exposition. The building of the lofty rhyme is like any other masonry or bricklaying: we have theories of its rise, height, decline and fall—which latter, it would seem, is now near, among all people.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
“An island always pleases my imagination, even the smallest, as a small continent and integral portion of the globe. I have a fancy for building my hut on one. Even a bare, grassy isle, which I can see entirely over at a glance, has some undefined and mysterious charm for me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)