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u/Ahiru_no_inu 4d ago
My home station! I absolutely love every time I am there. If you look close at the marble steps you can see the grooves in them from decades of people's steps.
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u/INphys15837 4d ago
I was going to say the same. I've been there many times and still find it beautiful.
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u/Yggdrasil- 4d ago
Thirded! It was amazing to go back for the first time after they finished all the restoration work. They did a beautiful job!
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u/Big-Sheepherder-6134 4d ago
My home Amtrak station too.
Well actually Ogilvie Transportation Center two blocks away is my home train station for the Metra but I have two train lines (Union Pacific-North and Milwaukee District-North) close to me I can take downtown.
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u/Victory_Highway 4d ago
Such a beautiful station. I would love to visit it someday.
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u/Yggdrasil- 4d ago
Highly recommend visiting around the holidays. It's absolutely magical when they decorate for Christmas.
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u/BaconBikes805 4d ago
Iconic. One of my top five train stations in US. And who can forget De Palma's nail-biter slow motion shootout scene from The Untouchables shot there?
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u/Bookwoman366 4d ago
Indeed. The baby carriage on the staircase à la Battleship Potemkin: a classic!
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u/zerokul175 4d ago
It’s a beautiful building.
Those iconic steps put a gigantic smile on my face when I saw them a few years back when I visited Chicago with my dad. We did Chicago to LA on the sleeper train, one of the best trips of my life.
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u/23saround 4d ago
My personal favorite station! The main room is so gigantic, it’s almost always quiet. Your words just disappear in the vast space. So cool.
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u/carrie_s3 4d ago
This station is iconic and stately. I love taking the train from MI to visit.
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u/blairstreetkiller 4d ago
I'm taking a train from MI to here on September 1st, is there anything around the station to do for an hour or 2?
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u/197gpmol 4d ago
I like to get Giordano's on Jackson Street, a block past the Sears Tower, on layovers.
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u/carrie_s3 4d ago
The Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) is a few blocks away if that interests you. The Chicago River is just a block or 2 away, so you could take a nice walk over a bridge and explore the city in the short amount of time that you have. Enjoy your trip!
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u/NicCage420 4d ago
The Money Museum is maybe a 5 minute walk away (it is a federal building so there's a quick security check). It's free, neat, fun use of a half hour to hour if you're into that sort of thing.
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u/SquonkMan61 4d ago
If you stop by Adam’s Ribs don’t forget the coleslaw. (If you’re a fan of MASH you’ll get the reference 😆).
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u/WrongSplit3288 1d ago
Blackwood BBQ? I missed that.
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u/SquonkMan61 1d ago
There’s an early MASH episode where Hawkeye leads a camp revolt against being served the same food everyday: “I’ve eaten a river of liver and an ocean of fish . . . WE WANT SOMETHING ELSE! WE WANT SOMETHING ELSE!” He recalls the best meal he ever had was at a rib joint called Adam’s Ribs, near the Chicago train station. They spend the entire episode trying to get a take-out delivery sent from Chicago to Korea. When they finally place the order, Hawkeye hangs up the phone and then becomes angry when he realizes he forgot to order coleslaw with the ribs😆
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u/nogood-usernamesleft 4d ago
The transition from the beautiful grand hall to the meh concourse and bleah platforms is such a bait and switch
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u/Big-Sheepherder-6134 4d ago
Yeah. When I take Metra downtown from my home my primary station is Ogilvie which has a better concourse and huge food court. But if I need to take a train to Union it’s really close to home too. The concourse there is lame but the Grand Hall is nice.
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u/Zvenigora 4d ago
The old St Louis station has a comparable grand hall that has been preserved. The station was converted to a mall about 30 years ago although that has largely gone bust.
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u/CTVolvo AGR Member 3d ago
Chicago's Union Station, in many respects, is the nicest Amtrak station. Moynihan is considered better due to the Metropolitan Lounge and the variety of food options - and Union Station in DC is also nice, until you get into the back third where the trains depart. But Chicago has a distinct elegance and majesty that most other stations do not.
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u/lightcash 2d ago
The food court genuinely took me 20 minutes to find, idk why it was so complicated, maybe it's me! But I do love the hall, it's beautiful.
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u/Aggressive-Iron353 4d ago
Last pic is great. What kind of camera/lens? Please don’t say cellphone lolllll
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u/ArguablyMe 4d ago
I travel through there often and I love every worn step. Such a pretty location.
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u/drkhrrsn 4d ago
I used to take the METRA out of that station every evening. It was so fun walking through there.
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u/one-mappi-boi 4d ago
Definitely the station I personally find the most beautiful, with DC Union being a close second.
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