HOW ABOUT A DING DONG?

What we call the headhouse of the old Union Station is now a spectacular hotel lobby with luxury rooms to the left and right, and more out under the train shed. A little hard to tell since I was using a very wide angle lens but the view is straight up into a beautiful barrel vault ceiling. In the last couple of years the management has added light shows.

I tend to have loose associations, which is not a bad thing unless you are psychotic. Watching this part of the display, I couldn't get a certain old Monty Python bit out of my head. Sorry for any offense.

            

SUNSET ON THE TOWER

A clock tower rises over Union Station near sunset, looking down over the geometry of the old train shed. I sometimes wonder what is in the tower. Turns out there is a 12 year old video on YouTube about that. The latest revision of the hotel that now fills the headhouse added a few luxury suites.                        

House On Haunted Hill

That's what the light made me think of. I was walking around the area that will become the new entrance to the Arch grounds and museum, seeing if there was anything to shoot yet. It's taking shape but has a way to go. When I turned around I saw the sun peeking through dark late afternoon clouds onto the surrounding buildings. The Hyatt hotel and Old Court House had an ominous look.              

Last Stop

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St. Louis Union Station is now a luxury hotel, a group of restaurants and a failing tourist mall. In its day it was one of the great railroad junctions of North America. As such, it had to have a place for travelers to stay. Here's the former entrance to the Terminal Hotel. Sure, railroad stations and airports have terminals but this sounds so much like terminal disease or "terminate with extreme prejudice" (remember that phrase in Apocalypse Now?). The Terminal Hotel sounds like the roach motel - you check in but you don't check out. It's the end of the line.

TOMORROW: Thursday Arch Series and a new Arch photo on GATEWAY.

Restoration: Behind the Scenes

Over the last few weeks, I've had a couple of posts about the Chase Park Plaza, St. Louis' grandest old hotel, and the restoration work that is restoring its glory and bringing it into the 21st Century. The lower of the two conjoined buildings, the Chase, has undergone complete renovation of all the hotel rooms. The upper two-thirds of the tower, the Park Plaza, is being converted to luxury condominiums, The Residences at the Chase Park Plaza. One of the parters in the project saw my first post on the topic and invited me over to photograph the work.

We start in one of the construction elevators. I think the blue paper covering the floor buttons is crazy design. The fluorescent light inside the rough elevator and the tungsten light in the hallway make a color riot. It reminded me of a Robert Rauschenberg construction. More over the next few days.