Union Station

Issues concerning Downtown as described by the Downtown Council. River to 31st Street, I-35 to Bruce R. Watkins.
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WoodDraw
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The Star: Pull Union Station out of mediocrity

Post by WoodDraw »

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/9403517.htm
Perhaps the main attraction will be the lounge car, also known as the observation car, built in 1951. The car has an art deco motif, with curved overhead lighting, upholstered easy chairs, wood blinds and wood-veneered walls.

...

The items include dining car china, silver, paper goods, glassware, brochures, timetables, travel posters and books. The displays will be accompanied by a narrative history of railroad travel, including its heyday during World War II and the decades when segregation relegated black passengers to inferior accommodations.
Sounds pretty cool. Here's to them doing it right.
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The Star: Pull Union Station out of mediocrity

Post by trailerkid »

In addition to the pending relocation of the railroad artifacts, it appears that the garage sale held at Union Station over the weekend may signal a more grassroots approach to the station's marketing and attractions.
[quote]Sean O'Byrne, hired as interim director of the station just two months ago, said the rummage sale was emblematic of more unusual and exciting events coming soon to Union Station.

“This is a good introduction to things to come,â€
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The Star: Pull Union Station out of mediocrity

Post by tat2kc »

absolutely! We need to make a solid distinction between Union Station, the historic building, and Science City, the museum. The primary marketing campaign should focus on the Station itself. Science City is just one attraction at this great place. There are other things to see and do, and they need to be publicized as much as possible.
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The Star: Pull Union Station out of mediocrity

Post by KCMax »

I vote they turn it into either a transportation hub as Clay Chastain envisions, or a Natural History Museum. I can't believe there is nowhere in Kansas City to see dinosaur bones.
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The Star: Pull Union Station out of mediocrity

Post by Slappy the Wang »

How about a BBQ hub featuring most of the top dogs in local BBQ. A BBQ food center.

If not, then let's fill it with vintage rail cars...can anyone really get enough of vintage rail cars?
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The Star: Pull Union Station out of mediocrity

Post by trailerkid »

[quote]Forum gathers ideas to revive Union Station

By KEVIN MURPHY

The Kansas City Star

Union Station took some hits at a public forum in Johnson County on Thursday, but the building's director said attention should be on progress, not problems.

“The days of bashing Union Station are over,â€
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The Star: Pull Union Station out of mediocrity

Post by QueSi2Opie »

trailerkid wrote:One man suggested it be used for a specialty fresh foods market. Many proposed a barbecue museum and restaurant. A woman suggested a flea market. One man said it should be used as a bus hub.
These ideas sound more like idiotic sarcasm. If they want good ideas, they should visit this forum.
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[quote]Painting Rockwell as a Union Station attraction

Nostalgic art memorabilia is among ideas offered to help out the troubled depot

By KEVIN MURPHY The Kansas City Star


When Don Walton wonders what to do with his Norman Rockwell collection, his thoughts turn to Union Station.

Walton, 87, of Overland Park, was a close friend of the famed American illustrator and has hundreds of Rockwell photos, prints, etchings and letters.

“While I'm still around, I'd like to tell or help tell the Rockwell story,â€
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The Star: Pull Union Station out of mediocrity

Post by tat2kc »

those are some great exhibits coming. Personally, I'd like to see more from the Smithsonian. I'd also like to see part of Science City converted to space for larger traveling exhibits.
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The Star: Pull Union Station out of mediocrity

Post by KCPowercat »

KC History museum...come on, this is a no brainer.
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The Star: Pull Union Station out of mediocrity

Post by tat2kc »

Instead of Science City? or in another yet to be created museum exhibit space?

I think we need to discuss an even more fundamental issue: Does Kansas City want or need a Science Museum at Union Station? Or would we be better served by using that space for another type of museum? We have a good museum space at Union Station. We shouldn't have a science museum just because other cities do. We should have a museum that is important to the entie metro area, done in such a way that visitors would want to visit too. If it is a science museum, great. Maybe its a regional history museum, from early native americans to prresent day. Maybe its a tansportation museum. Lets not lock ourselves into: its got to be a science museum mentality.
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The Star: Pull Union Station out of mediocrity

Post by KCPowercat »

I think a kids/science museum is a needed attraction in KC...I have no problems keeping it.

But a regional history museum in the building would do a lot too I believe.....and would do a lot to boost KC's civic pride in itself I think.
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The Star: Pull Union Station out of mediocrity

Post by QueSi2Opie »

Union Station actually has plenty of unused space that could provide room for several quality museums.
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The Star: Pull Union Station out of mediocrity

Post by GRID »

QueSi2Opie wrote:Union Station actually has plenty of unused space that could provide room for several quality museums.
And that's what should go in there, just like many people have posted many times in these forums. A regional history musuem, aquarium etc.

But that take money. They want something that will not only break even but will support the station on top of that and NOTHING besides a casino (a casino might not even do it) would do that without major subsidising from somewhere.

They are just going to have to swallow thier pride and try to come up with a new museum complex or other attractions and then go to the voters and try to fund it and keep funding it, not just build it. These types of things take a constant flow of cash to work or it will be Science City all over again.

It's too bad they don't have a better plan for the 500 million dollar arts portion of bistate II.
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The Star: Pull Union Station out of mediocrity

Post by KCDevin »

It should be a museum... Yet also hold some offices and retail... And we could use it for our future light rail.
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The Star: Pull Union Station out of mediocrity

Post by trailerkid »

QueSi2Opie wrote:Union Station actually has plenty of unused space that could provide room for several quality museums.
Well...according to the article they don't even have room for the Rockwell collection.

If it were up to me, I would install the Rockwell collection as a very small, shifting, permanent exhibit that only uses a storefront type area of the Station and is free to attend...call it the Rockwell Room. I don't think they should discount Rockwell just because it isn't high art or won't bring in the young families or whatever.

The name Science City needs to go even if you keep the center. Can't we go with the Children's Museum of KC, or Kansas City Children's Science Center?

I would make these the main attractions...
Children's Musuem of KC (Science City overhaul including themed children's restaurant)
Mid-American Museum of Science and History (new KC history and science museum)
Railroad Interpretive Center of America (new rail collection)
Theater District @ Union Station (new Omnimax theater, continue existing programming)
Rotating Exhibit Space (leave space for exhibits such as The Brain, Titantic, etc.)
Rockwell Room (free collection of Rockwell paintings)

I would offer the 3 for 1 superpass tickets to all three museums for $12.75 or purchase individually or buy all the attractions for even more. I would do a lot of direct marketing to downtown and suburban hotels offering discounted admission or food from a Union Station eatery.
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The Star: Pull Union Station out of mediocrity

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From pitch.com
Originally published by The Pitch Aug 26, 2004
©2004 New Times, Inc. All rights reserved.

Order Up!
Enough rehash about how to use Union Station.Just give us hash.
BY C.J. JANOVY

All food courts are sad, but this one's the saddest of all.

It's not sad just because only two little restaurants remain in business, Ko Ko Dim Sum and Original Pizza, where salty Chinese food and cheese-loaded carb slabs rest buffet-style behind glass, next door to darkened stalls for what used to be Taqueria Casa Paloma and Mr. Goodcents. It's not sad just because, during a middle-of-the-week noon rush, diners sit at a handful of tables, surrounded by dozens of empty ones.

It's so sad because of what used to be here.

Years ago, in the bright, ornate marble room on the eastern end of Union Station's Grand Hall, hundreds of locals and travelers filled tables or sat on counter stools at the Harvey House restaurant. Adding insult to injury, Union Station's crappy food court is named after the legendary diner. On the walls, along with other blown-up photos from the station's glory days, hangs evidence of how much Kansas Citians have lost. God knows there's no people-watching to be done in this barren food court, so the only thing a diner can do is stare up at images of the old, packed Harvey House, every table and stool occupied, long-skirted waitresses pouring coffee behind the counter that ran all the way down the middle of the room.

I've spent the past year wishing for a Harvey House, ever since the Pitch's food writer and most dedicated historian, Charles Ferruzza, reminisced about it while he was reviewing one of the station's other restaurants. "I still wish that the team in charge of Union Station's restoration had considered returning the gorgeous space just to the east of the main entrance -- currently the site of a charmless and cold food court -- to its origins as a moderately priced diner like the Harvey House," Ferruzza wrote ("Train Wreck," October 30, 2003). "The Harvey House wasn't fancy, but its central location was a perfect spot for breakfast, lunch and dinner. By all accounts it was the city's see-and-be-seen joint for decades. My friend Marilyn, who liked to dine there after nightclubbing or going to the theater, remembers it as 'a big and friendly coffee shop that served food quite late,' a place where 'you saw everyone.'"

A place the city needs so badly right now. Over the past year, downtown's revitalization has gained traction. And Union Station narrowly avoided disaster when CEO Turner White resigned and downtown whiz Sean O'Byrne stepped in as interim director. At the same time, the mayor appointed a task force to sort out the chaos and report back this fall. All the while, I've held out a tiny bit of hope. I've conducted unscientific surveys of my friends, who confirm the obvious.

"That would be so cool," they all say when they hear about the old Harvey House. "I would be there all the time."

It's tempting to dig through file drawers at Union Station in search of documentation that would reveal who, exactly, thought it was a good idea to put a food court in the old Harvey House, then track down those people and strangle them. But that might not be necessary anymore. What's so great about O'Byrne is that, so far, he doesn't seem harnessed by typical Kansas City lame-ass thinking. More significant is what he had the guts to proclaim last Thursday night at the Central Branch of the Johnson County Library, during the first of several public forums on the future of the station: "I'm finished listening to consultants," he said. Instead, he's listening to the people who live here and trying his hardest to give them what they want.

And it didn't take long for people at the library to start talking about food. Oh, sure, some of the folks who spoke up at the forum were geezer railroad enthusiasts who droned on about the old days and how it was trains that had made Union Station special and trains that would bring it alive again. News flash to the elders: O'Byrne already knows this; trains are coming back already. Now let's move on, because there's 850,000 square feet of Union Station, and all of it needs to start generating some cash flow. He hopes astronomy hobbyists will help get the planetarium up and running again, so stargazers can sit down now, too. And the lady with the idea about having high school big bands play there, that was great as well, and it'll work wonderfully for already-planned tea dances with swing bands.

But people actually clapped when O'Byrne said, "We're going to completely revamp the food court."

The guy who wanted a barbecue hall of fame? The old man who, near as I could figure, wanted a farmers market with delicacies from all over the world because, he said, "One thing we all use every day is food"? Their gut instincts are in the right place, but they're thinking way too hard. O'Byrne says he wants to put something in the food court that's "quintessentially Kansas City."

For that, he need look no further than the blown-up pictures of the Harvey House.

As it turns out, O'Byrne must have been doing that already. After delivering his 2-hour Union Station pep talk, standing in the rain outside the Johnson County Library on a freezing August night, O'Byrne said he had put out a call to vendors, asking them to submit proposals for what to do in the old Harvey House space. The September deadline he imposed would give them a month to respond.

"Food courts are passé," he said. "An opportunity to bring back a Harvey House would be just phenomenal."

So here's a plea to restaurateurs, entrepreneurs and common-sense dreamers like us. All we want are eggs, hash browns and toast. A cheeseburger and fries. Meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Chocolate cake. Apple pie. A few cups of coffee, late at night, in a booth surrounded by friends.

We'd be there all the time.
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The Star: Pull Union Station out of mediocrity

Post by KCPowercat »

just read that harvey house deal....that would be very useful. Can't wait.


History of Kansas City museum....is this thing on?
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The Star: Pull Union Station out of mediocrity

Post by KCPowercat »

Can we get over this casino thing in Union Station? Can we cheapen our civic assets anymore people? Listening to 710 this morning, somebody suggested that and they ran with it.

Never mind the fact we could never get a amendment passed to do it, is a casino really the best for the community? Yes we know it will make money, that's not what it's all about.
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The Star: Pull Union Station out of mediocrity

Post by phxcat »

You are right on two things- casinos are not panaceas for all that is wrong- they are a quick fix to a problem. Also, I have always felt that there was kind of a disconnect between Union Station and Science City. People want to save US by putting something there that doesn't fit. A mall was a nice idea for St. Louis, but when it comes down to it, itis ust a mall. To do it right, I really think we need to do something that connects to the history of US. It should be about trains, it should be about Kansas City. I don;t know for sure what it should be, but we can;t just throw comething in there and hope people come- we need to think about it.
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