Union Station, Erie landmark, turns 85 today

Sometimes, when it's quiet, Sirianni finds himself gazing down at the building's signature room below.

He tries to envision what life was like inside the train station at 123 W. 14th St. during its heyday as the city's transportation hub.

"I imagine the hustle and bustle,'' said Sirianni, 35, owner and general manager of the Brewerie at Union Station. "This place was it. The stories you hear and the photos you see, this was Times Square for Erie when the city was a manufacturing hub. If anybody was traveling to or from Erie, you were coming or going from this area.''

Eighty-five years ago today, on Dec. 3, 1927, Union Station opened for rail passenger service at a dedication ceremony heralding the completion of the $1.5 million building project, which was funded by the New York Central Railroad.

The afternoon ceremony was attended by numerous politicians, City Council members, and railroad officials, including Erie Mayor Joseph C. Williams; Patrick Crowley, president of the New York Central Railroad; and Matthew Griswold, manager of the GE locomotive plant in Erie and general chairman of the dedication program committee.

Erie's first Union Station and train depot was built in 1866 and served the city for about 60 years until 1925.

Construction on the current Union Station, which was built at the site of the original train depot, began in 1925. Work was completed in 1927.

Designed in art deco style, Union Station in 1927 showcased a six-sided rotunda with eight ticket windows and a baggage window.

The building's large concourse had retail space for a news stand, soda fountain, barber shop, shoeshine stands and other merchants.

"That building was the gateway to the city of Erie,'' said Harborcreek Township resident and railroad historian Ken Springirth, 73, who has authored 19 books on railroads and trolley car systems.

"That's the first impression a traveler would have of a city,'' he said. "Union Station, when it first opened, had all the amenities that a large city would have. It was done in a beautiful style. It created a very positive look for Erie.''

Union Station today

Most of the building's light fixtures and marble features are original. All of the building has remained intact and, despite renovations, no substantial structural changes have been made to the station.

"A lot of people worked here, and their first footstep in Erie was on the track side,'' said Jim Berlin, 60, owner and chief executive of Logistics Plus, a freight-management company whose world headquarter offices currently occupy Union Station's second and third floors.

"I grew up in New York City and I always loved Grand Central Station, so I know the role that railroads played in the development of these cities,'' Berlin said.

When soldiers from the region went off to War World II, odds are they left from Union Station.

"For those who didn't come back, this was the last place their loved ones saw them,'' Berlin said. "I've always thought there's a great emotional feel to this place. Historically, it's the first art deco train station in North America. It was built in the Roaring Twenties, so it's a well-built, very beautiful, grand building. There's a kind of a grandeur to it, where the people had a vision of the grandeur of their cities that may not have come to pass over time, but I think this captures what they saw for the future.''

Berlin bought the 100,000-square-foot Union Station for $2 million in 2004. His renovation and restoration projects have helped turn the station into a downtown urban gathering place.

His company's offices take up all 16,000 square feet on the third floor -- an area of the building that had been vacant for about 25 years when he bought Union Station -- and about 5,000 square feet of the 40,000 square feet on the second floor.

The remainder of that space is earmarked for future company use. Berlin has spent about $1 million in renovations since he bought the building.

Union Station's first-floor tenants -- the Brewerie at Union Station, Amtrak, the Hookah Cafe, Mazany Contract Interiors, Urraro Studio and Gallery, the Marketplace Gazette and the Concourse at Union Station -- occupy about 44,000 square feet.

When Berlin was looking to buy a building to house his company, a friend suggested Union Station as an option.

"He said that this building used to be the center of transportation in Erie, and that's our business, so it would be kind of a good match to be down here,'' Berlin said. "He said we would be doing something good for the community and we would be trying to revive what was a downtrodden neighborhood and trying to turn it around. His point was it would be good karma. It wasn't really done as an investment. We thought it would be a cool place for us to be.''

Berlin said he has learned to appreciate the building's history and its legacy to the city.

A waiting room at Logistics Plus is decorated and adorned in a railroad motif, with dozens of photos from the 1940s and 1950s, an old train indicator board, luggage, steamer trunks, bulletin board and other memorabilia.

About 70 freight trains currently zip past the station's platforms each day.

Erie rail passenger service is provided by Amtrak, which offers two daily departures on its New York City-to-Chicago line -- a westbound train that leaves at 1:36 a.m. and an eastbound train at 7:22 a.m.

Amtrak's Erie ridership in 2009 was 12,668 passengers; 14,833 passengers in 2010; and 15,859 passengers in 2011.

Union Station's original concrete platforms were about 450 feet long with butterfly-style canopies made of steel frames and wood-frame decking, Springirth said.

The New York Central Railroad had four tracks at the new station on two island platforms, and the Pennsylvania Railroad had two tracks on one platform.

Heavy passenger traffic was the norm in the station's early years.

Each day from the station's 1927 opening through the early 1930s, the New York Central Railroad had 32 passenger trains and the Pennsylvania Railroad had 13 passenger trains making daily stops at Union Station, according to Springirth.

By August 1936, those two main passenger rail lines combined for 33 daily stops in Erie. In April 1952, they accounted for 28 daily stops and, in December 1962, 12 daily stops.

A transformational project

The original Union Station built in the 1860s had tracks at street level.

But when the current station was being built, the New York Central Railroad spent an additional $4.5 million between 1925 and 1927 to elevate tracks to a second-story embankment, to depress adjacent streets and to build pedestrian tunnels east and west of Union Station, Springirth said.

Tracks were elevated and about 12 pedestrian tunnels were built in the city to eliminate railroad crossings for pedestrians, wagons and automobiles.

"This was a huge project when you consider the logistics,'' Springirth said. "The New York Central Railroad took care of all the funding. This was private enterprise at its finest. At that time, you had more than 50 freight trains on that line and all these passenger trains. The logistics of moving the trackage and keeping the service through here required a lot of coordination, and that's what private enterprise does best.''

During Union Station's heyday, rail service took people to and from their destinations, moved tremendous amounts of freight and delivered some famous people to the downtown train station.

Franklin D. Roosevelt made a whistle stop at Union Station during his first presidential campaign in 1932.

Harry Truman visited the station in 1948 when his campaign train stopped here.

Babe Ruth disembarked at Union Station when he played at Ainsworth Field in the 1930s. Former world heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey entertained crowds at Union Station for about an hour in the early 1950s.

Sirianni believes Union Station has meant different things to different people.

"When you talk to the seniors in town, or anybody who has spent their lifetime here, they remember it as a destination point -- the Times Square of Erie,'' he said. "In addition, there's a stigma to this place of a lot of sad stories, a lot of goodbyes, especially during wartime.

"When you talk to older folks in the community, they definitely refer to the stories of those goodbyes,'' Sirianni said. "Some of those boys left for war and didn't come back, or some came back in a wooden box.''

Sirianni believes younger area residents see the station more as a restaurant and a place for events, festivals and good times.

Sirianni has spent the past six years since he opened his brewpub and restaurant exploring Union Station's history.

"I was never big on history, never big on rail, and now, after six years, I can't get enough of it,'' Sirianni said.

"When the building became available in the spring of 2006, I knew right away it was right,'' he said. "I said 'That's a gem.' I've always admired the place and have been a huge fan of it. When it became available, I said, 'That's a piece of history that we need to keep alive.'''

There's also a rich history to what lies beneath Union Station.

Ghost stories and urban legends abound in a subterranean labyrinth of tunnels, rooms, stairways and maintenance crawl spaces.

"The first time I stepped foot in the basement, I was blown away," Sirianni said. "It's just very creepy. There's a lot of odd things down there. Structurally, you look at the time, the effort, the planning that went into just what's below.''

A 120-foot-long main tunnel runs under West 14th Street, connecting Union Station to Griswold Plaza.

The tunnel measures 15 feet wide, 8 feet high and is about 12 feet below street level. It was used to shuttle mail arriving on trains at Union Station to the Griswold Plaza post office.

One of Union Station's most interesting and talked-about underground rooms is a stocked rations shelter about 10 feet wide and 15 feet long.

The shelter is located in a secondary tunnel that runs east, parallel below the front of Union Station. It houses about three dozen large boxes containing tin cans labeled "U.S. Civil Defense All-Purpose Survival Crackers,'' manufactured by the Kroger Co., of Cincinnati.

Each box weighs 42 pounds, and displays expiration dates of either April 1962 or February 1963.

Adjacent to the rations room is a two-story coal room. Next to that is a two-story boiler room.

"It blows my mind seeing what's aboveground and the work, craftsmanship and money that went into this place,'' Sirianni said. "You look below and it's equally as impressive. It's not as finished and as polished, but when you see the infrastructure down there, the size of it, the tunnel system, it boggles your mind.''

As for ghost stories, the station's most famous haunted tale focuses on a little girl named Clara.

Legend has it that she and her parents were climbing a flight of stairs from the ticket window to the train platform.

When her father turned to say something to her, his heavy suitcase accidentally knocked her down the stairs to her death.

The stairwell where the girl fell is near the Brewerie's kitchen.

"A lot of bizarre things go on throughout the building,'' Sirianni said. "We attribute most of it to Clara. ... There is a mystique and an aura, and some people call it supernatural energy. It goes on here. I can't imagine a place more packed with history, especially in downtown Erie. If there is that energy, that aura, and it certainly has that mystique, it would be this place.''

There are no Union Station ceremonies planned for today's anniversary.

"I'm sure in 15 years, for the 100th anniversary, we'll get crazy with it,'' Sirianni said.

RON LEONARDI can be reached at 870-1680 or by e-mail.