Pennsylvania Station (generally referred to as Penn Station) is the main train station in Baltimore, Maryland. Designed by New York architect Kenneth M. Murchison (1872-1938), it was constructed in 1911 in the Beaux-Arts style of architecture for the Pennsylvania Railroad. It is located at 1515 N. Charles Street, on a raised "island" of sorts between two open trenches, one for the Jones Falls Expressway and the other the tracks of the Northeast Corridor. The Mount Vernon neighborhood lies to the south, and Station North is to the north. Penn Station is about a mile and a half north of downtown and the Inner Harbor. The station was originally known as Union Station (because it was served by both Pennsylvania Railroad and Western Maryland Railway), but was renamed to match other Pennsylvania Stations in 1928.
Baltimore Penn Station | |||||
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 Exterior of Penn Station with the sculpture "Male/Female" | |||||
| General information | |||||
| Location | 1515 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland | ||||
| Owned by | Amtrak | ||||
| Line(s) | Amtrak:
MARC: | ||||
| Connections | Baltimore Light Rail | ||||
| Other information | |||||
| Station code | BAL | ||||
| Passengers | |||||
| 2006 | 910,523  7% | ||||
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Penn Station is served by Amtrak, MARC, and the Maryland Transit Administration's light rail system. It is the tenth busiest rail station in the United States by number of passengers served.
Current and prior services
As of Janurary, 2007, Penn Station is served by both MARC and Amtrak trains. MARC offer service between Washington, DC and Perryville, MD. Amtrak Regional trains from Penn Station serve destinations between Boston, Massachusetts, and Newport News, Virginia, including Providence, Rhode Island, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and Richmond, Virginia. Other long distance trains from the station serve:
- St. Albans, Vermont
- Charlottesville, Virginia
- Raleigh and Charlotte, North Carolina
- Atlanta, Georgia
- New Orleans, Louisiana
- Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa and Miami, Florida
- Huntington, West Virginia
- Cincinatti, Ohio
- Indianapolis, Indiana
- Chicago, Illinois
Previous Amtrak trains in the 1970s and 1980s also offered service to Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, St. Louis, and Atlantic City, New Jersey. However, these services have since been discontinued over the past 30 years.
Prior to Amtrak's creation on May 1, 1971, Penn Station served as the main Baltimore station for its original owner, the Pennsylvania Railroad, though passenger trains of the Western Maryland Railway also used Penn Station as well. Until the late-1960s, the Pennsylvania Railroad also operated long-distance trains over its historic Northern Central Railway line from Penn Station to Harrisburg and beyond, such as "The General" to Chicago, the "Spirit of St. Louis" to its Missouri namesake, and the "Buffalo Day Express" and overnight "Northern Express" between Washington, DC, and Buffalo, New York. As late as 1956, this route also hosted the "Liberty Limited" to Chicago and the "Dominion Limited" to Toronto, Canada. The Baltimore Light Rail now operates over much of the Northern Central Railway's right of way in Baltimore and Baltimore County; however, the spur connecting Penn Station to this right of way is not the route originally taken by Northern Central trains.
The station's use as a Western Maryland station stop allowed passengers from Penn Station to ride directly to various Maryland towns such as Westminster, Hagerstown, and Cumberland. Passenger service on the Western Maryland ended in 1958.
The "Male/Female" sculpture controversy
In 2004, the City of Baltimore, through its public arts program, commissioned noted sculptor Jonathan Borofsky to create a sculpture as the centerpiece of a re-designed plaza in front of Penn Station. His work, a 51 ft. tall aluminum statue entitled "Male/Female", has generated considerable controversy ever since. Its defenders cite the contemporary imagery and artistic expression as complementing an urban landscape, while opponents criticize what they decry as a clash with Penn Station's Beaux-Arts architecture, detracting from its classic lines.
As the Baltimore Sun editorialized,[1]
Could this explain why defenders of "Male/Female", the sculpture in front of Penn Station, get so irritable? That large piece of quadrupedal artwork is out there all on its own, unclothed of commemorative armor that might deflect public criticism – unless you want to think of it as a memorial to the war between the sexes, but that's an issue that people tend to have a lot of different and strongly held opinions about anyway. No, "Male/Female" gets a lot of attention strictly on its artistic merits, and much of it isn't very positive, especially concerning its setting in front of the Beaux–Arts railroad station. This drives its proponents up the wall.
Proposed hotel and remodel
As of March 2006, Amtrak is in negotiations with a unnamed developer to build a 72-room hotel on three unused floors of Penn Station. As part of this redevelopment, the station's main floor may also be revamped to include more retail space. If Amtrak is able to build a hotel at Penn Station, it would be a first for any Amtrak station in the United States. [2]
Gallery
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Interior of Penn Station -
Exterior of Penn Station
Reference
- ^ "Art Scrape", The Sun, August 28, 2006.
- ^ Mirabella, Lorraine (March 14, 2006). ""Amtrak revives its plan for hotel at Penn Station - Rail service negotiating with developer to build 72-room facility"". The Sun. Retrieved March 14.
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