Arched ceiling.

Chicago Union Station

We enter the station through the railyard, which is dug under the station in a cavernous enclosure.  All the surfaces are raw concrete and steel. They look dirty, except the platform.

Above, the station is a grand old building that management is struggling to maintain.  Lofty ceilings curve over a tile hall with comfortable wooden benches.  Now I know my way to the Metropolitan Lounge.

I check into the Lounge at the reception desk.  I turn right to leave a bag in the storage room.  Then back around front and over to the lounge area.

The main room stretches back, and generous side rooms open on each side.  An open staircase descends from above.  Soft jazz plays.

A refreshment counter offers free snacks and drinks.  A cash bar is tucked under the stairs.

People sit at tables, sit on couches, lie on couches.  This a place for relaxing.

I have about six hours to spare.

Baggage cart at trainside in underground railyard.
The underground railyard at Chicago Union Station greets passengers with raw concrete and steel.
Couches, chairs, tables in first class lounge
Metropolitan Lounge is a refuge for first class passengers.
Passengers wait on benches in train station.
View from the street entrance looks to a concourse at the train station.
High, frosted windows.
Arched windows over a concourse to the rail platforms.
Passengers on benches in station concourse.
Conourse leading to the railyard is broad with a classic look.
Underground railyard.
Passengers all down the underground platform toward the train station.

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robincravey

Robin Cravey is a Texas poet, publisher, citizen, and lawyer. As editor and publisher if Tilted Planet Press, he has published several books of poems, including Diverging, I am a Comet, and Benchmarks. His book Watermarks has been serialized on the Austin Sierran website. A sixth-generation Texan, Robin grew up in Houston, loving tall trees, big clouds, girls, Omar Khayyam, Carl Sandberg, and Walt Whitman. He came to Austin to attend UT, loving clear water, peyote, taxicabs, women, newspapers, hitchhiking, Marcus Aurelius, and William O. Douglas. He married and had kids, loving Dr. Suess, Star Trek, Baghavad Gita, Mohandas Gandhi, and Macintosh. Eventually he volunteered way too much, published books, ran a business, fought city hall, went to law school, worked at city hall, ran a small law office, ran for public office. In recent years he has divided his time between Austin and Providence, Rhode Island, loving Wayland Square, bicycling, and long train rides.

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