Everyone who thinks about trains—wait, that's not redundant? doesn't everyone think about trains?—has a favorite train station. New Yorkers cannot imagine any train station other than Grand Central, and what's not to love? I have a real fondness for the modernity of Denver and Los Angeles. But my heart belongs to Chicago's Union Station. It's a classic, and of course, Chicago is where I went to school. And then there is that scene in Costner's Untouchables—you say "ridiculous," I say nerve-wracking—that reveals Union Station for the masterpiece it is.
This image was made the day I xxxx from a whirlwind pizza extravaganza. I had taken a flight into O'hare to visit Chicago for the express purpose of making some images and deciding who made the best pizza in town. Does that really matter? Eh, maybe not. But it did to me. You see Chicago pizza represents something of a life-defining watershed for me, however lame that may sound. I remember discovering Chicago pizza at The Medici when I was a 1L at the University of Chicago and was still intoxicated just by being on that campus. I took my family and girlfriend there the night I won the moot court championship in 1978. I remember my first taste of Giordano's, then the prevailing king in town. So, I decided, it would be fun to fly to Chicago, hit as many places in 24 hours as my stomach could handle, and then take the train back home.
This post is about the train station, Union Station, and its liberating sense of adventure, freedom, and the unknown.
