Denver Union Station — Colorado

The building arrived in my frame while I was passing through on my way somewhere else, which is the most honest way to say what happened. The 1914 Beaux-Arts terminal—here framed by the sweeping lines of the futuristic train shed, its arched windows, its red neon proclaiming something no one needs to be told anymore — stands at the edge of Lower Downtown with the ease of a building that has already survived its own obsolescence. The "TRAVEL BY TRAIN" sign glows in a register that sits exactly between advertisement and elegy. Inside, the Great Hall has been converted from waiting room to living room: a hotel above, bars at both ends, trains still running at the back. The building has absorbed all of this without losing whatever it was that made someone put that sign up in the first place.