Congratulations to Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, hundreds of area government officials, the Chiefs organization, thousands of volunteers, and countless businesses who did an outstanding job of hosting the FIFA World Cup events. The four teams based in the area, including Argentina and England, two of the final four, were clearly pleased with the facilities and with the hospitality of area residents, and the people of Lawrence virtually adopted the Algerian team based there. KC was the smallest host city but had the most TV viewers for the entire tournament. A world-class job on a global stage.
Not surprisingly, many of our foreign visitors found KC barbeque tasty. Surprisingly, many seem to have discovered ranch dressing and wondered where it’s been all their lives. Perhaps the most colorful event was the 30,000 Netherlands fans dressed in orange who paraded to Union Station before their team’s match. (The Netherlands is a parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarch from the House of Orange since 1815.)
Union Station (pictured), between the Power and Light District and the FIFA Fan Experience, was a center of action with 400,000 visitors in five weeks. America’s second largest rail station, after New York’s Grand Central Terminal, the station opened in 1914 and faces south allowing ample space for a plaza at the foot of the hill where the Liberty Memorial was later built.
Designed by prominent architect Jarvis Hunt, Union Station served 12 railroads and luxury trains like Santa Fe’s Super Chief. From 1934 to 1957, the station was home to the first diesel-powered train, the Burlington’s sleek stainless steel Pioneer Zephyr. Before travel shifted to autos and airplanes in the 1950s, the station hosted more than a hundred trains a day and as many as 300 during World War II when at least half of all service men and women passed through.
The station was about more than trains. It was Kansas City’s front door and the center of community events. New Year’s Eves were celebrated in the Grand Hall as was VJ Day. Until the 1950s, it had the city’s largest bookstore, largest drug store, and a specialty grocer, all run by the Fred Harvey Company that ran dining services on Santa Fe trains and hotels along the line. The jewel of Union Station was the Fred Harvey Restaurant, for years the best in town and the place to take a special date or celebrate an anniversary.
Below and beyond the Grand Hall were three basements devoted to baggage handling, Harvey kitchens, and mail and express with a tunnel to the post office a quarter-mile away. Unseen by the public, much of the city’s commerce passed through the sub-basement.
By the 1960s, as suburbs grew and railroads dropped passenger trains, the station lost its role as city center and lost the income to exist. It closed in 1985. Amtrak built a small “Amshack” east of the station. There was talk of demolition, but a public-private partnership spent $250 million to restore the station, partly funded by a small sales tax approved by metro area voters.
Union Station reopened in 1999 with Science City, theaters, museum exhibits, the Irish Cultural Center, restaurants, a planetarium, holiday events, and shops. Amtrak returned with daily trains to Chicago, Los Angeles, and St. Louis. The station now enjoys a second life as a center of community activity where the Royals and Chiefs celebrate World Series and Super Bowl wins and where an NFL Draft was held. The popular World War I Museum and Crown Center shops across the street draw people as will a new Royals stadium nearby. Union Station is a magnificent monument for a world-class city.
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