RR Station in Manchester

MonopolyBag

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So I just came across this picture
681099578_106f6b5cb9_o.jpg


Apparently a private residence now, it is old railroad station. No idea where it is.

And this picture
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Which i assume is the old main station. I think it must be gone now because I would have no clue where it is then. But I was thinking, if rail was brought back to Manchester, it would be awesome if the building incorporated or was designed based off of this old station. Just be kinda cool. It could incorporate some design elements but somehow still be modern and fit into the current day city in a sense. I have no idea how, just thought of that when I saw this picture.

The thing that many train stations lack today are how they are impressive. And I know that is because they want to reduce cost of building them because trains are not sued as much now, but old train stations are so impressive even in the middle of no where, they have a train station look and each on is different.

I guess a weak and yet modern day example would be the Boston Express Exit 2 Bus station in Salem IMO is actually nice looking. It is attractive and I think they did a very good job. Nothing amazing, but for something that nice to be built these days is rare. I just like the way it looks. I would hate to see a trains station come being something lame.

It has got to be impressive and a nicely designed place. I would even take something modern and nothing relating back to any original stations, just nothing that is unattractive.
 
That's a great find. I've never seen a photo of this station. I do know where it is, though. It's just north of the end of West Webster Street off River Road in the North End overlooking the river. You can see it from the Amoskeag Bridge if you look out the driver's side window while crossing from the West Side. It's a very handsome building in the same style as the old main station, but with different details. I believe it was just a secondary passenger station on the old rail line between Manchester and Concord. There was another small, less impressive station in East Manchester on near the intersection of Cypress and Massabesic Streets, and I believe another somewhere on the West Side, though I'm not positive about that.

The old Union Station seen in that postcard was a very beautiful building, and was located about where the old Bee Bee Shoes (now a bank) is now, on Canal Street south of Granite Street. I believe it was also partially located on the site of the future Market Basket, which is part of what made an intermodal transit station there so appealing. Union Station was razed in the early 1960s before the preservation movement took off, but the mayor and City did protest, but Boston and Maine demolished it anyway. When I visited Portland, Oregon, the station there reminded me a bit of the images I've seen of Manchester's old Union Station:

UnionStationPortlandOR2-3-09Small.jpg


I really love Manchester's old Union Station and wish it was still around. I'm a little apprehensive, though, of treating to replicate or recreate it. From an architectural standpoint, I think such efforts usually don't pan out very well. Part of what made those stations so beautiful is not just the exterior, but the wonderful interiors as well, which would be very costly (even more so than the exterior) to recreate. If the building was still standing, I'd love to see it reused. And there's a possibility that a new station, especially if built on the same spot, could somehow reference or harken back to the old station without being a hokie, cheapened recreation.

I think any new station will also be more successful if it integrates some other functions, such as a hotel, retail or offices into it to give it more of a presence. There's less of a need for such large platforms and waiting rooms, in addition to more of a need for bus areas and a parking garage in addition to rail. Since stations now don't need to take up so much room for platforms and trains as they once did, when they're built as stand-alone structures they can be a bit underwhelming. If built as part of a larger development complex or multi-use building, a train station in Manchester will likely be much more impressive. I think this is the case whether one is somehow built on the old Union Station site, which now seems very unlikely, or at the Bedford Street lot between Canal, Commercial and Spring Street, which is the secondary location.
 

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