Now departing on track 5... fun!

When is an old train station more than just a train station? The architectural beauty known as Union Terminal (map, wiki) in Cincinnati opened as a grand transportation hub in 1933. In its prime 200+ trains passed daily through the terminal (see right, click to enlarge). Access to the terminal was defined by your transportation method. An outdoor automobile loop dropped you curbside, while three underground loops (each for taxi, motorcoach and streetcar) brought you sheltered into the terminal at various levels. The cavernous lobby led all to the back of the building and to the trains. The building was so significantly grand that is listed as one of the top 50 architectural gems in the nation.

But by the 1960s train traffic reduced to a trickle and by 1972 with only two daily Amtrack trains passing through the station, it was abandoned for a smaller, more manageable downtown location. So what do you do with such a significant architectural treasure? Originally a rail freight company planned to demolish parts of the structure for its freight rail use. The City of Cincinnati thoughtfully moved to put the structure on the National Register of Historic Places (Nation Register link, scroll to "Cincinnati Union Terminal"). In the late 1970s the building was renovated into a family-oriented complex of stores and activities known as "The Land of Oz" but recession ran its course quickly and by the mid 1980s the building was abandoned.

Shortly thereafter the voters of Hamilton County passed a levy to create a museum complex that opened in 1990 as the Cincinnati Museum Center. So how do you turn a train station into a series of museums? With a lot of creativity! Housed today in the complex you will find a Natural History Museum, a Children's Museum, an OmniMax theater, the Cincinnati Museum of History and an accompanying historical library of Cincinnati. Entrance to all three museums is an affordable $12 for adults ($8 for children) and is good all day long.

The main concourse serves as your admissions office, complex gift store and concession area. Just visiting this level to absorb the Art Deco style (see left, click to enlarge) of the terminal is free (almost free, there is a $3 parking charge for the lot). The signage for all parts of the complex are done in the classic Art Deco font and some of the original works appear to have been maintained. A giant U.S. flag drapes from the height of the windows on the facade that easily stretch five stories above the ground (see picture at very bottom).

Carefully restored, there are two massive mosaics that flank the sides of the lobby, both depicting industrial and cultural growth of both the area and the nation (link, scroll to "mosaics"). It is not easy to tell these are mosaics, but the work provides a bright and historic entry-way to the complex (see right and further above, click to enlarge). Bright yellows are painted onto the ceiling works and a marbled floor also lend to the feel of the 1930s.

Each of the wings of the terminal, where passengers arrived or departed by taxi or motorcoach, have been turned into the Cincinnati Museum of History (southern wing) and the Museum of Natural History and Science (northern wing). Each thoughtfully laid out to wind the visitor through what was the entry, or exit, point for many train passengers (see left, click to enlarge). Much of the original structure remains and it is a unique and unusual juxtaposition of various forms history (American, regional, Natural and architectural).

The Museum of Natural History and Science combines many typical elements of the traditional natural history museums. At first blush one can seem underwhelmed at the actual dedication to this aspect of a museum. But more beckons the farther under the terminal you go. Fittingly located in the depths of the complex, they have built what a docent shared was the largest man-made cave in the world (see right, click to enlarge). 500 feet over two levels, the cave has two paths (an easy and an advanced trail) that plunge you into semi-darkness and tight, narrow passageways that simulate the limestone caves found in the southern Ohio, southern Indiana and northern Kentucky region. Included in the cave is an area with bats (behind glass, thankfully!), a two-story stalagmite and plenty of places where you can hide and jump out at those in your party with anxieties about tight spaces and low lighting.

While only briefly in Ohio, John James Audubon was a significant part of the precursor to the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History and Science, having worked as part of the Western Museum Society that was located in Cincinnati around 1819. There is a state marker just outside the wing of the natural history wing and outside the terminal describing his involvement (see right, click to enlarge).

The Duke Energy Children's Museum is rated as one of the top 10 children's museums in the country -- and it is quick to see why it is so well rated. Descending escalators, steps (more advisable for effect than taking the elevator), a two-story tree house complex beckons your children with an adrenaline rush. There are six zones of play & learning (see left, click to enlarge) in the museum: a creative play area that simulates such places as a grocery store or the doctor's office; a construction/building zone with duplos, blocks and such; a screened-off ball-zone with levers, pulleys, chutes and more; a pre-school area romping area (under 4 only!); a massive water-play station and the multi-story tree house complete with tunnels, ladders, slides and even a secret entrance under the turtle tank.

There is also an area for temporary galleries and exhibits. On this particular visit, a dinosaur exhibit was well worth the price of an extra admission cost. Life-size and realistic dinosaurs come (somewhat) alive as children are able to press buttons to hear them roar and move (see right, click to enlarge). Docents also had hands-on artifacts and fossils for all to touch.

In what should serve as a model for other cities, when time and economics make a grand structure obsolete, the community can come together and forge partnerships to create a new public use to reverse the fading glory of history. You will find fewer better examples than excitement that abounds from all ages at Union Terminal!

- J.