Posted on 07/30/2010 11:52:28 PM PDT by thecodont
To bus riders who trek daily through the dingy, dusty and drafty Transbay Terminal, the place is something to be hurried through or, at best, endured. But it wasn't always that way, and today, a week before demolition of the old terminal begins, the public will get a last chance to peek at the past.
They'll see a sampling of the places that have been covered by plywood, hidden behind painted-over windows or walled off over the decades as the terminal declined from a bustling commuter hub to a mostly neglected bus station.
The terminal, built as part of the bridge project, opened in 1939 as the western terminus for the East Bay's Key System trains, and a place to connect to Muni lines. At its peak, near the end of World War II, 26 million passengers a year passed through the terminal. But after the war ended, train ridership declined. The Key System stopped running across the Bay Bridge in 1958, and a year later the terminal was converted to bus-use only.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/29/BA331EM16L.DTL#ixzz0vEu6B99w
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
The article appeared in TODAY'S paper. This was maddeningly short notice for those of us who have to work.
Some interesting things were revealed to the touring public today that had previously been boarded up: a bar, a diner (with two "boomerang" Formica counters), a shoeshine stand, and a jail cell which had been part of an on-site police substation.
The Terminal is a glorious bit of local transit history which has sadly fallen into disrepair. Many people wandered through it today, snapping pictures and filming video. Other commuters rushed past up to the buses, ignoring them. The homeless population which had taken up residence there for years was angry and disoriented: they would soon have no place to go. (The Terminal had a Homeless Outreach Center.)
Here's a cool video slideshow of images of the Transbay Terminal, about six minutes long. Lovely jazz soundtrack--what's the name and the artist?
Sorry buddy, the train already drained my paycheck.
Here's a cool video slideshow of images of the Transbay Terminal, about six minutes long. Lovely jazz soundtrack--what's the name and the artist?
Thank-you for posting the link.
I'm sure that the video-slideshow will evoke many memories for the millions of commuters who have used these facilities over the years. But it's also easy to see why the stark functionality eventually fell into disuse and doesn't merit refurbishing like other transit stations that have become architectural/historical treasures.
Wikipedia provides a good summarization as to how the Transbay Terminal Replacement Project is apparently part of a much larger San Francisco Transbay development project, consisting of thirteen new skyscraper/highrises. So it is appropriate that the project would also feature a completely new intermodal transportation that is designed for efficient, 21st Century service standards.
All major cities must eventually go through renovation projects like this, or risk decay and collapse like Detroit.
The Transbay Transit Center website also has some videos that illustrate what they envision the project will look like when complete. It's an amazing contrast and certainly a vast improvement. (The video also features some pleasant jazz/easy listening-background music, but I'm afraid I don't follow that genre close enough to help you out with the name of the artist.)
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