DC Union Station Lower Level Food Court Mystery Area

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

Can someone explain what/where/how to get to the lower level circled in red at the Food Court level?

I am only there once a year mostly and did not walk around the food court that much last visit last summer. But I did take some time to walk around all three levels, or so I thought. But I don't remember anything behind the food court. Did I miss a secret passage? Is there an outside entrance to the part that does not connect elsewhere to the main part of Union Station. Can someone give me the password?

Taking the Crescent in mid-June to visit the Zoo and then a short trip to Baltimore for a day for baseball. If I have to I will leave my wife in the Metro Lounge and explore (after I can some bread at the Potbelly to leave a trail.)

I pulled this off the map at https://www.unionstationdc.com/directory/

 

[joelkfla]

I didn't know this existed either, but the stairs and elevator appear to match up with ones at the extreme east end of the main floor (diagrammed below):


I think it may be separated from the food court by the run-thru tracks.

Seems like an odd place to put a Starbucks & Potbelly. Perhaps it can be accessed directly from the VRE platform.

 

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

Well at least it is not just me that was unaware of this area.

I hope this does not become like The Third Level by Jack Finney. https://archive.org/details/thirdlevel00finn/page/n15/mode/2up

 

[JamesWhitcombRiley]

It's all one space. The empty area is the stairway atrium. The large brownish grayish space to the left of the empty space is Walgreens.

Like most stations, the floor plans available are quite bad. The area at the top of the diagram has super interesting portals with gate numbers, unused, except as space behind the counters of fast food places. The portals would have run under the main stub-end platforms. Transverse to them is or was a service corridor, where there's a tiny elevator marked near the top of the diagram. That whole area is off-limits. The service corridor ran beyond the station westward under the street to the post office (or something).

 

[BlackDiamond]

It's all one space. The empty area is the stairway atrium. The large brownish grayish space to the left of the empty space is Walgreens.

Like most stations, the floor plans available are quite bad. The area at the top of the diagram has super interesting portals with gate numbers, unused, except as space behind the counters of fast food places. The portals would have run under the main stub-end platforms. Transverse to them is or was a service corridor, where there's a tiny elevator marked near the top of the diagram. That whole area is off-limits. The service corridor ran beyond the station westward under the street to the post office (or something).


View attachment 39328

I suspect the cartoon is from WW2 especially with the comment "is this travel essential?".

 

[AmtrakBlue]

It's all one space. The empty area is the stairway atrium. The large brownish grayish space to the left of the empty space is Walgreens.

The "stairway atrium” is just to the left of Walgreens. From the 1st floor you can see into the food court.

 

[John Bredin]

View attachment 39328

Wow, interesting! It's object proof from the time of something I'd read in multiple sources: that the railroads were so overcrowded and overwhelmed during WWII that many resolved not to travel by train again when they had the choice post-war. Nobody's *saying* "never again" in that picture but you can almost *feel* them thinking it.

I'd seen the wartime railroad ads reminding readers of how many troops were using the trains, or promising new equipment and comforts when the war would be over. But I'd never before seen an artifact of how unhappy the traveling public was, of the attitude those anodyne ads were meant to counter.

 

[railiner]

Wow, interesting! It's object proof from the time of something I'd read in multiple sources: that the railroads were so overcrowded and overwhelmed during WWII that many resolved not to travel by train again when they had the choice post-war. Nobody's *saying* "never again" in that picture but you can almost *feel* them thinking it.

I'd seen the wartime railroad ads reminding readers of how many troops were using the trains, or promising new equipment and comforts when the war would be over. But I'd never before seen an artifact of how unhappy the traveling public was, of the attitude those anodyne ads were meant to counter.

Just ask anyone still around that endured what my mother did in 1942. She traveled from New York City to Biloxi, MS standing, or sitting on her suitcase. And feeling fortunate to do so, to visit my father in his army training camp before he was shipped over to Europe for WWII.

 

[JamesWhitcombRiley]

I suspect the cartoon is from WW2 especially with the comment "is this travel essential?".

Yes, I think I found it at the Library of Congress website, a great source. (I was looking for floor plans!)

I also collected images from the now defunct https://history.amtrak.com/archives which was great, so many old promotional PDF's. The Wayback machine has all or some of it.

If you're wondering about the all-white cast in the cartoon, LOC pictures show African American service members conversing with white ones. Many people are familiar with WPA photos, but other federal departments collected excellent photos as well, and they tend to be at LOC.

From the Amtrak archives, oh there are so many. But here are Jackie Kennedy Onassis enjoying Amcafe vittles, and a travel agency scene (or maybe that office in Times Square!).





From LOC, more cartoons of wartime crowding and wartime accommodations.

 

[JamesWhitcombRiley]

All by Gordon Parks, a famous photographer. LOC calls the collection "Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information."













LOC calls the last one "Washington, D.C. Clerk and ticket seller searching for reservations at the Union Station." November 1942.

 

[MARC Rider]

I notice that even though they are inside the station, all of the men are wearing their hats. As a kid, I distinctly remember being trained to take off my hat when I went indoors. Either things changed between the 1940s and the early 1960s or the inside of a train station wasn't considered "indoors."