[Old photo by Sidney Duff; New photo by Rob Ketcherside]
Union Station remains a busy portal into the city (and has more people entering and exiting its metro stop than any other in the system) but when it was first built in 1908, it really was meant as the gateway into the city. Nowadays there's the infamous Columbus Circle in front of the station and state flags lining the streets, but in 1908, there was no such thing. In fact, as a telltale sign of where they were in the construction process of Daniel Burnham's Classical Beaux-Arts masterpiece, only one of the six statues of Greek mythological figures has been installed over the entrance.
· Union Station (Washington, D.C.) [Wikipedia]