TRAIN CONCOURSE / WAITING ROOM MURALS
The artist Winold Reiss was selected to do the
murals at the Cincinnati Union Terminal. He began by visiting at least 17
Cincinnati factories to photograph workers performing their various jobs. He
then took these photographs and, in some cases combining them into one image,
used them to layout his murals. Originally the murals were to be executed as oil
paintings on canvas but Reiss convinced the architects that using glass mosaic
tiles would be much more effective. They would not only be more brilliant, but
also last longer. Reiss got his way but it cost him in the reduction of his
commission in the project.
The murals are actually a combination of two techniques. All the human
figures are in glass tiles along with some background shapes such as shadows
that are outlined in tiles. The remainder of the mural uses frescoed concrete -
concrete that has the color added to it while it is still wet. The photographs
that Reiss took were enlarged to full size (20' by 20') and then cut into 2 foot
squares. These were passed out to the craftsmen at the Ravenna Tile Company in
New York. Under the direction of Reiss and Company owner, Paul Heudeck, each
craftsman would choose from over 8,000 shades of tile to implement that section
of the mural. A rough drawing of the mural would be colored so that the
craftsman would know what colors Reiss wanted the tiles to be. The two foot section were pasted, face down on heavy brown paper
and sent to Cincinnati where Weiss would then supervise their installation. The
14 Murals that once lined the passenger concourse are refered to as the
"Industrial or Worker Murals" and Reiss intended that they portrayed
the factory worker of Cincinnati with dignity and respect. The image below shows
the Baldwin mural with the two foot squares marked off and the colored drawing
used for reference.
The largest mural at the terminal was located at the western end of the train concourse and extended almost the entire width of the back wall. It depicted the eastern and western hemispheres on either end and a map of the Unite States in the center. It also showed the 5 time zones of North America. It spelled out major cities in red, and outlined states in yellow. The first photo below shows this mural and also shows the seating that was arranged at the front of each gate. Under the mural was a luncheonette counter. The second image shows this mural before it was destroyed. Unfortunately the map was to large to be saved by the wrecking ball.
This is just a portion of the mosaic map that was on the far western wall.
Below are 14 postcards showing these mosaics. The photographs shown are some of the ones used to create them.
American Laundry Mach. Co.
Baldwin Piano
Company
Philip
Carey
The American Laundry mosaic represented the machinery manufactures. The Baldwin Piano Co. represented the musical traditions and skilled craftsmen industries. Phillip Carey represented the paper products industry.
Crosley
Corporation
Lunken Airport with Aeronca Factory
The Crosley Corporation represented the radio broadcasting and production industries and the Aeronca aircraft represented the transportation industry.
American Oak Leather
Co. Ault & Wiborg
Corp.
Proctor & Gamble
Co. Kahn Meat
Packing Co.
The American Oak Leather Co. (no longer in existence) represented the leather tanning industry. The Ault & Wiborg Co. represented the printing inks, and dyes industry. Proctor & Gamble represented the soap industry and E. Kahn & Sons represented the meat packaging and slaughtering industry.
William Merrell Co. U.S. Playing Card Co. Andrews Rolling Mill
William Merrell represented the pharmaceutical industry, the United States Playing Card Company (makers of the "Bicycle " brand) represented the printing, publishing and lithography industries. Andrews Steel of Newport, KY represented the steel mill industry.
The first Cincinnati Milling Machine Co. (Milacron) mosaic represented the foundry work in the machine tool industry and the second mosaic represented the machine tool industry.
TOWER A
Location of Tower
A
Inside Tower A
Passenger track layout
Tower A was where the huge "interlocking machine" seen in
the center image was at. The last image is a drawing that shows, in more detail,
what the large track diagram board inside Tower A was all about. The board was 5
feet high and 42 feet long and when in use contained 682 lights. The men seen in
the tower were responsible for controlling all train movement in the yard by
throwing levers which controlled all the track switches. These levers sent
electric signals down to the yard and activated a compressed air-powered switch
to move the track.
Tower A is now used by the Cincinnati Railroad Club and is open to
visitors on certain days of the week. The board is still there.
The 3 cards below were taken from the top of a hill called Bald Knob. This is the hill where all the filling material was obtained for this construction project.
Not a postcard
Union Station's USO lounge
Train leaving
concourse
1956 scene at engine
house
Real Photo of P.R.R. train
Powhatan Arrow leaves terminal
Kansas City
Southern
This was the day train to Norfolk, Va.
The large (5 1/8" x 7") card above is of the official 1980 poster made for the Cincinnati Union Terminal by Cincinnati artist Marlene Steele. The 2nd card above shows the 2011 C&O Historical Society Commemorative Travel Poster by Charlie Hunter.
1943 WAR BOND TOUR
On September 15, 1943 the Third War Loan Drive came to Cincinnati. The drive started on September 8 and ended on October 2. On September 21, Kate Smith raised $39 Million through a broadcast on CBS. The 3rd War Loan totaled almost $19 Billion. The 1st image above show the movie stars that were on this tour when it came to Cincinnati. Except for a couple of the stars on the right side I will name them going from left to right. James Cagney, Mickey Rooney, Margie Stewart, Dorothy Merritt, Kay Kyser, Doris Merrick, Paul Henried, Greer Garson, Eddie Buzzell (show director), Betty Hutton, Kathryn Grayson, Jose Iturbi, Rosemary Laplanche, Harpo Marx, Lucille Ball, Fred Astaire, Georgia Carroll, Harry Babbitt, Diane Pendleton, Ruth Brady, Muriel Goodspeed, and Dick Powell. The 2nd image is one of the over 152,000 advertisements (Free) placed in newspapers and magazines to promote this drive.
SOME MODERN PHOTOGRAPHS
View From
Entrance
Two Distant
Views
Historical Marker
Street beneath terminal grounds
The Union Terminal's water display is between the two circular openings.
Today all the trains and depots have been reduced
down to two major railroads, the Norfolk-Southern and CSX. Norfolk Southern has
traffic coming from the New Castle line (Ft. Wayne to Cincinnati), the Dayton
District (Columbus to Cincinnati) and from the First District (Cincinnati owned
Chattanooga Tenn. to Cincinnati route). The First District is also a connector
to rail lines leading to Atlanta, Florida, Birmingham, New Orleans and other
points. CSX has traffic coming from Indianapolis, Toledo, and Louisville.
There are now two major yards located in Cincinnati. Gest Street
Yard, which is surrounded on three sides by CSX's Queensgate Yard, and belongs
to NS. To ease congestion of traffic to and from the North, NS and CSX entered
into a joint agreement for bi-directional running of north and southbound trains
from Hamilton, Ohio to Cincinnati.
Extra wide card showing scenes from the Cincinnati
in Motion permanent S-scale exhibit at the museum.
To see modern chrome postcards of the Cincinnati Union Terminal click- HERE -use your backspace button to return to this page.
TERMINAL DURING USE AS A SHOPPING MALL
A FEW FACTS AND FIGURES:
5,663,065 cubic yards of fill material used.
224,534 cubic yards of concrete poured, not including 100,500 square yards of paving.
8,250,000 bricks used.
45,421 net tons of steel used in both bridge and building construction. (see viaducts page for information on the bridge work)
Water consumption was estimated to be 550,000,000 gallons per year.
Boiler house capacity was 225,000 lbs. of live steam per hour.
8,500,000 kilowatt hours of electricity purchased annually, enough for a city of 60,000 people.
The terminal could handle 17,000 people and 216 trains daily. (108 in-108 out).
This was the only font used by the Cincinnati Union Terminal
