The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports the planned upgrade to our Amtrak station.

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A note: from here to Seattle the train makes about 50 stops. Sometimes you can get out and stretch your legs for a few minutes, sometimes you can just stand outside for several seconds before getting yelled at for being off the train, and sometimes they slow down long enough to make sure some kid hasn’t placed a hazardous coin on the track — but nowhere, at any stop for 48 hours, can you get a decent cup of coffee or a magazine. Wouldn’t you think someone would set up a coffee shop in a train station? Or a magazine stand? Milwaukee’s station is not only terribly ugly, it’s also relentlessly drab and dirty. When we stopped here between Chicago and the Dells, no one wanted to get off. It looked like you had just pulled up behind a bomb shelter in a rail-yard.

Will the proposed updates include some incentive for people to actually get off the train for a few minutes and get a taste of Milwaukee? Will a local coffee shop or bookstore get a kiosk? Is the future of Milwaukee, as suggested by it’s recent architecture, fated to be an overexposed dystopia where man’s greatest fear is Love and his greatest dream Freedom?

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1, 2, 4 - Images from jsonline [milwaukee journal sentinel]
3 - Image from milwaukee art museum
5 - Image from @december.com

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 15th, 2005 at 10:08 am and is filed under art &tc., milwaukee. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.