Ed & Phil:
Thanks for the quick response on the jail question. I have referred my son
to some of the books on Union Station, and he has dug up some original
material at the downtown Chicago library.
Back in the early 60s, my folks and I made a trip to Chicago, on our way to
see relatives in Tennessee. We came in on the Blackhawk, in the middle of
rush hour. I remember racing with the dinkies from Aurora all the way to
town. We lost. Now this was big time stuff for a kid from the middle of
Montana. More trains in a few miles than I normally saw in a month. More
people in one city than in our entire state. More train stations! More of
everything!
Inside Union Station, in the concourse, by the big restaurant, across from
where the ticket windows used to be, there were rows of the old 25 cents and
50 cents lockers. This particular morning there was a lot of activity at
those lockers. There were a couple of policemen (city or CUS, I don't
recall), and a dried pool of blood on the floor. Seems somebody had put a
baby's body in a duffel bag and checked it into the locker.
My parents were rather horrified by the whole thought. While I was
horrified by it, I just figured this was part of daily life in the Big City.
On a recent trip to Chicago, we were coming back in to Union Station, and a
young fellow stopped us to ask if we knew where Canal St. was. I had been
warning my sons all day to just be aware of people around them. The young
man's question did not raise any issues, and he did not frighten my in
anyway. Trying to get the oldest to be thinking about this as we prepared
to leave him on his own at Aurora University. I knew the question was a
stupid question, because I knew the station was on Canal St. but I didn't
know which direction it was from where we were. So we ignored him and went
in.
We went down the escalator. At the bottom, another young man was asking a
lady who had just gotten off the train, with her kids and baggage in tow,
"where Canal St. was?" My antenna went up. Something rotten was going on
in Union Station. I found a Metra/BNSF policeman and told him about what I
had witnessed. He wandered up that way.
The next day, after thinking about it, I called the Amtrak PD at Union
Station and talked to one of the officers. He said these were pickpockets
that regularly worked the station. He didn't say it, but their targets were
unsuspecting travelers. Still just part of daily life in the Big City.
Chuck Hatler
KC MO
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