30th Street Station, Philadelphia Then and Now
Philadelphia Exhibit Update!
You can visit the Documerica Returns exhibit today until December 14 at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station, before it heads on to New York City. 30th St is the main railroad hub in the City of Philadelphia and the third busiest Amtrak station in the country.
In the 1970s, Amtrak was working to significantly revitalize their system and improve passenger comforts. Many scenes of their efforts to encourage rail travel across the U.S. were captured by Documerica. Charles O’Rear was the most prolific in his contributions, as he traveled across the country by rail for the project in 1973 and 1974. His images can be seen here in Flickr.
Also in 1974, Jim Pickerell took this photo of passengers waiting in the Philadelphia terminal. Now that the exhibit has made a timely stop, we want your comparison photos today. How has this scene changed?
Match these or other scenes from the area for our Philadelphia challenge .
Submit your Then and Now photos to www.flickr.com/groups/ourenvironment. Entries received by December 31, 2012 will be in the running for a large display at the U.S. National Archives in Washington, D.C. Please include a link to the Documerica image(s) you matched.
Browse more Pennsylvania photos in Documerica. A selection is also available on Flickr.
Not in PA? Simply share your photographs of everyday life and our environment where you live. It is a chance to be part of State of the Environment, our modern day Documerica.
DOCUMERICA: Original Caption: Train passengers in the main hall of the 30th Street Station at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is one of four or five stops made by Amtrak's Metroliners which made 16 round trips each day between New York City and Washington, District of Columbia. The corporation reported 18,000,000 passengers in the U.S. during 1974, an increase of 10 percent from the previous year. Despite more riders and revenue of $256.9 million, the management noted a deficit of $272.6 million, 04/1974 by Jim Pickerell.
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