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Bus services: King County Metro Sound Transit Express Amtrak Thruway Motorcoach Northwestern Trailways |code=Amtrak code: (SEA ) |baggage_check=Yes |owned=City of Seattle |coordinates= |services= | nrhp= }} King Street Station is a train station in Seattle, Washington, United States. Located between South King and South Jackson streets and Second and Fourth Avenues South in the Pioneer Square neighborhood of Seattle, the station is just south of downtown. Built between 1904 and 1906, it served the Great Northern Railway and Northern Pacific Railway from its grand opening on May 10, 1906, until the creation and start of Amtrak on May 1, 1971. The station was designed by the St. Paul, Minnesota architectural firm of Charles A. Reed and Allen H. Stem, who were later associate designers for the New York Central Railroad's Grand Central Terminal in New York City. King Street Station was Seattle's primary train terminal until the construction of the adjacent Oregon & Washington Depot, later named Union Station, in 1911. King Street Station was added to the National Register of Historic Places and the Washington Heritage Register in 1973. Since the early 1990s the station was in various states of repair to undo remodels done during the middle of the Twentieth Century to "modernize" the facility, including the restoration of the elegant main waiting room. King Street Station was purchased by the City of Seattle in 2008 for $10 and, with enough funds finally in place, the restoration was finally completed in 2013. The station is served by Amtrak ''Cascades'', ''Empire Builder'', and ''Coast Starlight'' trains, and by Sound Transit's Sounder commuter trains. King St. Station is also the Seattle terminus for the Rocky Mountaineer's luxury excursion train, the ''Coastal Passage''. For the first nine months of 2006, ''Sounder'' service boarded almost 1.2 million passengers at King Street Station. ==History== Built between 1904 and 1906 by the Great Northern Railway and Northern Pacific Railway, the station replaced an antiquated station on Railroad Avenue, today's Alaskan Way. Designed by the firm of Reed and Stem of St. Paul, Minnesota, who acted as associate architects for the design of Grand Central Terminal in New York City, the station was part of a larger project that moved the mainline away from the waterfront and into a 5,245 foot (1,590 m) tunnel under downtown. The depot's tower was modeled after Campanile di San Marco in Venice, Italy, making it the tallest building in Seattle at the time of its construction. This tower contained four huge mechanical clock faces built by E. Howard & Co. of Boston, Massachusetts, offering the time to each of the four cardinal directions. At the time of installation it was said to be the second largest timepiece on the Pacific Coast, second only to the Ferry Building in San Francisco, California. Later, this tower also served as a microwave tower for the Burlington Northern Railroad, the successor of both the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railways, whose offices occupied the second and third floors of the station. Over the years, remodeling concealed the station's original ornate interior. The final blow occurred in 1965 when the hand-carved coffered ceiling of the main waiting room, and a balcony and second level arcade were hidden by a lower dropped ceiling, which was installed below the original. Under the direction of Northern Pacific Architect A.C. Cayou, the waiting room was walled off and marble was removed from columns as well as ornamental plaster being sheared from the walls as high as the new dropped ceiling. The grand staircase linking South Jackson Street with the west entrance was reduced to half its original size, and an addition housing escalators was constructed on the west elevation of the building, which was not in keeping with the building's architecture. After the remodel, the only original remaining features left visible in the main waiting area were the terrazzo tile floor and the clock on the west wall above the restrooms. From a practical standpoint, the station is close to downtown. However, unlike cities such as Boston, it is not near the intercity bus terminal, although the station is less than a block from the International District of the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel. For many years, the original upper entrance off of Jackson Street was not used. Instead, the main entrance was located on the first floor off of a small parking lot, rather than a drop off loop. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「King Street Station (Seattle)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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