I frequently check the websites of various Catholic publications, to keep up with what is happening in the Catholic world outside of Chicago. This week, to my surprise and delight, I discovered an article about trains and a railroad station. There it was on the homepage of The National Catholic Reporter. The headline read, “Finding God in Detroit’s Revitalized Michigan Central Station.”  Well, if that is where God hangs out these days, I must complement God for showing good taste.

The city of Detroit, as you probably know, has had a rougher time than most northern industrial cities in recent decades. The city’s population peaked at almost 2 million in 1950 and has dwindled to 630,000. The economy of Detroit rode the coattails of the American auto industry, which dominated the world market until the 1970’s. The prosperous automakers and the good union wages made Detroit a magnet for people with limited opportunities looking to live a middle-class life. The Michigan Central station, which opened in 1914, was one of three railroad stations in Detroit and the most impressive. It had an eighteen-story office tower above the three story Beaux-Arts style depot. The decline in the population of Detroit was mirrored by a rapid decline in rail passenger service in the 1950’s. The station housed the trains of the New York Central (which absorbed the Michigan Central) and the Baltimore & Ohio until 1971, when Amtrak took over the nation’s remaining trains. Amtrak left the station in 1988 for something smaller and more practical, and the station stood abandoned and derelict until the Ford Motor Company bought it in 2018 and began to restore it.

Aside from it being a very beautiful building for people to enjoy, what does God have to do with it? Here is what Patty Breen has to say: “Michigan Central Station was the arrival point for thousands of immigrants who came to work in the automotive plants, searching for a new life and better opportunities. It was where Black people came fleeing the Jim Crow South. It was where immigrants came for jobs, filled with grit in their hearts . . .  The hopes, dreams, prayers and stories of so many people passed through this station. . . . I had the opportunity to pay a few visits to the newly renovated building. It is breathtaking. In some ways it felt like walking into a beautiful old cathedral in Europe. You could almost feel the sacredness of the space, as if the energy of all the dreams and stories of those who passed through the station was somehow collected and still felt to this very day. It was a holy moment. Sometimes we can forget the spiritual realities swimming all around us. Buildings and spaces can be opportunities and invitations to encounter God. The experience of soaking up a beautiful building like Michigan Central Station can be just as moving as a summer sunset, meaningful worship service, or taking a walk in the stillness of the woods. God meets us in all typos of places. The Diving presence is not bound to one particular  method of finding you and me, of connecting with us.”

None of Chicago’s railroad stations survive in their original form. Central Station and Grand Central Station have disappeared completely. The Northwestern Station and LaSalle Street Station have been replaced by modern buildings. Dearborn Station has been repurposed and is partially intact. Heavily used Union Station still has its Grand Hall; but its bright and airy passenger concourse was demolished in the 1960’s and replaced by an office tower. Amtrak passengers and commuters are funneled into a basement to board their trains, amidst a multitude of concrete columns. But you can certainly find God in the Grand Hall. If you cannot find God in beautiful buildings, then your spiritual life is greatly diminished.

Back in seminary days I helped in an African-American parish in Woodlawn. Before arriving at Central Station downtown, Illinois Central trains from New Orleans stopped at 63^rd Street, which is where many Black people from the south would detrain during the Great Migration of the twentieth century. The 63^rd Street Station  and Woodlawn was where they began their new life in Chicago. Almost unnoticed amidst the brouhaha surrounding the Democratic Convention is that our Greyhound Depot on Harrison Street is about to close. Like trains, intercity buses were once a popular form of transportation for people from small towns and college students and older people who believed that “If God had intended people to fly, he would have given us wings.” Cheaper airfares have lured most of those bus passenger away. Now it is mostly migrants and other marginal people who still ride buses. The corporation that owns Greyhound is selling off its bus stations to raise money. But what will happen to the bus passengers, who will be dumped on a street near Union Station?  There will be no structure to preserve their hopes and dreams.

                                         Fr. Joe