Railway Station for Banff National Park (unbuilt) / Frank Lloyd Wright, architect

The temporary NITC shelter at the Commons will be basic: tickets are available from an array of vendors (druggist, news stands, etc.), so essentially it will be a glorified comfort station. And once the actual depot is complete, one block south at Broad and Louisa, it can be recycled as a public facility on the Commons itself.

Since it will serve the company for less than a year, heating is necessary to keep the pipes from freezing. Passenger comfort is important but they will be in the building for only short periods. Provision for four-season use, however, is a consideration for its future service, both as a comfort station (in the Edwardian sense of what that should be) and as a warming house for winter sports like ice skating.

What do I mean by “Edwardian” standards? Women and young girls and children expected the privacy that a “Women’s Waiting” room afforded, both for hygiene and the discretion of nursing infants. I can recall riding on Chicago busses with my mother in 1951 and 1952 and seeing women openly nurse their babes without hesitation (or, presumably, embarrassment). There was also an expectation that it was men who smoked, more often pipes and cigars, rather than cigarettes (and those were likely the roll-your-own sort). So a M/W binary scheme makes sense.

C&NW suburban station, Glencoe, IL / Frank Lloyd Wright, architect

Wright designed a suburban depot for Glencoe along the C&NW North Shore service; a bit too basic for my purposes. By the same token, his shelter at Banff Provincial Park is too grandiose.

Pavillion, Banff National Park, Banff, AB / Frank Lloyd Wright, architect

A median needn’t be a half measure.