The Great Hall Has Been Renovated! Again!

Back in 2012, Denver's Union Station underwent a major renovation and was turned into an upscale gathering place featuring the 112 room Crawford Hotel and assorted restaurants and retailers. The central part of the building, "The Great Hall," which was once a huge waiting room, was transformed into a space with couches, chairs, desks, and other furnishings where people could sit, eat, drink, and work, and was nicknamed "Denver's Living Room." The old ticket counter, part of the Terminal Bar - named for the original Terminal Bar, a Jack Kerouac favorite, once located a few blocks away - was turned into a window where you could order a drink and then take a seat anywhere you wanted. Last year, that central space underwent still another renovation, at a cost of 11 million dollars, and was walled off for 6 months. 

Yesterday, after dropping off my wristwatch to be repaired, I stopped into Union Station to have a look. The Great Hall looked just as cozy as ever, but what caught my eye were all the signs that instructed you to wait to be seated by the hostess. Did that mean you can no longer order a pint at the ticket counter and sit wherever you want? I was going to ask the hostess, but decided to wait until I got home and look it up on the internet. Evidently, a lot of other people had the same question that I did. Many just sat down anyway and weren't bothered. Evidently, the aim is for only paying customers to use the space, which makes sense to me. That's how a retail business works. But I suspect the real reason for the signs are to keep away the homeless, who have been known to frequent the place. And by the way, after the original remodel, the actual waiting area for train passengers was reduced to a row of benches along the back wall of the Great Hall. I couldn't help but notice yesterday that that row of benches has been halved after the most recent renovation. And yes - it looked like those passengers waiting for the Amtrak train to Chicago were packed pretty close together. It actually made it look like trains were popular again. Perhaps that is the whole point.