skibinskipedia: sarahwrotethat: Photo: Chicago’s old Union Station, 1922. Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago Historical Society [via] Holiday Travel F. Scott Fitzgerald: One of my most vivid memories is of coming back West from prep school and later from college at Christmas time. Those who went farther than Chicago would gather in the old dim Union Station at six o’clock of a December evening, with a few Chicago friends, already caught up into their own holiday gayeties, to bid them a hasty good-by. I remember the fur coats of the girls returning from Miss This-or-that’s and the chatter of frozen breath and the hands waving overhead as we caught sight of old acquaintances, and the matchings of invitations: “Are you going to the Ordways’? the Herseys’? the Schultzes’?” and the long green tickets clasped tight in our gloved hands. And last the murky yellow cars of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad looking cheerful as Christmas itself on the tracks beside the gate. When we pulled out into the winter night and the real snow, our snow, began to stretch out beside us and twinkle against the windows, and the dim lights of small Wisconsin stations moved by, a sharp wild brace came suddenly into the air. We drew in deep breaths of it as we walked back from dinner through the cold vestibules, unutterably aware of our identity with this country for one strange hour, before we melted indistinguishably into it again. - The Great Gatsby [complete (web page)] [epub] I loved this entire piece because, much like Fitzgerald wrote, returning “back West” from prep school and college during the schools’ holiday breaks remain some of my most vivid memories, as well. Although I only made the journeys via rail twice, once in prep school and once in college, the magic of train travel, and the excitement of arriving in Chicago’s Union Station, are forever impressed upon my memory. This was a very pleasant reminder.
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skibinskipedia:

sarahwrotethat:

Photo: Chicago’s old Union Station, 1922. Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago Historical Society [via]
Holiday Travel

F. Scott Fitzgerald:

One of my most vivid memories is of coming back West from prep school and later from college at Christmas time. Those who went farther than Chicago would gather in the old dim Union Station at six o’clock of a December evening, with a few Chicago friends, already caught up into their own holiday gayeties, to bid them a hasty good-by. I remember the fur coats of the girls returning from Miss This-or-that’s and the chatter of frozen breath and the hands waving overhead as we caught sight of old acquaintances, and the matchings of invitations: “Are you going to the Ordways’? the Herseys’? the Schultzes’?” and the long green tickets clasped tight in our gloved hands. And last the murky yellow cars of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad looking cheerful as Christmas itself on the tracks beside the gate.

When we pulled out into the winter night and the real snow, our snow, began to stretch out beside us and twinkle against the windows, and the dim lights of small Wisconsin stations moved by, a sharp wild brace came suddenly into the air. We drew in deep breaths of it as we walked back from dinner through the cold vestibules, unutterably aware of our identity with this country for one strange hour, before we melted indistinguishably into it again.

- The Great Gatsby [complete (web page)] [epub]

I loved this entire piece because, much like Fitzgerald wrote, returning “back West” from prep school and college during the schools’ holiday breaks remain some of my most vivid memories, as well. Although I only made the journeys via rail twice, once in prep school and once in college, the magic of train travel, and the excitement of arriving in Chicago’s Union Station, are forever impressed upon my memory.

This was a very pleasant reminder.

(via apetersen)

Source: ebooks.adelaide.edu.au