I Surrendered

As much as I love being able to walk to work, I finally surrendered to the summer heat and now only walk about a third of the way, four-to-five blocks, to catch the DART rail, where I ride two stops in air conditioned comfort to Union Station, then walk a couple blocks from there to my office. If I have enough time, I pick up coffee at the Opening Bell along the way.

Many of the people who jump off DART at Union Station in Dallas with me are jumping on the Trinity Railway Express (TRE) on the adjacent tracks and heading to Ft. Worth, but I'm nearly at my destination, with only a couple more blocks to go on foot.

When the TRE to Ft. Worth pulls away, I have a clear view of what's left of Reunion Arena. Someone told me recently the plan to implode the roof hit a snag when they discovered some potentially toxic insulation in the ceiling. Exploding the structure would spread those chemicals around too much, so until they come up with a new plan, it sits waiting, looking like this.

The rest of my "commute" takes me walking around to the front of Union Station–that's Reunion Tower, "towering" above it–no, I haven't been up there . . . yet, but I hear there's great sushi up there.

Last week I started wondering if every city had a Union Station? I've personally been to Union Station in Chicago and LA and I knew there's one in NYC. I wondered what the origin of the place name was, went looking for an answer and learned that the name was used when a station was shared by two or more rail roads companies or lines. There are a lot of them–Wikipedia has a list, if you're curious.

From there, I pass the Dallas Morning News Building. On the face of the building is an interesting inscription.

If you can't see it clearly in the photo, it says:

BUILD THE NEWS UPON
THE ROCK OF TRUTH
AND RIGHTEOUSNESS.
CONDUCT IT ALWAYS
UPON THE LINES OF
FAIRNESS AND INTEGRITY.
ACKNOWLEDGE THE RIGHT
OF THE PEOPLE TO GET
FROM THE NEWSPAPER
BOTH SIDES OF EVERY
IMPORTANT QUESTION.

What a great mission statement for a newspaper . . . I'm not sure I believe most modern new sources–television networks, web sites and yes, newspapers, approach the business of publishing or broadcasting the news exactly like this . . .