Architect details progress on $6M Tampa train station revival

Segregation and Jim Crow laws have been justifiably relegated to the trash bin of U.S. history, but their specters remain present in some of the country’s built environment. Case in point: Tampa’s Union Station, which opened in 1912 and was constructed in a gorgeous Italian Renaissance Revival style. But it also had a wall that segregated passengers according to their skin color. 

“The wall was about eight to 10 feet tall,” says Jerel McCants, a Tampa architect whose firm, Jerel McCants Architecture Inc., is leading a $6 million restoration of the station. “There were separate water fountains on both sides. There were separate ticket counters, separate bathrooms. The left side was colored; the right side was whites only.”