[Mr Downtown]

Preservation Chicago and others keep beating the drum for preservation of the Union Station steam plant, but it's not clear what could actually be saved. Unlike a powerhouse, it's not a concrete frame in which generators were installed. It's a big boiler around which some catwalks and a brick skin was placed—and that skin would at this point have to be completely replaced. So you spend $millions to take down all those bricks, remove all the useless boiler stuff, construct a new frame with actual floors and stairs and elevators, and then lay all the bricks again. That's not preservation; it's taxidermy.