Oh, how sad you are, Greyhound. What a comedown from the grand bus system I knew as a boy! Back then, bus stations were in impressive buildings located within walking distance of the train depot, to facilitate passenger transfers. In all the larger towns they boasted covered loading, and often there would be six to eight busses loading simultaneously. Now bus stations locate in the midst of their clientele, along some impoverished strip, at a point of easy access to the Interstate. There the only transfers are between bus lines, and if you knew where to look, you could see the tiny sign which declares that TRAILWAYS (once Greyhound’s fiercest competitor) shares the station. Greyhound’s former station on South Court was displaced by the addition to the Federal Courthouse in the late 1990s, and it moved out onto the Boulevard.

Left is the remnant of the one-time Greyhound Station on South Court, right at the foot of Adams Avenue. Greyhound Lines moved there in 1952 (from Lee Street, a block from Union Station), and became a focal point in the Civil Rights debacles of that decade. Back then, police and mobs would attack the “Freedom Rider” troubleseekers at this site. The abandoned  hulk still stands as an unfunded monument to the struggle.

-Charles Humphries