Portland Transit Hub

The Portland Transit Hub is a large complex situated on the north end of the city. The main building and surrounding curtilage structures were constructed from large blocks of whitewashed stone in the early 1950s. Since then, the walls have cracked in many places, and are covered with knotted masses of crawling vines and ivy. Faded, brick-colored interlocking clay tiles line the roofs, and have been darkly stained by mosses, lichen, and fungal growth.

Inside, the flooring is composed of thousands of small, hexagonal, white and navy ceramic tiles laid down in geometric patterns. High arches connect support columns to the ceilings, and the lighting comes from ornate bronze chandeliers and wall-mounted sconces, all of which have tarnished from age and neglect. Lines of frosted white windows near the ceiling allow filtered light to come down to the main floor during the day.

The hub serves as an arrival and departure point for Amtrak commuter lines running down the Eastern Seaboard towards Boston, DC, and New York, and also for bus lines that served both the metro area and traveled along roads to the southeast. While there are not trains or buses arriving or leaving every hour of the day or night, there are enough to warrant keeping the place open twenty-four hours. The large, cavernous spaces amplify the noises from the tracks and create a constant low-grade clatter in the station.

Rumors have abounded about the place for decades. No shortage of wayward youths or young adults use the hub as a launchpad to runaway or start new lives. Of the years, several people have ended their lives by hurling themselves onto the tracks or stepped in front of arriving trains. In the late 1980s, a janitor at the Transit Hub was arrested and convicted as the perpetrator of a string of kidnappings, assaults, and disappearances, and he went to the electric chair swearing that there were far more bodies than the police ever discovered. Locals talk about some labyrinthine system of half-flooded tunnels connecting to the complex' sublevels, but nobody who has gone exploring has discovered anything. After a pair of teenagers went missing in 1994, several areas were sealed off and the Transit Authority stepped up efforts to keep others out.