Speaking of recreations of old public domain Library of Congress photos, Shorpy has been going through pictures of Washington, DC from the National Photo Company Collection, and each new image gives me an itch to walk over to the location in the photo and snap a “today” pic. I was able to scratch that itch yesterday with “Ghostland: 1920,” a cloudy B/W shot looking north up the rails from Union Station. When I saw that one, I immediately picked up my camera, walked with Amy to the Union Station parking garage, and took updated shots of the scene as it is in the present day: (as always, click the thumbs to see them larger on Flickr)

Of course, this photo was taken in summer rather than winter, and lacks the ethereal gray ambience of the original, and the vantage point from the parking garage roof is much higher than in the 1920 photo (the H Street Bridge now blocks the view from the original height). Still, you can see that the focal point — the old rail lookout building — hasn’t changed much at all.

You can see more of my attempts to match the “Ghostland” view in the “Looking North from Union Station” photoset.

City Desk has more on Shorpy’s posts from the National Photo Collection. I intend to get an updated shot of this Union Station interior photo next.