Whether by land, sea or air, travel to and through the United States and Canada has been enabled by a familiar selection of large stations, ports and airports for quite some time. But how have these famous thoroughfares moved with the times? We’ve compiled a collection of fascinating then-and-now images to reveal their decades-long transformations.
Click through this gallery to see how some of North America’s most important transport hubs have changed over the years…
Originally opened as New York International Airport, JFK was built on the grounds of the former Idlewild Beach Golf Course in Queens, which inspired its local nickname, Idlewild. It was hoped that it would relieve congestion at nearby LaGuardia Airport, and construction began in 1943. Within two years of its 1948 opening, Idlewild was operating around 70 flights per day and by 1957 it was facilitating more than 1,200 departures per week. It’s pictured here in 1957 after the completion of the International Arrivals Building.
Following the assassination of 35th president of the United States John F Kennedy in 1963, the airport was swiftly renamed in his honour. There have been a number of notable modifications made to the site in the years since, including a rapid transit system (completed in 2003) that connects all JFK’s terminals to the railway and the subway. It is New York City’s largest and busiest airport, and is still evolving today. Construction began on two new international terminals in January 2020, both of which are expected to open in 2026.
When this photo was taken in the early 1900s, the Port of Vancouver (Canada’s largest) was just emerging as a major shipping hub. Its first terminal, initially built for cargo ships, was established at Ballantyne Pier in the 1920s, but it took a further six decades for Vancouver’s passenger cruise industry to really boom. The state-of-the-art Canada Place cruise ship terminal – which can dock up to four luxury cruise ships at once – was completed in the mid-1980s, and remains one of the most striking structures on the port’s waterfront.
Today Canada Place – with white sails rising from its roof like peaks of meringue – welcomes vessels from at least 20 different cruise lines from around the world, including Royal Caribbean, Princess, Viking and Disney. It is also the only homeport in the world offering one-way and round-trip itineraries through the stunning Inside Passage, a famous route through a coastal archipelago that follows more than 1,000 miles (1,600km) of North America's west coast, from Seattle in the US all the way up to Skagway in Alaska.
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Opened just after midnight on 2 February 1913, Grand Central Terminal quickly became the busiest train station in the US. The station as we know it today was almost lost forever in the 1950s and the 1960s, when it was threatened by proposals to build a tower block either in its place or on top of it. Former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was instrumental in campaigning to preserve the building and the station was named a National Historic Landmark in 1976. Here it is pictured in January 1924, with early high-rises just beginning to grow around it.
Taken a century after the previous photo, this shot from March 2024 proves that Grand Central Station still holds its own in the Big Apple, despite being dwarfed by the ever-extending skyline. The iconic station was meticulously renovated through the 1980s and particularly the 1990s, when a large-scale restoration added escalators and restaurants and removed decades of dirt and grime. The sweeping project created more than 2,000 jobs throughout the state. Today the terminal is one of NYC's most visited attractions, second only to Times Square.
Located on the Bay of Fundy, Saint John was Canada’s first incorporated city and has always thrived off its maritime location. Served by the highest tides on Earth and a year-round ice-free harbour, the city's waterfront was blessed with natural advantages. Before the days of plane travel, Port Saint John was a vital point of entry for immigrants into Canada, and had emerged as the largest shipbuilding city in British North America by the early 19th century. This image from the 1920s shows Port Saint John in all its early industrial glory.
Cruise ships are now a regular sight in the harbour, and Port Saint John celebrated 35 years of cruising history in 2023. The city's cruise terminals are found in the Uptown neighbourhood – the buzzing heart of the city. Just next to the berths, you’ll find one of the port’s more modern additions: the Area 506 Vendor Village (pictured), whose food trucks, retail outlets and pop-ups bring the old port to life during summer and autumn. Founded in 2022, the waterfront installation operates out of more than 60 vibrantly painted shipping containers.
Before Atlanta's main airport began taking shape in the 1920s, its site was occupied by an abandoned racetrack. Initially named Candler Field after the site's former owner, the airport saw its first commercial flight in 1926 and welcomed famed aviator Charles Lindbergh a year later. The airport would double in size during the Second World War and had become the busiest airport in the US by 1957 – and the busiest in the world between midday and 2pm each day. This 1927 image captures the airport in its earliest stages.
The airport opened the world’s largest air passenger terminal complex in 1980, and claimed the title of the world’s busiest airport (by passenger volume) for the first time in 1998 – a record it's held almost every year since. Renamed Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in 2003, the airport became the first to process more than 100 million annual visitors in 2015. Taken in 2022, this image shows Delta Air Lines planes parked at the airport. The carrier began operating out of Atlanta in the 1930s, making it the airport's oldest continuous tenant.
Inaugurated in 1916, Quebec City’s main train station was built by the Canadian Pacific Railway at the height of the First World War. Intended to rival other stations on the continent during the Golden Age of rail travel, Gare du Palais was designed in the opulent style of a French chateau. You can see in this photograph taken within a year or two of the station opening how its imposing facade contrasts with the architecture of the old rail terminal building, originally built by Quebec North Shore and later demolished.
The historic building, which marked its centenary in 2016, is still an operational train station today. It was closed to passengers between 1976 and 1985 to undergo major refurbishment, but is now a major stop along VIA Rail’s corridor between Quebec City and Windsor in Ontario, Canada’s southernmost city. Gare du Palais has retained several of its period features, including stained-glass lanterns and vaulted ceilings, and was designated a Heritage Railway Station of Canada in 1992.
One of the smallest state capitals in the US, Juneau is named after one of its two founding fathers, Joe Juneau – and used to be named after the other. Originally called Harrisburg, the city was established after local Tlingit Chief Kowee guided two prospectors, Joe Juneau and Richard Harris, to the discovery of gold nuggets at Gold Creek in 1880. Shortly after, early tourists arrived in Juneau on cruise tours of Alaska’s Inside Passage region, initially run by the Pacific Coast Steamship Company. This image shows Juneau as cruise-goers would have seen it in the early 20th century.
Cruises arriving in Juneau today are following a well-trodden path, as the Pacific Coast Steamship Company’s pioneering route proved so popular that it ultimately increased its modest flotilla from two ships to six. The Inside Passage remains the most travelled summer route for small and large cruise ships sailing out of Seattle, Los Angeles and Vancouver. Juneau’s port, pictured here in 2022 from the slopes of Mount Roberts, is within walking distance of most of the small city's attractions, including the State Capitol.
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After a devastating flood destroyed the original Kansas City railway station in 1903, it was decided that a new one needed to be built on higher ground. Designed in the Beaux-Arts architectural style that swept the United States and France during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the new Union Station – pictured here near the beginning of its long life – opened in 1914. The first train to roll onto its platform was the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Flyer, later known simply as 'the Katy'.
The station has witnessed plenty of dramatic moments. In 1933, convicted gangster Frank Nash was being escorted by police and FBI agents when he was fatally shot outside Union Station on 17 June. The deadly shootout also claimed the lives of four law enforcement officers. Union Station was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, but closed in the 1980s due to dwindling passenger traffic. It reopened to the public in 1999 as an interactive science centre, while Amtrak rail services resumed in 2002.
Originally located at the mouth of the Miami River, the Magic City’s port was first established to ferry tourists to the Florida Keys. The decision to move the port to what is now Maurice A Ferre Park on the banks of Biscayne Bay was not popular with many civic leaders, who feared its commercial operations would blight the scenic shoreline. Nevertheless, the project to build the new port was announced in 1959. This photo shows the Turkish steamship Tarsus anchored off Miami's shores before construction of the new port began.
Now one of the busiest ports in the US, PortMiami (as it is styled) has been called the cruise capital of the world and 'the global gateway of the Americas'. This photo shows Carnival Cruise Line's Carnival Spirit vessel sailing away from the marina in 2023. In January 2024, PortMiami became the homeport of Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas, lauded as the largest cruise ship in the world. With 40 bars and eateries, 20 decks, eight themed 'neighbourhoods', seven pools and six waterslides, it’s something of a floating city.
LAX’s humble beginnings belie its modern mega-airport status. From as early as 1925, aviators were leasing the land (then fields of barley, beans and wheat) around where the airport now stands in order to fly their planes. One of these fields, Mines Field, was chosen as the site for Los Angeles’ municipal airport in 1928. The soon-to-be airport hosted the National Air Races later that year, and again in 1933 (pictured). Los Angeles Municipal Airport was officially dedicated in 1930 and within a few years was regarded as a major aircraft centre.
After the Second World War ended, plans for the airport’s expansion gathered momentum, with commercial operations starting in 1946. American Airlines, TWA, United, Western and Pan Am were the first airlines to move into the airport, which was renamed Los Angeles International Airport (LAX being its code) in 1949. One of its most famous features was added in 1961 – the futuristic Theme building, seen just off-centre in this image from 2022. Today, LAX is one of the world's busiest airports, with nine interconnected terminals.
This image from around 1900 shows Toronto’s old Union Station – the second on the site – which opened in 1873. At that point it was one of the most modern rail stations in North America, but Canada’s most populous city soon needed an even larger station to meet increasing demand. The old train sheds and station were demolished between 1927 and 1931, while a brand-new Union Station opened in 1927 after 13 years of construction, partially hampered by material shortages during the First World War.
At the time the new Union Station opened, a railway station was seen as the gateway to a city, and therefore needed to be a grand and stately introduction to the destination it served. So the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Grand Trunk Railway had the station built in the Beaux-Arts style and it has endured for more than 90 years as one of North America's finest examples of early 20th-century architecture. Toronto Union Station was designated a National Historic Site by Parks Canada in 1975.
Although Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (pictured here during construction) didn’t begin operations until 1974, it formed as an idea much earlier. Before DFW opened people were flying between the two cities on a regular basis, prompting discussions about building a large airport in between them as far back as the 1930s. The first collaboration was a small military airport erected between the two cities during the Second World War, but it took another three decades for Dallas and Fort Worth to agree on where to build a shared commercial airport.
Eventually, DFW was built on the outskirts of the city of Irving and originally named Dallas-Fort Worth Regional Airport. At the time, the airport was considered the biggest in the world and was served by nine airlines. It became Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in 1985 and now flies directly to 67 destinations around the world, as well as 193 domestic airports. Spanning five terminals and more than 17,000 acres, it is the first carbon-neutral airport in North America and the largest in the world.
Shown here at its dedication ceremony in 1925, Chicago’s Union Station has served America’s rail travellers for almost a century. Designed by Daniel Burnham – the architect behind the iconic Flatiron Building in New York and many more landmarks in the Windy City – it took 10 years and a cool $75 million ($1bn today) to complete. It is now one of Amtrak’s busiest stations, as since 1972 all the operator’s Chicago services have departed from and terminated at Union Station.
Between Amtrak passengers and the commuters that use the city’s Metra rail system, nearly 40 million people pass through Union Station each year, with more than 300 trains operating daily. Various restorations and upgrade works have been carried out in recent years to improve accessibility and drainage, and return the Great Hall and its grand staircases to their original splendour. You can see from this recent image that the hall, still filled with shiny wooden benches, looks almost as pristine as it did when freshly built.
Now check out these amazing then-and-now images of America's major cities