When the Super Friends of the classic 1970s cartoon series gather at the Hall of Justice, Cincinnatians find it eerily familiar—after all, the hideout drew inspiration from the Queen City's Union Terminal. But now the art deco masterpiece is in need of some super friends itself.

The majestic train station, completed in 1933, houses Cincinnati Museum Center, which includes a children’s museum and an Omnimax theater. But Union Terminal is also on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s list of America’s 11 most endangered places, in need of $212 million worth of repair. Yet, the building’s future remains in limbo: Cincinnati and Hamilton County officials are at odds over who should bear the cost of the preservation.

Rather than leaving it up to a battle of bureaucracy, though, voters will get a say in the matter. Issue 8 on the Hamilton County ballot this year, if approved, would increase sales tax in the county by a quarter of a percent for five years; the levy would provide up to $170 million toward renovations, with the remainder coming from private philanthropy and grants. Even the Legion of Doom has come around: local Tea Party supporters, who had fought against a proposal that would have funded preservation efforts for both Union Terminal and Music Hall (another building on the most endangered list), have either voiced support of Issue 8 or remained silent.

The Hall of Justice from the Super Friends intro. Screengrab/Hanna-Barbera Productions

While locals had suspected the comic-book connection for decades, the Cincinnati Enquirer confirmed in 2009 that Hanna-Barbera background supervisor Al Gmuer had been inspired by Union Terminal when he worked on what would become the Justice League’s HQ. (Hanna-Barbera was owned by Cincinnati’s Taft Broadcasting from the late 1960s to the ‘80s.)

Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice today, years of water damage combined with construction flaws have created major structural issues. Union Terminal's original architects placed steel and concrete together without leaving room for the expansion and contraction that's so commonplace in Ohio’s cold climate. And it's not just structural—the building's mechanical, electrical and plumbing infrastructure is in dire need of updates to accommodate the 1.4 million people who visit the site each year.

"Engineers are looking at the seven- to 10-year range until the disrepair becomes major," says Elizabeth Pierce, vice president of Cincinnati Museum Center. "But we’ve been putting Band-aids on this building for the past 10 years, and we’re encountering the results. If we don’t fix it now, the deterioration of the building will escalate from the current rate—and it becomes significantly more expensive to do than it is to do right now."

Union Terminal was in peril even as its animated counterpart was becoming a staple of childhood TV rituals: Passenger trains stopped service to the station in 1972, and the all but abandoned building was at risk of demolition when the city of Cincinnati bought it in 1975. After a brief interlude as an entertainment center in the early ‘80s and a period where the city of Cincinnati offered rental space for $1 per year, Union Terminal became the home of Cincinnati Museum Center in 1990, the same year Amtrak restored passenger train service to the station.

Cincinnati Museum Center and National Trust staffers have been on the ground for weeks in the Queen City to get out the vote. The National Trust even set up a popup action center downtown—the first time it’s done so in a city where it doesn’t already have an office. Fans can take selfies with reproductions of Union Terminal’s Winold Reiss murals or cutouts of the building’s iconic facade.

Union Terminal needs a hero. But Aqua Man isn't coming this time—so the citizens of Hamilton County have to step up.