Union Station (Los Angeles)

Pre-unification passenger railway stations of Los Angeles, c. 1920 (clockwise from top left): Hill St. Terminal (Pacific Electric), Central Station (Southern Pacific), Salt Lake Station, La Grande Station (Santa Fe)

The city council of Los Angeles had desired since the 1910s to construct a Union station to replace the existing three terminal stations in Los Angeles: the Santa Fe's La Grande Station, the Southern Pacific's Central Station, and the Union Pacific's Salt Lake Station. As the proposed station would be built and owned by the city and open to all prospective railroads, it threatened to break these three railroads' control over rail traffic into and out of the city. Their opposition led to a series of legal cases that were still not resolved by 1925, when the railroads offered a compromise solution. The Union Pacific's Salt Lake Station had burned down in 1924, forcing it to rent space in the Southern Pacific's Central Station. The railroads proposed to make this arrangement permanent, reducing the number of terminals to two, while also constructing a large network of elevated tracks at their own expense, to be used by them and the Pacific Electric. Not only would the new electrified tracks link the two terminals, but they would eliminate street running on some of the busiest streets in Los Angeles.[9][10]

The railroads' proposal immediately generated public controversy for and against the proposal, and in February 1926 the council agreed to place a non-binding question on the ballot asking voters whether they were in favor of the city council's union station proposal or the railroads' elevated railway plan. Proposition 8 asked "Shall a Union Railway Passenger Terminal for all steam railroads be established in the City of Los Angeles?", while Proposition 9 asked whether the proposed station should be built in Los Angeles Plaza. The issue became extremely heated, with both sides fiercely arguing their point. Elevated railway proponents, such as the Los Angeles Examiner and the Greater Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, pointed to the safety benefits of the elimination of grade crossings and the benefits to businesses of reduced traffic congestion, as well as claiming that the proposed union station site would cause heavy road congestion. Union station proponents, such as the Los Angeles Times and many homeowner associations, claimed that elevated railways harmed property values, made streets dangerously dark, produced unacceptable levels of noise, and were less safe than other forms of railroad. As the Los Angeles Plaza was near Los Angeles' original Chinatown, the debate took on racial connotations as well, with the Examiner claiming that being near Chinatown would mean that visitors to the city would receive a bad first impression, and the Times countering by arguing that the construction of the station would allow for urban renewal that would "spell the passing of Chinatown".[9][10]

When the two propositions were finally put to a vote, both passed; Proposition 8 by a 61.3 to 38.7 percent margin, and Proposition 9 by a much smaller 51.1 to 48.9 percent margin. However, largely due to the efforts of preservationist Christine Sterling and Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler, Union Station would not replace the Plaza, but be built across the street in Chinatown, which was demolished for the project.[11] During the construction process of Union Station, archaeological remains from the Tongva village of Yaanga were uncovered.[12] Researcher Joan Brown summarized this in 1992:

Previous archaeological studies conducted at and near Union Station indicate that buried intact prehistoric and historic deposits exist in-situ beneath and in the vicinity of Union Station. The extent of the archaeological deposits is unknown at this time. Union Station was constructed on three to twenty feet of fill dirt placed over the original Los Angeles Chinatown. Chinatown, in turn, had been built over the remains of an Indian village, tentatively identified as the village of Yangna.[12]

The glamorous new $11 million station (in 1939 dollars)[13] took over from La Grande Station which had suffered major damage in the 1933 Long Beach earthquake and Central Station, which had itself replaced the Arcade Depot in 1914.

Passenger service was provided by the Santa Fe, Southern Pacific, and Union Pacific, as well as local lines of the Pacific Electric Railway and Los Angeles Railway (LARy).[14] The famed Super Chief luxury train carried Hollywood stars and others to Chicago and thence the East Coast. Union Station saw heavy use during World War II, but later saw declining patronage due to the growing popularity of air travel and automobiles.

In 1948, the Santa Fe's Super Chief lost its brakes coming into the station, smashed through a steel bumper and concrete wall, and stopped with one third of the front of the locomotive dangling over Aliso St. No one was killed or injured, but the engineer lost his job.

Santa Fe's combined Super Chief/El Capitan at the station in 1966

The station was designated as a Los Angeles Historic–Cultural Monument No. 101 on August 2, 1972, and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.[5]

The first commuter rail service to Union Station was the short-lived CalTrain that began operating on October 18, 1982, between Los Angeles and Oxnard. The service faced economic and political problems from the start and was suspended in March 1983. The next attempt at commuter rail came in 1990 with the launch of the Amtrak-operated Orange County Commuter. The once-daily round-trip served stations between Los Angeles and San Juan Capistrano.

In December 1989, the Santa Fe Pacific Realty Co purchased Southern Pacific's shareholding in the station, followed in January 1990 by Union Pacific's 22% and Santa Fe's 34%.[15]

Metrolink commuter rail service began on October 26, 1992, with Union Station as the terminus for the San Bernardino Line, the Santa Clarita Line (later renamed the Antelope Valley Line) and the Ventura County Line. In January 1993, Metro's Red Line subway[16] began service to the station, followed by Metrolink's Riverside Line in June. The Orange County Commuter train was discontinued on March 28, 1994, and replaced by Metrolink's Orange County Line. In May 2002, Metrolink added additional service to stations in Orange and Riverside counties with the opening of the 91 Line.[17]

Light rail service arrived at Union Station on July 26, 2003, when Metro's Gold Line began operating to Pasadena from tracks 1 and 2. The line was expanded south over US 101 in November 2009 with the opening of the Gold Line Eastside Extension.

In February 2011, the board of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) approved the purchase of Union Station from Prologis and Catellus Development (a descendant of the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific railroads) for $75 million. The deal was closed on April 14, 2011.[18][19] Since taking over ownership of the station, Metro has focused on increasing services for passengers at the station. One of the most noticeable changes is the addition of several retail and dining businesses to the concourse.

Amtrak opened a Metropolitan Lounge at Union Station on September 23, 2013.[20] The lounge is open to Amtrak passengers traveling in sleeping car accommodations as well as some Amtrak Guest Rewards members (Select Plus and Select Executive levels only).[21] The lounge features a staffed ticket counter, complimentary refreshments, complimentary Wi-Fi, and a conference room. Passengers using the Metropolitan Lounge receive priority boarding.

Metro plans to install Bluetooth beacons in Union Station to enable sending text messages to travelers' smartphones.[22]

On March 15, 2021, it was announced that the station would serve as a joint venue of the 93rd Academy Awards along with the Dolby Theatre due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cinema.[23] The ceremony was criticized for limiting access to the station and its COVID-19 testing site due to security measures mandated by the Academy.[24][25]

On October 19, 2022, Greyhound moved its primary Los Angeles station to the Patsaouras Transit Plaza at Union Station.[26]

The waiting room

The restored waiting room ceiling in 2022

The original ticket lobby, with the ticket counter at the right

Union Station was partially designed by John and Donald Parkinson, the father-and-son architectural firm who had also designed Los Angeles City Hall and other landmark Los Angeles buildings. They were assisted by a group of supporting architects, including Jan van der Linden. The structure combines Art Deco, Mission Revival, and Streamline Moderne style, with architectural details such as eight-pointed stars, and even elements of Dutch Colonial Revival architecture (at the suggestion of the Dutch-born Jan von der Linden).[27]

Enclosed garden patios are on either side of the waiting room, and passengers exiting the trains were originally directed through the southern garden. The lower parts of the interior walls are covered in travertine marble; the upper parts have an early form of acoustical tile. The floor in the large rooms is terra cotta with a central strip of inlaid marble (including travertine, somewhat unusual in floors since it is soft). The ceiling in the grand waiting room has the appearance of wood, but is actually made of steel.[28]

The original ticket lobby has 62-foot (19 m) high ceilings and a 110-foot (34 m) counter. It is closed to the public, but occasionally rented out for film shoots or special events.[28][29][30][31] Public art has been added to the station including an aquarium with a wall featuring etchings of Tongva and Latino settlers such as Pío Pico.[32]

Inside the grand waiting room is the Traxx restaurant and bar, which is Art Deco-themed, reflecting the history and architectural grandeur of its home. The restaurant opened in the late 1990s, and became a "top draw" at Union Station, according to the Los Angeles Times.[33] Traxx closed between May and September 2019 as ownership of the restaurant changed.[34]

Attached to the main building to the south is the station restaurant designed by the famed Southwestern architect Mary Colter. It was the last of the "Harvey House" restaurants to be constructed as a part of a passenger terminal. The vast rectangular dining room has a rounded central counter, streamlined booths and spectacular inlaid cement tile floor reproduces the pattern of a Navajo blanket.[35][29]

Colter also designed a sleek, Streamline Moderne cocktail lounge. The restaurant closed in 1967 and for decades remained largely empty, used only for the occasional film shoot or special event.[36] In October 2018, following a four-year renovation process, the dining room re-opened as the "Imperial Western Beer Co.," a restaurant and bar with its own attached brewery, and the cocktail lounge re-opened as "The Streamliner," a smaller craft cocktail bar.[36]

Even with its grand scale, Union Station is still considered small in comparison to other union stations.[37]

Although Union Station contains no distinct sculptures or artworks from its early years, Metro rail development in the 1990s funded the installation of a variety of notable public art murals and sculptural installations for the station's new subterranean lobbies, portals and subway platforms.[38] The following Union Station public artworks include murals, granite seating sculptures, electronic wall-mounted art, glass mosaics, and a river-themed sculptural installation incorporating found objects from the subway excavation and an aquarium of native sea life.[39]

• L.A.: City of Angels (1993) by Cynthia Carlson[40]
• Traveler (1993) by Terry Schoonhoven[41]
• Union Chairs (1993) by Christopher Sproat[42]
• La Sombra del Arroyo (1995) by East Los Streetscapers[43]
• City of Dreams (1996) by Richard Wyatt Jr.[44]
• River of History (1996) by May Sun[39]
• Riverbench (1996) by May Sun and Paul Diez[45]
• A-Train (1996) by Bill Bell[46]
• Solar Shift: San Bernardino and Santa Monica (2006) by Roy Nicholson[47]

Union Station and the MTA Building, with the Twin Towers Correctional Facility to the left of the latter

An aerial view of LA Union Station area in 2014.

Union Station track map
Upper Level
North Vignes Street Garden Tracks East Cesar E Chavez Avenue LACMTA Headquarters   6A 8A 10A 3 5 7 8 9 10 11 13 15 Patsaouras Transit Plaza 4 6 12 14 Baggage lane El Monte Busway   US 101 Link Union Station
Lower Level

Union Station is located in the northeastern corner of Downtown Los Angeles, on the property bounded by Alameda Street, Cesar Chavez Avenue, Vignes Street, and the Hollywood Freeway. It is across Alameda Street from L.A.'s historic Olvera Street and El Pueblo de Los Angeles State Historic Park. The historic Terminal Annex building is on the opposite side of the Chavez Avenue underpass. Chinatown and Civic Center are a short distance away.

The site of the Tongva village of Yaanga, which was "believed to have been the largest of the Tongva villages," was in the vicinity.[48]

The Patsaouras Transit Plaza on the east side of Union Station hosts several connecting bus lines, including Metro Local, Metro Rapid and Metro Express lines, as well as downtown DASH shuttles, many municipal bus lines, FlyAway express bus service to Los Angeles International Airport, Greyhound buses, and University of Southern California campus shuttles. The Transit Plaza is named after Nick Patsaouras, former RTD board member and advocate for public transportation.

The Gateway Transit Center includes the station itself and the Patsaouras Transit Plaza, both of which were designed by Ehrenkrantz & Eckstut, along with the western terminus of the El Monte Busway, as well as Metro's headquarters building.

As of October 2019, Amtrak and Metrolink share 12 of Union Station's 14 outdoor tracks, with 94 trains departing on most weekdays (95 on Wednesday, 96 on Friday).[Note 1][49][50]

Actress Kim Novak at Union Station (1956)

The facility served as a backdrop for the 1950 film Union Station,[82][83] which starred William Holden and Nancy Olson. It has since been used in numerous films as a filming location, typically as a stand in for other fictional locations,[84] including:

Union Station has been featured in numerous television shows, such as Adam-12, 24, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Euphoria.

It has also been featured in video games; Union Station, as it was in the late 1940s, appears in L.A. Noire, while a smaller fictionalized version of the station appears in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas as Unity Station.

Union Station was featured in Visiting... with Huell Howser Episode 222.[92]

The music videos of Backstreet Boys' "Chances", "Drops of Jupiter" by American band Train, directed by Nigel Dick;[93] and "Last Train Home" by John Mayer, directed by Cameron Duddy; were filmed in Union Station.[94] A significant portion of the music video for "Vermilion" by the band Slipknot was filmed within Union Station.[95]

• List of Registered Historic Places in Los Angeles
• Los Angeles Metro Rail
• Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority
• Los Angeles Metro Rail rolling stock
• Martin F. Betkouski, City Council member accused of profiting from land transactions in the area before Union Station was built

• Musicant, Marlyn, ed., with Deverell, William and Roth, Matthew W. Los Angeles Union Station (Los Angeles): Getty, 2014. xvi, pp. 109; heavily illustrated.

Waiting area

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Union Station (Los Angeles).

• Official website
• Los Angeles, CA – Amtrak
• Los Angeles, CA – Station history at Great American Stations (Amtrak)
• L.A. Union Station at the Metrolink website
• Union Station overview (LA Metro)
• Map of connections in the Union Station area (LA Metro)
• Map of bus services from Union Station (LA Metro)
• Los Angeles station information (Amtrak Texas Eagle) Archived March 2, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
• Public Art Works at the Union Station and in El Pueblo Archived August 9, 2020, at the Wayback Machine
• "Union Station" Visiting... with Huell Howser (Episode 222 – September 26, 1994)