On Friday, our daughter was sick from preschool, and I ended up taking her to my parents-in-law. When I have to make the round trip between there to work, I'll often take the Metrolink train to Union Station and then the Red Line to downtown's financial district.Here are some photos from along the way.
Los Angeles Union Station is one of the last remaining grand railway stations in the United States.
In addition to being a railroad station for Amtrak and the commuter service Metrolink, Union Station is also one terminus for Los Angeles' subway, the Metro Red Line, which runs from downtown through Hollywood and to the San Fernando Valley, and on a separate shorter line, along Wilshire Boulevard. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has announced an ambitious 12-mile, $5 billion plan to extend the Red Line to service Los Angeles' Westside district, Beverly Hills, and the coastal city of Santa Monica (and run the Red Line to the Pacific Ocean, as they say in the local press).
The timetable for arrivals and departures into Union Station.
Just outside the main waiting area is a lovely garden.Three stations down from Union Station on the Red Line, the 7th/Metro station is one of the busiest MTA subway stations, as the Blue Line from Long Beach reaches its northern point here. You often see commuters in a mad scramble to get from the arriving Blue Line car downstairs to the lower level to catch their connecting Red Line train, and vice versa.
At the street level at Figueroa Street is an easily-missed public artwork. As you go up the escalator or stairs from the station, you see a mural painted on the ceiling of the station entrance.
It presents the view of the downtown skyline if there were open sky instead of the building, a former Home Savings of America office tower, above the subway station.
