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49-566: Hooper Heliport is located on the roof of the C. Erwin Piper Technical Center , the world's largest rooftop airport. It is centrally located next to Los Angeles Union Station . It is home to the Los Angeles Police Department 's Air Support Division which is the largest metropolitan police aviation unit in the U.S. with 16 helicopters . The Piper Technical Center is also used as a parking lot for

98-606: A grand scale, Union Station became known as the "Last of the Great Railway Stations" built in the United States. The structure combines Art Deco , Mission Revival , and Streamline Moderne style. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. Today, the station is a major transportation hub for Southern California , serving almost 110,000 passengers a day. It is by far

147-493: A platform underground, while the A Line uses tracks one and two outside. The Metro Rail B and D subway lines have their eastern terminus at Union Station and share two tracks below Union Station. There are two entrances to the platform: one is located inside Union Station's main concourse on the west side of the complex, near Alameda Street, and the other is located near the Patsaouras Transit Plaza on

196-412: A short distance away. 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

245-551: 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 . On March 15, 2021, it was announced that the station would serve as a joint venue of the 93rd Academy Awards along with

294-891: A station located at 7th and Alameda in the Arts District. Bus services using the Patsaouras Transit Plaza : Bus services using the Union Station Patsaouras Bus Plaza Station, which is located in the median of the El Monte Busway next to US-101: Bus services using the bus stop on Cesar Chavez Avenue & Vignes Street (northeast corner of station): Bus services using the bus stop on Alameda Street & Los Angeles Street (outside western entrance): Elevated railway An elevated railway or elevated train (also known as an el train or el for short)

343-467: A stop at the Patsaouras Transit Plaza . The Metro Busway J Line operates between El Monte Bus Station , Downtown Los Angeles , Harbor Gateway Transit Center and select trips to San Pedro using the El Monte Busway and Harbor Transitway . Amtrak California operates several motorcoach routes under the Amtrak Thruway brand from Union Station using dedicated bus bays at the north side of

392-409: Is a railway with the tracks above street level on a viaduct or other elevated structure (usually constructed from steel, cast iron, concrete, or bricks). The railway may be broad-gauge , standard-gauge or narrow-gauge railway, light rail , monorail , or a suspension railway . Elevated railways are normally found in urban areas where there would otherwise be multiple level crossings . Usually,

441-485: Is a type of driverless grade-separated, mass-transit system. The term is generally used only to describe systems that serve as loops or feeder systems, but is sometimes applied to considerably more complex automated systems. Similar to monorails, Bombardier Innovia APM technology uses only one rail to guide the vehicle along the guideway. APMs are common at airports and effective at helping passengers quickly reach their gates. Several elevated APM systems at airports including

490-553: 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

539-601: 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). Union Station

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588-462: Is soft). The ceiling in the grand waiting room has the appearance of wood, but is actually made of steel. 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. 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 . Inside

637-567: Is the hub of the Metrolink commuter rail system and is a major transfer point for several Metro Rail light rail and rapid transit lines. The Patsaouras Transit Plaza , on the east side of the station, serves dozens of bus lines operated by Metro and several other municipal carriers. 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:

686-815: Is the main train station in Los Angeles , California, and the largest passenger rail terminal in the Western United States . It opened in May 1939 as the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal , replacing La Grande Station and Central Station . Approved in a controversial ballot measure in 1926 and built in the 1930s, it served to consolidate rail services from the Union Pacific , Santa Fe , and Southern Pacific Railroads into one terminal station. Conceived on

735-413: Is the western terminus for four of Amtrak's long-distance trains : Amtrak California operates multiple-times-daily regional rail services to cities across the state: The station is the hub for Metrolink and six of Metrolink's eight lines serve the station: Three Metro Rail lines serve the station with about 300 Metro Rail trains departing every weekday. The B and D lines are heavy rail, and share

784-473: 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. The glamorous new $ 11 million station (in 1939 dollars) took over from La Grande Station which had suffered major damage in the 1933 Long Beach earthquake and Central Station , which had itself replaced

833-668: 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). 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

882-750: The Docklands Light Railway is a modern elevated railway that opened in 1987 and has since expanded. The trains are driverless and automatic. Another modern elevated railway is Tokyo's driverless Yurikamome line, opened in 1995. Most monorails are elevated railways, such as the Disneyland Monorail System (1959), the Tokyo Monorail (1964), the Sydney Monorail (1988–2013), the KL Monorail ,

931-589: The Dolby Theatre due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cinema . The ceremony was criticized for limiting access to the station and its COVID-19 testing site due to security measures mandated by the Academy. On October 19, 2022, Greyhound moved its primary Los Angeles station to the Patsaouras Transit Plaza at Union Station. Union Station was partially designed by John and Donald Parkinson ,

980-1143: The Las Vegas Monorail , the Seattle Center Monorail and the São Paulo Monorail . Most maglev railways are also elevated. During the 1890s there was some interest in suspension railways , particularly in Germany, with the Schwebebahn Dresden , (1891–) and the Wuppertal Schwebebahn (1901). H-Bahn suspension railways were built in Dortmund and Düsseldorf airport , 1975. The Memphis Suspension Railway opened in 1982. Suspension railways are usually monorail; Shonan Monorail and Chiba Urban Monorail in Japan, despite their names, are suspension railways. People mover or automated people mover (APM)

1029-637: The National Register of Historic Places in 1980. 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,

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1078-483: 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

1127-465: 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. 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. Union Station

1176-684: 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

1225-602: The LAPD motor pool including marked and unmarked units, vans, buses, motorcycles, and the V-100 SWAT armored cars . Hooper Heliport served as home base for the fictional police helicopter Blue Thunder in the 1983 motion picture of the same name , while construction of the heliport was still being completed. This law enforcement –related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Union Station (Los Angeles) Los Angeles Union Station

1274-577: 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". When

1323-666: The San Joaquin route (to Fresno and select intermediate stations.): While it does not stop on the Union Station property, Flixbus provides intercity service to destinations across the Western United States from a parking lot across the street from the station on the northwest corner of Cesar Chavez Avenue and Vignes Street. Greyhound Lines operates its main Los Angeles station from the Patsaouras Transit Plaza. The station opened on October 19, 2022, replacing

1372-859: 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%. 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 began service to

1421-971: The US included the Chicago "L" , which was built by multiple competing companies beginning in 1892, as well as the Boston Elevated Railway in 1901 and the Market–Frankford Line in Philadelphia in 1907. Globally, the Berlin Stadtbahn (1882) and the Vienna Stadtbahn (1898) are also mainly elevated. The first electric elevated railway was the Liverpool Overhead Railway , which operated through Liverpool docks from 1893 until 1956. In London,

1470-760: The busiest train station in the Western United States; it is Amtrak's fifth-busiest station, and is the thirteenth-busiest train station in North America. Four of Amtrak 's long-distance trains originate and terminate here: the Coast Starlight to Seattle, the Southwest Chief and Texas Eagle to Chicago, and the Sunset Limited to New Orleans. The state-supported Amtrak Pacific Surfliner regional trains run frequently to San Diego and also to Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. The station

1519-491: The east side of the complex. The Metro Rail A Line is a light rail line that passes through Union Station as it travels between Azusa and Long Beach . Trains use Tracks 1 and 2 of Union Station's 14 outdoor tracks. The platform is accessible via staircase and elevator from the main passenger tunnel. From the Gold line's opening on July 26, 2003, until the segment to East Los Angeles opened on November 15, 2009, this station

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1568-458: 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 inlaid cement tile floor in the pattern of a Navajo blanket . Colter also designed a sleek, Streamline Moderne cocktail lounge. The restaurant closed in 1967 and for decades remained largely empty, used only for

1617-416: 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

1666-552: 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. Traxx closed between May and September 2019 as ownership of the restaurant changed. Attached to the main building to the south is the station restaurant designed by

1715-497: 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. The station was designated as a Los Angeles Historic–Cultural Monument No. 101 on August 2, 1972, and placed on

1764-574: The late 1860s onward, elevated railways became popular in US cities. New York's West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway opened in 1868 as a cable-hauled elevated railway and was operated using locomotives after 1871, when it was renamed the New York Elevated Railroad. This was followed in 1875 by the Manhattan Railway Company , which took over the New York Elevated Railroad. Other early elevated systems in

1813-469: The new electrified tracks link the two terminals, but they would eliminate street running on some of the busiest streets in Los Angeles. 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

1862-534: The occasional film shoot or special event. 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. Even with its grand scale, Union Station is still considered small in comparison to other union stations . Although Union Station contains no distinct sculptures or artworks from its early years, Metro rail development in

1911-473: The project. During the construction process of Union Station, archaeological remains from the Tongva village of Yaanga were uncovered. 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

1960-553: 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

2009-533: 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

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2058-469: 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. 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). The lounge features

2107-595: 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 (now the 91/Perris Valley Line .) 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

2156-691: The station. Connections to San Joaquins trains are provided through bus route 1 that travel to and from the Bakersfield Amtrak Station . Direct rail service to Bakersfield is not possible because passenger trains are not normally allowed on the Tehachapi Loop near Bakersfield. When trains are not running during the overnight hours several bus routes provide service along the Pacific Surfliner route (to Santa Barbara, San Diego and select intermediate stations) and

2205-543: The suggestion of the Dutch-born Jan von der Linden). 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

2254-547: The tracks of elevated railways that run on steel viaducts can be seen from street level. The earliest elevated railway was the London and Greenwich Railway on a brick viaduct of 878 arches, built between 1836 and 1838. The first 2.5 miles (4.0 km) of the London and Blackwall Railway (1840) was also built on a viaduct. During the 1840s there were other plans for elevated railways in London that never came to fruition. From

2303-525: 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

2352-693: 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. Since taking over ownership of

2401-515: Was the southern terminus. The platform features an art installation, entitled Images of Commonality/Nature and Movement , created by Beth Thielen . The platform station was formerly served by the L Line , which permanently closed on June 16, 2023, for the opening of the Regional Connector. The A Line now services the tracks north of Little Tokyo/Arts District , including Union Station. One Metro Busway bus rapid transit line makes

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