http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-ca-union-st...
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Union Station, 1939
Los Angeles, California
John and Donald Parkinson
visitingdc.com |
Hello Everyone:
In May of this year, the landmark Union Station, located on the outer edge of Downtown Los Angeles, celebrated its seventy-fifth birthday. She is a beauty both inside and out. About two years ago, I had the pleasure of spending a lovely Friday morning touring the station and enjoyed every second of it. I loved being in the wide open spaces all designed to move people from the street to the trains and buses. You can just feel the history in this place.
Seventy-five is quite a milestone birthday. Even more exciting is what the next seventy-five years will look like for iconic ode to railroad transportation. In a recent article for the
Los Angeles Times titled "Metro's Union Station master plan a significant shift," Christopher Hawthorne takes a look at almost completed master plan jointly authored by local firm Gruen Associates and London-based Grimshaw Architects. The plan "...imagines remaking not just the guts of the station, including the concourse that leads passengers beneath its tracks but a swath of downtown." Fear not, preservation-minded, train aficionado ones, the John and Donald Parkinson designed building will be mostly protected, only experiencing minor changes.
The proposed master plan also acknowledges a much greater goal, accommodating high speed trains from San Francisco, the construction of new (presumably mixed-
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Model for proposed Union Station Master Plan
la.curbed.com |
use) towers near the station, creating a new link to the Los Angeles River and Civic Center-all which will depend greatly on forces beyond the control of the architects. Mr. Hawthorne observes, "As a result the plan is both deeply, sometimes mind-numbingly technical and highly speculative. It aims to fix some past planning and design errors while also readying the building for a future as the central rail hub in a city with a revived downtown and a growing transit network."
According to Mr. Hawthorne's estimation, "Despite that uncertainty, the plan promises, in the short term, to bring significant and long-awaited changes to the station." The long-term results are the big mystery. This month, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board of directors, who bought the Station and forty acres of the surrounding land in 2011, is expected to approve the basic framework and begin work on the state-mandated environmental impact report.
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Rendering for proposed Civic Plaza
Mia Lehrer
archdaily.com |
The architects, together with landscape architect Mia Lehrer, have proposed a brand new civic plaza-a "forecourt" if you will- at the foot of the main building which would replace a surface parking lot. The renderings for the plaza present a lovely space that takes its cues from the Spanish colonial design with its paved open space encircled by benches, café table, and some shade. The plan itself also proposes remaking Alameda Avenue, specifically the portion that runs along the front of the station, to make it easier for pedestrians and cyclists to travel. From my own experience, trying to walk down Alameda from the bus stop was a little of a perilous situation. Yours truly had to watch out for cars making a sharp turn into the parking lot. However good this proposal sounds, what complicates is the city's current plan to actually widen Alameda to make room for heavier automobile traffic produced by the revamped Union Station.
In an aside, Christopher Hawthorne notes, "Such are the contradictions of planning in contemporary Los Angeles. The master plan suggests crafting a memorandum of understanding with the city's planning office to help bridge this gap.
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Entrance to El Pueblo de Los Angeles'
losangelesforvisitors.com |
All together, Mr. Hawthorne quotes the MTA argument that the perimeter "will soften the edges of the station" and improve ties to El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument, across the street from Union Station, and the Civic Center. On the other side of the station, the proposed plan calls for razing the existing Patsaouras Transit Plaza where bus riders currently line up above a glassed-in semicircular entry hall. Mr. Hawthorne refers to this plaza as "unfortunate." From my own experience, the interior of Patsaouras Transit Plaza feels cave-like but we have to remember that it was not meant as a waiting room. It was intended as a transitional space between the terminal and the buses.
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Main Hall at Union Station
upgrd.com |
The greatest change will occur in the concourse itself. Presently, train passenger exist the main hall, moving past rather cozy looking Starbucks and a Famima market into a very long and very low tunnel with tracks, accessible by stairs on either side. In the proposed Gruen-Grimshaw plan, this tunnel would be replaced by a predominantly open-air concourse with sunlight filtered from above and and planters with with benches around the edges. The master plan comes at a point in time when Union Station is witnessing other major changes, which facilitates the concept that the building and the surrounding neighborhood are in a noticeable state of flux. One letter writer to the
Los Angeles Times pointed out the proximity of the Twin Towers Correctional Facility to Union Station, noting the irony of high security facility so close to a bright shiny new proposed development.
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Tunnel leading to the train tracks
Union Station, Los Angeles
subwaynut.com |
According to Mr. Hawthorne, "The basic track design is in the middle of a $350-million overhaul that will soon end the inefficient practice of trains pulling in and then having to back out of the station in favor of a so-called run-through setup." This would require elevating the track by five feet, allowing them to clear the 101 Freeway as they loop around the station. How is this more efficient? This change in the way the trains leave the station has direct implications, good and maybe bad, for the remainder of master plan; yet it is a reminder just how many moving parts (and exactly how much interconnected infrastructure) Gruen and Grimshaw and MTA's own architects have had to keep track of. No pun intended.
On the positive side: raising the tracks will open up the concourse, making it feel less cave-like since the ceiling will be five feet higher. The possible down side: if elevating the tracks in and around the stations implies also lifting them along the Los Angeles River, then it could mean several historic bridges will need to be replaced. Yours truly can just imagine the fight over replacing those bridges.
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The Fred Harvey Room
Mary Colter
herecomestheguide.com |
In the meantime, one of Los Angeles's great underused rooms, the Fred Harvey Room inside Union Station, will finally have a tenant after years of sitting empty. Restauranteurs Eric Needleman and Cedd Moses and have tentatively agreed to open a gastropub in the former site of the once ubiquitous Fred Harvey Restaurants. It is another one of the lovely underrated rooms in Los Angeles, designed by Harvey Company in-house architect Mary Colter in a kind of Navajo Revival style. It is quite spacious and tall, offering a magnificent setting to enjoy a brief repast while waiting for a train, bus, or just simply spending time.
What does remain uncertain is what will happen to the delightful but long vacant old ticket room just north of
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The ticket room at Union Station
thesource.metro.com |
the main entry. Mr. Hawthorne suggests, "If it opened directly onto the new forecourt, it's possible a kind of market hall could fill that space, a blend of the Ferry Building in San Francisco and L.A.'s Grand Central Market on Broadway." This sounds like a nice idea. What also remains up in the air is the fate of the eastern edge of the property, where the master plan posits a new skyscraper accessible by one of two brand new pedestrian bridges above the tracks. The question in Mr. Hawthorne's mind is, " For starters, who know how quickly efforts to remake the section of the Los Angeles River directly behind Union Station will bear fruit?"
Further, these is the ongoing issue of California's bullet train project. The proposed master plan calls for a high-speed station, mainly built underground, on the east side of tracks. In order to make room for the station and create connections from there to the banks of the remade River-would possibly require the demolition of the C. Erwin Piper Technical Center (Piper Tech)-a city-owned building housing public archives. I can just hear the choruses of protest.
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Rendering showing the new concourse
thesource.metro.com |
Out of necessity, the MTA is hedging its bets regarding high-speed rail. While the staff report on the master plan supports the site near Piper Tech, quoting the report, Mr. Hawthorne writes, "...the agency is 'flexible and open to other station alignments.'" Mostly, this is one of many planning issues. Mr. Hawthorne observes, "A separate question is how and when Metro will choose architects-and designers-for the expanded station which could include a new hotel to go with the towers and the relocated bus terminal." For the record, Gruen and Grimshaw signed on only to produce the master plan. Thus choosing the right firm is very important, not just for the site makeover but also for the future of the landmark building. While the master plan respects and gives the original building plenty of space, achieving an "...unusual balance between grandeur and pedestrian scale, not to mention between ornament and spare abstraction. But the scale of the new development threatens to overwhelm it."
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The MTA Building
walknridela.com |
In the very next paragraph, Mr. Hawthorne adds, "This is not to say that any new towers should aim to match the architecture of the older building." Agree on this point because the result would be too imitative. Besides, the MTA and architecture firm McLarand Vasquez Emsiek & Partners already attempted it in 1995 with the 28-story MTA tower, which Mr. Hawthorne laments, "...unfortunately remains standing in the master plan, even as the bus plaza at its feet will be removed." The MTA is not even a good imitation of the original building's architecture. If I were to hazard an opinion, I would say the MTA tower is a wisp of a thought to match the original building.
However, when the train station was new, Union Station's relationship to the surrounding city was straightforward. The "...grand, arched main entrance face City Hall and the rest of downtown." Behind the station, were the tracks, recently encased in concrete by the Army Corp of Engineers and the L.A. River. Los Angeles was expanding westward, forward into the future; the placement of the station mirrored this sense of optimism. Over time, the separation between the front and rear began to fade. The bus plaza and Metro office building opened up the back of the site.
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Concept rendering for Union Station
west8.com |
The primary goal of the master plan, i.e. its central urban and civic idea, the extension and refinement of the process begun in the nineties with the addition of the bus plaza and the MTA tower, eventually turning Union Station into a 360 degree transit hub. This transformation acknowledges not only the river but the whole of East Los Angeles on the opposite side of the bank. It would reflect the fact that passengers arriving and leaving the station via bicycle or foot-or just coming to people watch or have dinner. The lovely building that once defined an edge, backed up against an unloved river is ready to take its place center stage in the future.
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