Yesterday was National Train Day, so I decided to skip the Pasadena Earth Day event and ride the Metro Gold Line down to Union Station to celebrate it’s 75th Birthday. (Union Station is a mid-point on the Gold Line route.)
Thousands of other people had the same idea and Union Station was mobbed! People and their children everywhere, so the grandeur and beauty of the building was obscured. (The noise was deafening, BTW. All those voices bouncing off the tiles and other hard surfaces!) Soooo…I’m going to post a few photos from this event, and then add some photos I took last Christmas at Union Station.
At age 75, Union Station is an L.A. Treasure–perhaps more than ever because not only do the Amtrak transcontinental trains arrive and depart from the station, Metro Gold, Red and Purple Lines do, too. Plus the express bus to Dodger stadium and the express buses to the airports depart just outside the door. Originally it was the West Coast terminal for the Southern Pacific Lines.
Mayor Garcetti has assigned someone to promote the use of Union Station. Because of him the opera ‘Invisible Cities’ was held in Union Station a few months ago. It was the most amazing performance I have ever seen–anywhere. Sadly, the city has also recently forced out the street people–not a lot of them, but a few– who used to sleep in the large chairs overnight. I think ‘Invisible Cities’ would not have been as rich an experience as it was without the street people as well as other travelers in the station. But I digress.
Here are photos of Union Station without the mobs of people.
