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Last of the Great Stations by Bill Bradley 50 years of the Los Angeles Union Pas
The Last of the Great Stations by Bill Bradley 50 years of the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal SOFT cover Interurbans Special #72 1992 SECOND REVISED Edition, First Printing. 120 pages GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY EDITION
THE TITLE of this book explains just what Los Ange- les Union Station is: the last in a series of grand, gilded train stations that were built in America before World War II during what might be termed the "Golden Age" of railroading. During this period when the railroads were at their peak as corporate giants, new terminals were conceived as status symbols far more than at any time before or since. Searching for an appropriate style, the architects found the lavish Beaux Arts or Neoclassical styles then in vogue to be most compatible with the railroads' aims. This extravagance reached its supreme manifestation in New York's fabled Pennsylvania Station, which was patterned after an ancient Roman Bath, and which occupied an entire city block, a station whose vast interiors would amaze us today had the structure not been torn down.
Union Stations, so named because they represented the "union" of more than one railroad in establishing a common facility, were generally the result of a different ego-this one civic instead of corporate-and were often included in schemes for civic improvement. In Washington, D.C., for example, Union Station was an integral part of the McMillan Plan of 1902 to upgrade the Mall and restore the capital to its original beauty. Similarly, in Los Angeles, civic leaders planned Union Station in conjunction with the Civic Center, hoping to eventually link the two with a wide, ceremonious Mall, and thus create a striking centerpiece for their fast-growing city.
The difference is that in Los Angeles, this dream for a union station became a noticeably significant issue. The city, after all, had acquired the status of a major city in a remarkably short period of time, and was therefore especially eager to possess the kind of railroad gateway that had become an established feature of older cities of similar size.
Although the structure that resulted was considerably less imposing than many of its predecessors, it nevertheless was conceived with an eye to opulence, and owed its more modest proportions to the style of architecture wished upon it by the city fathers who then, unlike today, regarded their city as primarily a center of tourism. For this reason, they wanted a station that would express the region's more marketable characteristics-including its Spanish heritage, its year-round climate and, above all, its mystique.
The irony is that by the time this long-standing dream became a reality, it was 1939, perilously close to when passenger trains would gradually slip away from their former glory. Not surprisingly, there were some individuals even then who were already speculating on the railroads' fate, and many went so far as to suggest that this train station might be the last of its kind to be built in America.
But however gloomy their predictions, the station opened its doors amid a fanfare befitting Gone With the Wind. And the promoters were undaunted in their proclamation that this opening would mark "a new epoch in the history of transportation in southern California." And so it opened on May 3, 1939. Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal.
Too bad it was the last.
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