Friday, March 30, 2001

Limit: 25 people

This tour is not entirely wheelchair accessible

Union Station, built in 1939 and considered to be "the last of America’s great rail stations," is a National Historic Site, a Cultural Landmark, and one of the few buildings to successfully combine Spanish Colonial Revival, Art Deco, and Streamline Moderne styles. A committee of architects participated in the creation of Union Station, with John and Donald Parkinson as the consulting architects. The landscape architect was Tommy Tomson. Built with the cooperation of the region’s three principal railroads, the Union Pacific, the Southern Pacific, and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroads, it was the transportation gateway into Los Angeles years before there was an LAX. The 1940s saw the heyday of the railroad era, as movie stars and GIs alike arrived in or left this city through the station’s platforms. Our walking tour takes us back to that glorious time as we arrive by the Metro Red Line and meet our tour guide from the Los Angeles Conservancy. The tour includes an interior visit to the famed Fred Harvey Restaurant, closed to the public for nearly twenty-five years, and the new East Portal area. Nearby to Union Station (across Alameda Blvd.) is the Olvera Street Mexican marketplace and the Avila Adobe. If you continue north on Alameda, take a left on Ord, and right on North Broadway, you’ll be in Chinatown.