Union Station

How to Get There

Head southeast on W 1st St toward N Main St. Turn left onto N Main St. Turn right onto W Aliso St. Turn left onto N Los Angeles St. Continue straight. Destination will be on the right.

The Station

Los Angeles Union Station (LAUS) is the main railway station in Los Angeles, California, and the largest railroad passenger 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. Conceived on 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 the busiest train station in the Western United States; it is Amtrak's fifth-busiest station, and is the twelfth-busiest train station in the entire country.

Union Station was partially designed by John and Donald Parkinson, the father-and-son architectural firm who had also designed Los Angeles City Hall and other landmark Los Angeles buildings. 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. Even with its grand scale, Union Station is still considered small in comparison to other union stations.

Union Station 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 a short distance away.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Union Station (Los Angeles)", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0