LOS ANGELES — LA Metro will celebrate the 80th anniversary of the opening of Los Angeles Union Station with events this Friday and Saturday, May 3 and 4.
On Friday, an “opening ceremony” in the station breezeway will kick off events at 12:30 p.m. Two bands — one playing jazz, the other hits from the 1920s to 1950s — will then perform, with the public invited to dance or enjoy the music. Members of the public will also have a chance to play the piano in the station’s passenger concourse. Restaurants located in the station will also serve special menus on Friday and Saturday.
Saturday events begin at 11 a.m., with live performances, arts and crafts, and a kid’s zone from Griffith Park’s Travel Town featuring toy trains and tracks. There will also be food trucks, local artisans, and a display of model train equipment by Del Oro Pacific Model trains.
Live entertainment in the ticket concourse will begin at 3:30 p.m., continuing until 10 p.m., and docents will lead tours highlighting the station’s architectural features.
The station, the largest rail terminal in the western U.S., cost $11 million and opened on May 3, 1939. It was designed by the father-and-son architectural team of John and Donald Parkinson with a blend of Spanish Colonial, Mission Revival, and Art Deco features now known as Mission Modern.
For more complete information on the anniversary events, visit the Union Station website.
Roger Williams hopes that LAUPT’s best years are to come and its future is bright. I do believe that Roger’s fondest dreams have already come true.
Roger, LAUPT now has trains that in its “golden years” nobody could have dreamed of: the San Diegans, the Santa Barbara trains, and Metrolink. Yo’d be hard pressed to find a station anywhere in America that has as much to be proud of.
It is wonderful that this iconic terminal has been preserved for posterity. It is hard to imagine that it only had about 32 years to serve the great western trans-continental streamliners of Southern Pacific,Santa Fe and Union Pacific before the advent of Amtrak. Hopefully, its’ best years are yet to come and its’ future is bright.
Charles Landey, You are correct about the amount of trains that LAUPT now serves,and that is a good thing;but those glorious streamliners from yesteryear will be forever missed,but fondly remembered.
I’d really like to be there, but working in S. Fl., I just can’t make it. I hope all there enjoy it, and the station stays on forever.
Too bad ATSF # 3751 is down for FRA certification, it would be the star of the show this coming weekend