Union Station Plans Once Included a Jet-Age Hub
Los Angeles Examiner / USC Digital Archives
[digitallibrary.usc.edu]
This 1958 plan for a multi-modal hub attached to Union Station would have added bus terminals, a heliport and direct freeway connections.
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Yesterday's announcement that Metro would purchase Los Angeles' historic Union Station for $75 million included talk of making the facility "a world-class 21st century transportation hub."
It's not the first time there have been big plans for Union Station. In 1959, a city committee recommended that the station be renamed the "Union Transportation Terminal" and transformed into a hub for trains, buses and helicopters that would serve 7.5 million passengers annually.
One year earlier, architect J. Edward Martin had presented plans for a $20-million addition to the station. The L.A. Times said that the "super-deluxe depot would weave into one pattern loose strands of existing transport lines now converging on downtown in a crisscross tangle."
The six-story circular structure, partially situated over the existing railroad tracks, would have been "built like a 'sandwich,' with heliport and control tower on the roof and passenger concourses, long-haul bus terminals and commuter surface-line interchanges on lower levels."
The heliport was considered to be especially important in the dawn of the jet age. "Huge passenger planes will be forced to land at outlying sky harbors more spacious than the Los Angeles International Airport," the Times wrote, and the helicopters would ferry passengers back and forth into the city.
The plan was never to be, though the concept of a Union Station heliport would continue to be studied for another decade.
Rich on February 25, 2011, at 03:47PM – #1
It's amazing the scale of developments proposed (and built) in Downtown LA during that era. Freeways, the Civic Center, Bunker Hill redevelopment, LAX, Dodger Stadium. The utter lack of human scale or regard for what currently exists is equally astounding. In some respects, I like to think we've moved beyond that level of slash-and-burn development, and other times I'm not so convinced.
Karin Liljegren on February 25, 2011, at 06:53PM – #2
Interesting! Rich, you are so right. One good thing in the amazement category though, is that it was amazing such huge projects were actually completed! Today it takes soooo long for the littlest things. I think we're going in the right direction though. As painfully slow as "progress" may take (and drive me crazy), at least people's voices, safety, scale and needs are being weighed so much more. Let's bring on the world class transportation hub!
William Crandell on February 25, 2011, at 10:00PM – #3
Carmel and Laguna Beach are intimate and cutesy-pooh, but I'd not want to live in such places as those. Anyone who does and regularly visits this website should resign, immediately. You hear me?
No cutesy-pooh in DTLA!
Once upon a time I went in for a research interview with old Ed. It was mostly about his father and the early 20th Century years of L.A. architecture. The subject changed to plans for the new cathedral and he suddenly became bug-eyed, asked me if I was a Catholic and I said no. Actually, if I'd told the truth, I would have said that I subscribed to the idea of being a Renegade Catholic Admirer Of Dorothy Day (Google that name). With that I was assaulted by a diatribe that would have put a smile on the face of Francisco Franco (Google that name) and if Roger The First (don't Google that name, Steve Lopez has already told you all about him) had heard it, he'd have flown to Rome and instituted excommunication proceedings. Chris, you should have stayed there and kept him under control!
BobbyD on February 28, 2011, at 10:40PM – #4
In the picture, the long white rectangular white part was to act as a runway for jets to land and take off in a manner new that day with a wire that acted as a brake and a catapult that is common on aircraft carriers of today for jets. There was a drawing in the lobby of city hall explaining the concept in the late 1950s.
Donald Pontus on March 01, 2011, at 01:06PM – #5
Dear BobbyD,
I have to ask this out of sheer curiosity. If planes were meant to take off and land on that white awning-type structure, then why the massive serrations?
Again, not to contradict just not sure how that would work out.
BobbyD on March 29, 2011, at 09:20AM – #6
Donald Pontus: The part you speak of(massive serrations" were not part of the design originally- in the display at city hall. Wherever this picture for this story came from I do not know.