From the archives: With smog, without buildings

Hollywood Freeway with few cars and fewer buildings at Vermont.

Okay, we know from the photo ID that this bus is coming in from a turnout at Vermont, heading west/north on a Hollywood Freeway shockingly free of cars and structures. What we don’t know is when. Anyone have a guess? (The cars should be a clue.) The only thing that looks familiar is the smog. See the original photo and many others on the Metro Library and Archive Flickr site.

Dedication of memorial wall held at Evergreen Cemetery

An interfaith service was held Monday morning as part of a dedication of a memorial wall at Evergreen Cemetery. Photo credit: Juan Ocampo

There was a fairly sizable ceremony held today at Evergreen Cemetery to dedicate a memorial wall for remains of immigrants found during construction of the Eastside Gold Line Extension.

The remains were first discovered in June 2005 at First and Lorena streets in Boyle Heights. Construction was halted and ultimately archeologists identified 174 burial sites, along with many artifacts dating back to the 1880s. The remains will be reburied in Evergreen Cemetery.

A press release with many details on the history of the area is posted after the jump.
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From the archives: rapid reality

Rapid Transit -- A 1964 Reality

Plucked from the fabulous Metro Library coffers, this cover page from “Rapid Transit – A Reality” shows a proposed ultramodern train on its way to Century City, as well as an ambitious list of other hot spots — all scheduled for completion by July, 1968.

The document was part of a 1963 presentation.  Accompanying maps show several lines crisscrossing L.A. County in a pattern strikingly similar to the modern Metro Rail system, including lines from downtown to Long Beach, the Eastside, North Hollywood and — still a dream in our modern world — the Westside, including Century City and Westwood.

The document also notes, “With the accomplishment of the complete freeway system by 1980 and the completion of a mass rapid transit system to assist the freeways in the congested core area, the Los Angeles commuter could take less time in getting home from work in 1980 than he does right now.”

Hmm.

From the archives: women and trains

Woman with special Los Angeles Railway car for WWII Bond Drive.

A female conductor, called a “conductorette” in the attached vintage caption, poses on Spring Street in downtown L.A. with a special Los Angeles Railway Car decorated for a WW II bond drive. Note the Hall of Records behind on the left and the Hall of Justice on the right. Some things haven’t changed. But gratefully “conductorettes” are out and Metro operators — 55 females, at last count — are in. This photo was taken in the early 1940s.

From the archives: boring but not dull

Eastside tunnel boring machine.

My how times flies when you’re under construction. Not really. But in this case, it’s surprising to note that it was just four years ago (Feb. 23, 2006) that tunneling began on the Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension. In a relatively short period of time, two tunnel boring machines dug out 1.7 miles of earth between Union Station and Boyle Heights and the entire 6-mile extension from Union Station east to Atlantic Boulevard was built. The underground tunnel segment was required because of the narrow streets in Boyle Heights. And now we have a brand new line, two beautiful underground stations at Mariachi Plaza and Soto and all kinds of great budget restaurants that are easy to acess via mass transit.

From the archives: Success dress

Man at Division 3 mirror: 1930s.

Casual Fridays on the Los Angeles Railway? Not during the 1930s, as shown by an employee gazing at a Division 3 mirror marked with uniform and personal care directives: “Clean Shave, White Colar, Shoes Shined, Pants Cleaned and Pressed.” Metro operators today also have strict uniform requirements that do not include casual Friday wear but do include some variance in dress with rigorous standards remembered. Still, they must wear regulation pants, shirts or blouses, hats, sanctioned sweaters or jackets, dark socks or stockings, ties and shined shoes. All of this adds up to the well dressed man or woman … important for business, even in 21st century casual California.

From the archives: subways of L.A.

School children on last subway ride, 1955.

Better late than never to celebrate an anniversary: On Jan. 30, 1993 the first segment of the Metro Red Line opened carrying passengers 4.4 miles between Union Station and Westlake/MacArthur Park … to Langer’s Deli for some of the best pastrami in town. (The full Red Line opened to North Hollywood in 2000.) At the end of the first year, ridership — even on this small portion — was already 18,000 boardings a day. That’s pretty good, even compared with the Red Line’s current 140,000 average weekday boardings. This initial segment was LA’s first modern subway. It was not, however, the city’s first subway.

That would be the so-called Hollywood Subway, which never quite made it to Hollywood but did allow streetcars to bypass downtown traffic by entering a portal near Glendale Boulevard to a terminus at Hill and 4th streets.

The Hollywood Subway was to be the first of several underground electric trains that would help commuters escape what city planners warned was the inevitability of massive traffic problems. The Hollywood Subway opened on Nov. 30, 1925 and ran until L.A.’s inner-city rail began closing. In this photo, school children take a last ride in a Pacific Electric car to the Hollywood Subway terminal in 1955. The train may be gone but despite our many earthquakes, the tunnel still stands.

From the archives: L.A. transit meets ‘The Book of Eli’

1961 New Proposed Backbone Route Plan with Fallout Shelters

Move over “Avatar,” “The Road” and “The Book of Eli.” When it comes to contemplating the demise of civilization, L.A. transit is way ahead of you with a subway plan including stations that double as fallout shelters.

L.A’s 1961 New Proposed Backbone Route Plan, which outlined elevated rail from El Monte to downtown and a subway from downtown to Century City, was to be 22.7 miles total, with 12 miles of subway along Wilshire Boulevard. The projected construction cost of $192 million would have been a huge investment in those days but the fallout shelter stations must have seemed worthy of the dollars — certainly reflecting the angst of the time. Maybe our time, too, if recent movie themes are any indication.

Public groundbreaking ceremonies for the Backbone Route Plan were held in 1962 in downtown Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, although no capital funding became available to begin construction. Here’s a segment of the rendering with a few details of the Wilshire corridor fallout shelter. Curiously, there appears to be only one entrance near Alvarado Street. Was that entrance to be limited to transit devotees in the know? (Not a bad idea.) Or maybe each of the diamond shapes on the plan was supposed to be an entrance. Does anyone out there remember what the deal was?

Here’s a link to the entire image, for greater detail and scope.

From the archives: Angels Flight turns 108 while waiting to reopen

Angels Flight with observation tower, as originally built.

Almost overlooked because of the holidays was the 108th birthday last Thursday for Angels Flight, the tiny cable railway opened in 1901 to shuttle passengers from L.A.’s central business district up the steep hill to the posh Bunker Hill residences above. Angels Flight ferried riders between Third and Hill and Third and Olive streets for more than 60 years until it was closed and dismantled in 1969 to make way for redevelopment of what had become a rundown area into a place of high-rise condos, museums and offices. Angels Flight was repositioned to its current spot a half block south of the original location and reopened as a tourist attraction on Feb. 24, 1996. But following a fatal accident in 2001 it closed again for investigations and subsequent redesign.

Following years of testing and a string of “opening soon” announcements, Angels Flight may actually be getting close to receiving riders again. The mechanical and electrical systems have been repaired and the train awaits clearance from the California Public Utilities Commission, according to officials at both the L.A. Community Redevelopment Agency and Angels Flight Railway, the nonprofit group overseeing the restoration. Once that happens, the historic railway can begin operation.

Flickr has the Angels Flight story in a great little slideshow, courtesy of Metro’s ever busy library. And Twitter has opening updates at www.twitter.com/angelsflight.