Category Archives: Inside Metro

Art for the Expo Line: The Intimacy of Place by Christofer Dierdorff

Posted by

Art panel above seating area picturing James Achucarro, a boy from the neighborhood, and Soon Cho, owner of Cho Orchids. The reverse side of the panel shows the back and front of their respective heads.

The Intimacy of Place features a sea of faces representing a broad cultural mix of individuals who live and work in the 23rd Street station area. Taking advantage of the double-sided art panel configuration, Dierdorff populated the station with intimate portraits of fronts and backs of heads. His intent is to comment on the nature of public transportation, where people from many walks of life find themselves in close physical proximity with strangers.

The artwork portrays twelve individuals who were photographed in locations that describe their role within the larger community. A variety of professions are represented, including a hat maker, baker,firefighter and mechanic, among others.

Here’s a link to more information about Dierdorff’s work for 23rd Street Station and more photos are after the jump.

Continue reading →

Art for the Orange Line: A glimpse of Stoney Point Park by Lisa Adams

Posted by

The artwork honors the area’s rich history of horse-keeping. This galloping horse imagery was recently translated by Perdomo, the artwork fabricator, into a 27-foot long elliptical glass mosaic artwork.

Lisa Adams’ artwork for Chatsworth Station monumentalizes the Northwest San Fernando Valley’s landscape and equestrian lifestyle in the forms of native flowers and galloping horses. The imagery was recently fabricated by teams of artisans who translated Lisa’s original artworks into the durable materials of porcelain enamel steel and glass mosaic.

(Here’s a link to more information about Lisa’s work for Chatsworth Station.)

There are more images of the artwork after the jump. Continue reading →

Art for the Orange Line Extension: Western Imaginary by Ken Gonzales-Day

Posted by

Bags of glass mosaic pieces created at Perdomo, the artwork fabricator, ready to be assembled into the mosaic artwork. All images courtesy the artist.

Ken Gonzales Day’s artwork presents kaleidoscopic views of native manzanita and oak trees, inviting passengers to find shapes and faces hidden within the patterns at Canoga Station for the Orange Line Extension. These images are currently being translated into two 27-foot long elliptical stone and glass mosaic artworks, which will be embedded into the new concrete platforms being added at the Canoga station. (Here’s a link to more information about Ken.)

There are more photos of the artwork being assembled after the jump.

Continue reading →

California's first multi-modal system & the world's first bus rapid transit station turn 40

Posted by

Bus rapid transit in Los Angeles began with the El Monte Busway, which broke ground 40 years ago this week.

Today BRT in L.A. has expanded to several other transportation corridors, but this is the original, the grand-daddy of them all:  The first multi-modal system in California and the first dedicated BRT station in the world.

While some things have changed (the draft environmental impact statement was only 17 pages long, and the El Monte Busway is now part of Silver Line service), the busway is as popular as ever.

Forty years later, daily ridership has grown from 12,000 to an estimated 40,000 as new terminals are planned for both El Monte and downtown Los Angeles.

The story and images of this historic transit line are up on the Metro Library’s Primary Resources Blog.

50 years ago today: Groundbreaking downtown for the El Monte – Century City Backbone Route

Posted by

Plans for a Westside subway go back — way back.

On January 12, 1962, ground test drilling for the subway portion of the proposed Backbone Route between downtown and yet-to-be-built Century City got underway.

Governor Pat Brown, Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty and Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Chairman Ernest E. Debs were all on hand.

Two weeks later, Beverly Hills Mayor Jack Freeman oversaw groundbreaking for soil tests near Wilshire Boulevard and Linden Drive.

The subway was obviously never constructed, so head on over to the Metro Library’s Primary Resources Blog to find out why — and discover the related nuclear fallout shelter plan and large-capacity helicopters that were on the drawing board as well.

Before TAP: The 1963 vision of smart-card fare collection and rapid transit for L.A.

Posted by

Saturday marks one of the more interesting anniversaries in local transportation history.  Forty-nine years ago this weekend, C.M. Gilliss, Executive Director of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority, outlined his plan for comprehensive rapid transit in L.A. at the downtown Statler-Hilton Hotel.

His vision included individually-coded credit cards, “magic-eye” fare computers, rail cars with 1960s tailfins bound for planned and soon-to-be-built Century City, and a system reaching all the way to Westwood…to be completed by January, 1968.

The fascinating story, complete with rail station and other futuristic renderings, unfolds on the Metro Library’s Primary Resources blog.

Art for the Orange Line: 'Liquid Light, Flowing into the Future' by Sam Erenberg

Posted by

Liquid Light: Flowing into the Future in the process of fabrication; the artist's design is visible on the left and bottom.

Inspired by the sense of possibility around the Roscoe Station, Sam Erenberg sought to incorporate a feeling of forward motion into his artwork.

To convey this Erenberg photographed the area from a moving vehicle at night. His images capture bright streams of light created by traffic lights, brake lights and illuminated signs on major local thoroughfares: Roscoe Boulevard, Canoga Avenue and Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

These images are currently being translated into two 27-foot long elliptical mosaic artworks, which will be embedded into the concrete station platforms. More photos are after the jump and here’s a link to more information about Sam.

Continue reading →

Good afternoon, Los Angeles

Posted by

photo by Steve Hymon/Metro

Good afternoon, Source Readers. I hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend.

We’ll be posting very lightly this week while I catch up on some other work and prepare for the new year.

As for the above photo, it shows a fairly wide swath of Los Angeles County, the area served by Metro. I shot it at sunset on Christmas Day from an overlook on the Angeles Crest Highway, a few miles up the road from La Canada-Flintridge. That’s downtown L.A. in the foreground, then the Palos Verdes Peninsula and then Catalina Island. That’s a view of more than 50 miles — not bad for Southern California.

Art for the Orange Line: Strati by Anne Marie Karlsen

Posted by

Digital rendering of Nordhoff Station, featuring 27-foot long mosaic ellipses embedded in the concrete platforms and 20-foot porcelain enamel art panels.

The Orange Line Extension to Chatsworth is fast approaching and so is new art!

Here’s a peek at the work of Anne Marie Karlsen, who designed two mosaic paving designs and two art panels for Nordhoff Station. The photographs below focus on the mosaic element.

Anne Marie was inspired by the surrounding residential and natural landscape, including the landmark Stoney Point in Chatsworth. She approached the station platform as an outdoor living room, creating wallpaper-like porcelain enamel steel art panels alongside the platform seating areas, and glass and stone mosaic paving patterns designed to read like cozy ellipse-shaped area rugs. The title, Strati, refers to the geologic stratification and formation of the rocks in the northwest San Fernando Valley. (Here’s a link to more information about Anne Marie.)

Detail of strati.

Continue reading →

Art for the Orange Line: Owensmouth/Canoga Park by Margaret Lazzari

Posted by

Teams of SICIS artisans piece together mosaic artwork paving designs for Sherman Way Station.

Margaret Lazzari’s designs for Sherman Way Station on the Orange Line Extension includes two, 27-foot long maps that will be embedded into concrete platforms.

A mosaic map and a porcelain mosaic art panel will be displayed alongside station seating.

The west platform will house a map of 1910 era Owensmouth, with a free-flowing Los Angeles River and an undeveloped natural landscape. An adjacent art panel will depict a collection of native plants that once grew alongside the river.

The east platform will include a map of the same section of river 40 years later, in the city re-named Canoga Park. The river has been channelized and is integrated into a growing geometry of housing tracts. Agricultural production has become a powerful industry. Fruit trees replace native plants in the art panel imagery.

Each piece of glass and stone mosaic is hand-placed.

Lazzari hopes riders will make a connection between the physicality of their foot travel and the area’s deeply embedded topographical and ecological history.

The completed mosaic maps are ready to be crated and transported to the job site.

More Art for the Orange Line: Artists discuss station designs