Union Station Walking Tour
The Union Station tour covers architecture, art, culture, and social history as it celebrates one of the great landmarks of Los Angeles, the 1939 Union Station.
The grand opening of Union Station was celebrated with a three-day extravaganza attended by nearly half a million people. The station’s monumental architecture, a unique combination of Spanish Colonial Revival and Art Deco styles, assured that it would be one of the most identifiable landmarks in the city. It also turned out to be the last great railway station built in America, constructed as it was near the end of the heyday of rail travel. The vast and extraordinary spaces now serve as station to the city’s Metro Rail lines, and once again tens of thousands of people course through the building every day.
In the mid-1990s, an intermodal transit center and 28-story office tower was added on the east side of Union Station. These additions draw on the 1939 station for inspiration, interpreting the vast spaces and southwestern colors in a new way, and incorporating the work of many different artists as part of the public spaces.
Places to visit:
Exterior
Ticket concourse
Main waiting room
North and south patios
Fred Harvey Restaurant *
Train platforms
East portal transit center
MTA building
(*Interiors visited, subject to availability)
Tour Organizer: The Los Angeles Conservancy – (213) 623-2489 – info@laconservancy.org
Tour Schedule: Third Saturday of every month
Start time: 10:00 am
Length: 2-1/2 hours
Distance covered: About 1-1/2 miles total walking
Meeting Location: Union Station, 800 N. Alameda Street. Tour meets in the Alameda Street entrance lobby, near the information counter.
