Subway Terminal Building

Last updated
Subway Terminal Building
SubwayTerminalBldg.1.jpg
Subway Terminal Building, 2008
General information
Location417, 415, 425 S. Hill St.,
416, 420 424 S. Olive St
Los Angeles, California
Coordinates 34°03′00″N118°15′03″W / 34.0498689°N 118.2509694°W / 34.0498689; -118.2509694
Tracks5 (subway)
History
OpenedDecember 1, 1925 (December 1, 1925)
ClosedJune 19, 1955 (June 19, 1955)
Former services
Preceding station PE Bolt.svg Pacific Electric Following station
Subway Terminal
Edendale Glendale–Burbank Terminus
Sunset Junction
towards San Fernando
San Fernando
Sunset Junction Hollywood
Sunset Junction
towards Canoga Park
Owensmouth
Sunset Junction Sherman
Hill Street station
Vineyard
towards Santa Monica
Westgate Terminus
Sawtelle
Vineyard
towards Rustic Canyon
Venice Short Line
Vineyard
towards Clifton
Redondo Beach via Playa del Rey
Subway Terminal Building
Architectural style Italian Renaissance Revival
NRHP reference No. 06000657
LAHCM No.177
Significant dates
Added to NRHPAugust 2, 2006
Designated LAHCMJuly 27, 1977
Track layout
Surface
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Source [1]

The historic Subway Terminal, now Metro 417, opened in 1925 at 417 South Hill Street near Pershing Square, in the core of Los Angeles as the second, main train station of the Pacific Electric Railway; it served passengers boarding trains for the west and north of Southern California through a mile-long shortcut under Bunker Hill popularly called the "Hollywood Subway," but officially known as the Belmont Tunnel. The station served alongside the Pacific Electric Building at 6th & Main, which opened in 1905 to serve lines to the south and east. The Subway Terminal was designed by Schultze and Weaver in an Italian Renaissance Revival style, and the station itself lay underground below offices of the upper floors, since repurposed into the Metro 417 luxury apartments. When the underground Red Line was built, the new Pershing Square station was cut north under Hill Street alongside the Terminal building, divided from the Subway's east end by just a retaining wall. At its peak in the 20th century, the Subway Terminal served upwards of 20 million passengers a year.

Contents

History

Hill Street Station, c. 1924 Hill Street electric car station.jpg
Hill Street Station, c.1924

Hill Street Station

The site was established as Hill Street Station, the downtown terminus of the Los Angeles Pacific Railroad. [2] Pacific Electric acquired the property along with the railroad's other assets in the Great Merger of 1911, which saw the consolidation of most of the area's local railways.

Success

As street traffic grew in downtown Los Angeles, the Pacific Electric Railway undertook its most ambitious project, a dedicated right of way into downtown through a tunnel; the first hub, Main Street Station, which served passengers boarding trains to the south and east, was reached by trains sharing the streets.

To loosen traffic congestion that clogged the streets, the California Railroad Commission in 1922 issued Order No. 9928, which called the Pacific Electric to build an electrified tunnel to bypass downtown's busy streets. [3] Plans for the second station for electric trains to the north and west of the region—the “Hollywood Subway”—as the project came to be known, were drafted as early as February 1924, and ground was broken in May of the same year. [3] [4]

After eighteen months of building and $1.25 million spent ($21.7 million adjusted for inflation), the Subway Terminal opened to the public on December 1, 1925. [5] [3]

Passengers boarding a train from an underground platform, c. 1930 Pacific Electric car at Subway Terminal ca1930.jpg
Passengers boarding a train from an underground platform, c.1930

The Belmont Tunnel, under Bunker and Crown hills, led from the station onto the Toluca Electric Substation and Yard at the Beverley viaduct over Glendale Boulevard, near Westlake and Echo Park. It channeled trains through Westlake to all over Hollywood, Westwood, Santa Monica, North Hollywood, Glendale, Burbank, West Hills, and San Fernando. It cut off seven miles (11 km) or more off similar journeys on rails running along Alameda Street and Exposition Boulevard, which led trains to the other electric train terminal and headquarters, the Pacific Electric Building, from the south and east of Southern California.

Thirty-one feet below Hill Street, the Subway Terminal underground enclosed six platforms, the tower where engineers fetched their schedules, and overhead electric cables that powered the trains. The station lay underneath a waiting room and concessions in a mezzanine level, ticketing and retail shops on the ground floor, and business offices on the upper floors. The station was built in unfinished concrete and fitted with art deco lamps. The mezzanine's waiting room was trimmed in terra cotta tiles and hosted at least one soda fountain and a newspaper stand. On the ground floor, to the back where passages went down to the mezzanine level, columns and recessed ceilings were finished in Italianate styled terra cotta, and front lobbies boasted marble floors and columns, and skylights, in a grand style.

The Subway was widely met with success, as it rivaled Main Street Station as the busiest in Southern California, from the 1920s to the 1950s. Faster than the automobile and at 6¢ a fare, ridership reached an all-time high during World War II: in 1944, electric trains carried an estimated 65,000 passengers in and out of the Subway Terminal each day, which reckons out to more than 20 million per year. [6]

End of electric rail

Subway Terminal Building from northeast Subway Terminal Building, Los Angeles.JPG
Subway Terminal Building from northeast

After the parent corporation, Southern Pacific Railroad, sold Pacific Electric Railway to a subsidiary of General Motors, trains were replaced with motor buses; Pacific Electric service from the Subway was shut down in 1955. The last electric train to carry passengers, adorned with a banner reading To Oblivion, left the Belmont Tunnel on the morning of June 19, 1955. [6] Shortly thereafter, Southern Pacific lifted the tracks from the yard and tunnel, shut up the Subway Terminal, disconnected the Toluca Electric Substation, and abandoned the properties. [6] [7]

Office building

Entrance to Subway Terminal Building before the current owners stripped layers of paint covering the stone. Entrance to Subway Terminal Building.jpg
Entrance to Subway Terminal Building before the current owners stripped layers of paint covering the stone.

The upper floors of the Subway Terminal remained as an office building for many years. The tunnel below remained unbreached along its whole length until December 1967, when part of the tunnel under Flower Street was filled in. [6] In 1974, a piling for the Bonaventure Hotel was built through the spot. The tunnel could be spied from the bottom level of the hotel's parking garage, which became an entrance into the eastern half of the tunnel for daring graffiti artists.

When the Metro B (formerly Red) Line was built underground, the Pershing Square station, running north and south under Hill Street, was built at the east end of the old train station, whose tracks ran to the west. The two stations, together forming the shape of a ‘T’, are separated by the eastern wall of the old station.

Conversion to Metro 417

In 2007, the Subway Terminal Building, Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #177, was renovated into Metro 417, a luxury apartment building owned by Forest City and built by Swinerton Builders. Concerns were raised for the historic Florentine exterior when a 76-story skyscraper, Park Fifth, was initially proposed on the former site of the Philharmonic Auditorium behind the building. In 2014, the new owner, San Francisco real estate investment firm MacFarlane Partners, announced that the Park Fifth development was going ahead with 650 units in a high-rise apartment building instead. In 2020, an outdoor paseo (path) was built between the new complex and the Metro 417 apartments with tables, chairs, and lighting, preserving the historical setting of Metro 417. [8]

The developers of Metro 417 have exposed the natural stone exterior, stripping off layers of paint. They restored the lobbies to their original showcase conditions in marble and brass and have curated the historic terra cotta trim of the intermediate spaces. The passenger ramps to the train station underground have been dismantled; the station itself has been shut off from the access tunnel and tower by a block curtain wall and is separated from the Pershing Square station by a single structural barrier.

See also

Related Research Articles

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The Pacific Electric Railway Company, nicknamed the Red Cars, was a privately owned mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars, interurban cars, and buses and was the largest electric railway system in the world in the 1920s. Organized around the city centers of Los Angeles and San Bernardino, it connected cities in Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Bernardino County and Riverside County.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">B Line (Los Angeles Metro)</span> Rapid transit line in Los Angeles, California

The B Line is a fully underground 14.7 mi (23.7 km) rapid transit line operating in Los Angeles, running between North Hollywood and Downtown Los Angeles. It is one of six lines in the Los Angeles Metro Rail system, operated by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Built in four stages between 1986 and 2000, the line cost $4.5 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pacific Electric Building</span> Historic building in Los Angeles, California

The historic Pacific Electric Building, opened in 1905 in the core of Los Angeles as the main train station for the Pacific Electric Railway, as well as the company's headquarters; Main Street Station served passengers boarding trains for the south and east of Southern California. The building was designed by architect Thornton Fitzhugh. Though not the tallest in Los Angeles, its ten floors enclosed the greatest number of square feet in any building west of Chicago for many decades. Above the train station, covering the lower floors, were five floors of offices; and in the top three was the Jonathan Club, one of the city's leading businessmen's clubs introduced by magnates from the Northeast. After the “Great Merger” of Pacific Electric into Southern Pacific Railroad in 1911, the PE Building became the home of Southern Pacific in Los Angeles. In 1925, a second electric rail hub, the Subway Terminal, was opened near Pershing Square to serve the north and west.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hollywood Subway</span> Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument

The Hollywood Subway, as it is most commonly known, officially the Belmont Tunnel, was a subway tunnel used by the interurban streetcars of the Pacific Electric Railway. It ran from its northwest entrance in today's Westlake district to the Subway Terminal Building, in the Historic Core, the business and commercial center of Los Angeles from around the 1910s through the 1950s. The Subway Terminal was one of the Pacific Electric Railway’s two main hubs, the other being the Pacific Electric Building at 6th and Main. Numerous lines proceeded from the San Fernando Valley, Glendale, Santa Monica and Hollywood into the tunnel in Westlake and traveled southeast under Crown and Bunker Hill towards the Subway Terminal.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Hollywood–Sherman Line</span> Pacific Electric street car line (1896–1953)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western and Franklin Avenue Line</span> Former streetcar route in Los Angeles, California

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Echo Park Avenue Line</span> Pacific Electric streetcar line (1899–1950)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venice Boulevard Line</span> Pacific Electric streetcar route (1896–1950)

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Hill Street Tunnel referred to a series of rail and road tunnels in Los Angeles, California. Initially constructed to bypass the grades of the street's namesake Bunker Hill, one bore of the dual-bore tunnel served as the roadway of Hill Street while the other facilitated streetcars and interurban trains via a double track dual-gauge railway. One tunnel ran between Temple and 1st Streets.

References

  1. "Interurbans Special 60: Lines of The Pacific Electric Southern & Western Districts" (PDF). Glendale, CA: Interurbans. 1975. pp. 16–17. OCLC   2119913 . Retrieved 31 August 2021.
  2. "Interurbans Special 60: Lines of The Pacific Electric Southern & Western Districts" (PDF). Glendale, CA: Interurbans. 1975. p. 9. OCLC   2119913 . Retrieved 31 August 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 "Pacific Electric Hollywood Subway". Electric Railway Historical Association of Southern California.
  4. Elliot, Clifford A. (September 6, 1924). "Tunnel Digging Is Begun in Los Angeles: The Hollywood-Glendale-San Fernando Valley tunnel will eliminate 1,000 daily car movements from streets in the congested district. An expenditure of approximately $3,500,000 is planned. The length will be 5,025 ft". Electric Railway Journal. 64 (10): 349–351. Other versions via Internet Archive.
  5. "What Was and What is in Trolley Travel: Fete Marks Subway Opening Pacific Electric Bore Hailed as Start of New Era When First Train Moves New Electric Tunnel Opens". Los Angeles Times . December 1, 1925. p. A1. Lock-green.svg
  6. 1 2 3 4 "Pacific Electric Subway Terminal". Electric Railway Historical Association of Southern California.
  7. "Streetcar Tunnel Will Cease Service Sunday: Mile-Long Bore's 30-Year Career Doomed by New Bus Line to Glendale and Burbank". Los Angeles Times . June 17, 1955. p. 6 via Newspapers.com. Lock-green.svg
  8. Vincent, Roger (October 23, 2014). "Park Fifth development to fill in missing piece in downtown L.A." Los Angeles Times .

Further reading