Monuments, Diversity, and Democracy: Union Station

Labeled by historian Leonard Pitt as the “last of the great American railroad stations,” Union Station was built on the site of Old Chinatown on Los Angeles and Alameda Streets. The City destroyed Old Chinatown and uprooted Los Angeles’s burgeoning Chinese community to build the station in the 1930s. Approved by a 1926 city ballot measure, Union Station consolidated the Southern Pacific, Santa Fe and Union Pacific Railroad terminals in one structure. Today the national landmark is used by Amtrak, Metrorail, and Metrolink, and boasts some of the most impressive architecture in the downtown area. Markers in the plaza commemorate Old Chinatown and the Tongva/Gabrielino village of Yangna.

See a 360° panorama of the main hall of Union Station.

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