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A Rough Road to Gold: Part 3

Part 3 of 4: Eight new stations merge mass transit with cultural awareness.

By Paul Aranda Jr., EGP Staff Writer

When the plans to bring the Gold Line into East Los Angeles began to take shape, County Supervisor Gloria Molina pushed Metro to partner with the communities along the route. To meet this request, Metro hired an East Los Angeles based-firm as lead architect and commissioned local artists to create pieces for display at each station along the six-mile project. The end result is a mass transit system that does more than simply transports people from one destination to another. According to Frank Villalobos, whose firm Barrio Planners served as lead architect for the project, the eight stations serve as windows into each community.

The biggest such window may be the one at the northwest corner of 1st and Bailey streets in Boyle Heights, where passengers will experience a closer look at the community’s mariachi tradition. The Mariachi Plaza Station was designed to enhance the site’s traditional “quiosco,” a gift from the Mexican state of Jalisco. Across the street sits the Cummings Building more traditionally known as the Boyle Hotel, or Mariachi Hotel.

For Villalobos, the idea behind the design for each station was to move beyond the physical elements of the surrounding areas and into the social elements.

“Each of the stations is a cultural layout,” Villalobos said. “They build on the relationships between the people and the community.”

With that goal in mind, Mariachi Plaza was designed to functions as more than a train station. Villalobos calls the “flagship station” a future entertainment center for Boyle Heights. Trees and benches were added to create a public space for passengers and residents to gather and listen to the music as local mariachis strum their instruments as they have done in the area since the 1930’s. The Mariachi theme is directly influenced in the physical design elements, including the station’s main canopy built in the shape of the fans used by Mexican folkloric dancers. A bird’s eye view of the plaza further reveals the shape of a folkloric dancer’s dress.

Local artist, Alejandro de la Loza created a bronze statue of a mother and child over the station’s entrance. The plaza features a granite and bronze mural at the performance stage, and a floor medallion by the elevators. Carved stone, bronze and granite artworks are located at key landing and mezzanine areas.

For Villalobos, the Mariachi Plaza Station symbolizes his desire to connect the community to the Gold Line, rather than simply have a light rail system divide the Eastside neighborhoods, as the massive freeway systems constructed in the area decades earlier had done.

“Knowing the people is the key,” Villalobos said. “People get a sense of pride when something looks like their neighborhood.”

Further down route, the design of the East Los Angeles Civic Center Station focused on the area’s surrounding natural settings in order to recapture a lost identity for a community too often associated with gang activity, Villalobos said. The station’s bright yellow canopies are intended to reflect a field of California golden poppies. This natural design reflects the park-like elements of the adjacent East Los Angeles Civic Center and the bold colors of the nearby Roybal Comprehensive Health Center.

Artist Clement Hanami incorporated a monumental “looking glass” steel sculpture that overlooks a representation of the solar system depicted on the platform’s concrete paving. The glass is inscribed with a quote from Jaime Escalante, the former math teacher at Garfield High School featured in the 1988 film “Stand and Deliver.”

Villalobos said the Civic Center station is important to East Los Angeles because it is at the core of the most significant redevelopment for the area in decades. Along with the completion of the Civic Center last year, the addition of a Gold Line station “will give our kids a sense of today,” Villalobos said. Nearby, the new Esteban T. Torres High School is set to open in the fall of 2010.
In a way, the design of each station as a reflection of the community where it was placed serves as a healing process for residents and advocates of the long-delayed project.

Barrio Planners faced a unique challenge with The Gold Line Eastside Extension. The Eastside firm was tasked to design a mass transit system for a community many residents felt had historically been overlooked in urban design.

The first task was to outline a route for the system. Villalobos said the route was selected to run parallel to Whittier Boulevard because the Metro bus line 30/31 that services the area has a high ridership.

With a route selected, there were no rail lines on the Eastside to utilize as a right-of-way in the way that the former Salt Lake City railway was used for the Gold Line through Highland Park and into Pasadena. Instead, a grade-level system would be designed to share the roads with vehicle and pedestrian traffic.

Faced with growing resentment from Eastside stakeholders who felt shortchanged with a light-rail system instead of an earlier proposed subway, Metro planners first had to persuade stakeholders that a “street running” system would work.

“They thought of grade-level as not optimal,” said Diego Cardoso. “That is not the case, you don’t need a subway everywhere.”

As the executive director of the MTA Transportation Planning and Development Department, Cardoso oversaw the planning and design of the Eastside Extension. Even with a grade-level system, Metro planners still had to account for the narrow and curvy streets of Boyle Heights. Compounding the problem further, historic buildings that could not be paved over for a transit system were everywhere.

It was decided that the Eastside would get a “subway” after all. The light-rail train would be taken underground through a pair of 1.7-mile-long twin tunnels to connect the route from the First Street Bridge to Lorena Street. Villalobos said that because the Gold Line utilizes an overhead cable system for power instead of the track-based power source used on a heavy rail system, the project was able to circumvent a local ban on utilizing property taxes for subway tunnel projects.
In addition to avoiding major disruption of traffic on the street level, the underground tunnels allow trains to pick up speed to shorten the commute from Union Station to the route’s final stop at Atlantic Boulevard.

From a design standpoint, several other physical barriers existed. The extension had to cross the 101 Freeway, the Los Angeles River and a railroad. In order to move forward, a bridge was constructed to carry the train over the 101 Freeway. The City of Los Angeles’ Department of Transportation removed the historic columns off the First Street Bridge so that it could be widened to allow the train to join vehicle traffic across the river. The Gold Line currently crosses the bridge along with eastbound traffic. Construction on the westbound lanes is currently in progress and is scheduled for completion in 2010. In addition to the new vehicle lanes, the bridge is undergoing a complete seismic retrofit.

The Gold Line Eastside Extension’s first stop is the Little Tokyo/Arts District Station located at the corner of 1st and Alameda streets. The station’s design draws on the local Japanese culture through its canopies constructed to reflect a Zen archery bow. Station seating depicts Zen archery targets. Further down 1st Street, the Gold Line reaches the Pico/Aliso Station. This station was built to link the Pico/Aliso Housing villages built on both sides of the station. This station, and the housing complexes, reflect the “smart growth” concept of building high density housing adjacent to mass transit stations.

The train soon plunges underground to the Mariachi Station and onto the Soto Station located at the corner of 1st Street and Soto Street. Villalobos describes the Soto Station as a “melting pot.” The station features a large continuous spiral design to symbolize the history of Boyle Heights with a path to its future. The train emerges from its underground path at Lorena Street in East Los Angeles and makes its next stop at the Indiana Station, adjacent to the newly constructed Ramona Opportunity High School. Villalobos said stainless steel heads of “Quetzalcoatl,” the Aztec serpent god, creates the illusion of unsafe conditions at the station’s entrance and exit points.

When parishioners of Our Lady of Lourdes Church objected to the installation of a proposed station at Rowan Avenue, Metro moved further down 3rd Street near the King Taco restaurant that had lobbied hard to get the Maravilla Station built next to its East Los Angeles location. The station canopies reflect the architectural features of Our Lady of Lourdes Church.

From there, the train continues down 3rd Street to the East Los Angeles Civic Center Station and onto its final destination, for the moment, the Atlantic Station. The station canopies were constructed as arches that face east, signaling the future expansion of the Gold Line. At night, the canopies are illuminated to light up the East Los Angeles sky with white light.

Villalobos said that this mass transit system utilizes urban design concepts to create a complete public space. An area that extends 500 feet on each side of every station received new sidewalks, signage, furniture, landscaping and street lighting to create a safe well-lit space for passengers.
Metro is currently underway with Phase II of the Gold Line Eastside Extension that will extend the route from Atlantic Station further east. The list of routes has been narrowed down to two. One route will follow the 60 freeway east to South El Monte, while a second proposed route will travel south on Washington Boulevard in Commerce as it heads into Whittier.

For now, the Gold Line will provide residents on the Eastside with an “incredible opportunity,” Cardoso said.

“The people will learn to navigate the city by transit,” Cardoso said. “This system is about the relationships between cities and communities.”

Next week, the conclusion of the four part series will take a look at the Eastside Gold Line’s official opening to the public.

Click here to read Part 1: ‘Years of Funding Fights Result in Above-Ground Light Rail, Instead of Subway.’

Click here to read part 2: It Took a ‘Pueblo’ to Build Eastside Gold Line

Part 4: Gold Line Finally Arrives in East Los Angeles

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