To celebrate the 75th anniversary of Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal, Angel City Press releases the first book that captures not only the majesty and graciousness of Union Station, but chronicles its phenomenal history. Los Angeles Union Station: Tracks to the Future by William Bradley is the definitive history of the West Coast's landmark train station.
Author William Bradley relates rich details of fierce battles, cultural relocation, and astounding financial risks, all culminating in one of California's most important histories. Augmenting his words with vintage black-and-white and astounding color images, Bradley not only shares the tale of the terminal, but of the trains that rode its tracks. An expert on California railroads, Bradley tells of the Santa Fe, Southern Pacific, and Union Pacific trains that shaped the story of Los Angeles's first Union Station. He illustrates Union Station's many never-before-published images of the trains that traveled those Tracks to the Future.
Los Angeles begins its celebration May 3, 2014.
Los Angeles Union Station--opened on May 7, 1939, after days of downtown festivities--was the last great train station built in the United States. Intended as a grand portal to a grand Los Angeles, it was an anomaly, built at a time when America was eager to drive or fly to its chosen destinations. And yet, Union Station survived and became a symbol of its city.
Protected by early inclusion on the National Registry of Historic Places for its iconic architecture, Los Angeles Union Station has had an astonishing and unpredictable rebirth. As the city modernizes its public transportation system linking the culturally and geographically diverse communities of Southern California, Union Station--in all its Mission Revival glory--is suddenly the hub of the country's newest light rail and subway system, serving hundreds of thousands of people each week.
Where Pullman cars and Harvey Girls once served commuters, where the Super Chief and the Coast Starlight, Streamliners, and Domeliners converged, Los Angeles Union Station is now a living-breathing center of transportation modernity. Author William Bradley chronicles the story from inception to the modern day, with a look to the future of public transportation in Los Angeles.
William Bradley is a native of upstate New York. After graduating from Syracuse University with a degree in public communications, he migrated to a place he always found fascinating: Southern California. There, working for a small publisher of railroad books, he had the opportunity to absorb the history and lore of railroading. He has written two other books: The Last of the Great Stations and Commercial Los Angeles: Photographs from the "Dick" Whittington Collection.
