little tokyo gold line station cover-up
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Little Tokyo’s new Gold Line station, part of Metro’s Eastside Extension project, is shaping up with the addition of artfully functional canopies to shield future train riders from the rain and cold burning hot LA sun. Progress has been been steady since angelenic explored the Gold Line project last year.
Just a block away from the heart of historic Little Tokyo, the station will provide a vital link for commuters from Eastside communities into Downtown, and the throngs of visitors coming in on the Gold Line should provide a much-needed boost to Little Tokyo businesses, museums and hotels.
The six-mile route from Union Station to East Los Angeles recently passed the 80% complete mark and is ahead of schedule for its late-2009 debut.
In addition to the canopies in the shape of Japanese archery bows and a platform paved to resemble a tatami mat, landscape designs by Ted Tokio Tanaka Architects bring sakura (cherry blossom trees), widened sidewalks and the ever-present palm trees to an industrial stretch of Alameda Street bounded by the 101 Freeway, ghastly civic buildings, loading docks and parking lots.
One of those lots will eventually be replaced with the Nikkei Center, a mixed-use project to rise adjacent to the station. New renderings and a picture of how the project’s scale would impact the area were released last month.
-construction coverage: gold line eastside extension (angelenic)
-Metro.net/Eastside
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6 comments
I can’t tell from the rendering, but is the widened sidewalk next to the street or is the sidewalk placed in the INTERIOR of the lot away from traffic? IOW, will the Gold Line tracks act as a shield from the street between the sidewalk and the street? I can’t tell from the rendering.
cute cute cute!
Brig: You know, that’s a good question, but I think the palm trees in the rendering are facing the street, to kind of mirror the other side of Alameda which is lined with palms. I’d rather the cherry blossoms be on the street side though.
Also, I don’t see how they’d widen the sidewalks on the street side enough without taking a lane from Alameda, which is highly unlikely.
That’s what I thought, but I was also hoping that “the powers that be” would be audacious enough to widen the sidewalks and take away a lane from Alameda and have the Cherry Blossoms face the street. hehe
Palm trees and cherry blossoms. Interesting combination.
Meaningless trivia: Cherry blossoms are called sakura in Japanese.
The rendering shows a view to the north. The sidewalks are on the interior, shielded from the street by the raised platform. The Gold Line ROW and widened sidewalk were taken from the existing parking lots, not from Alameda. Fyi this portion of Alameda will be sunk to pass under 1st or Temple Streets if the Downtown Regional Connector is built.
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