Oscars at Union Station, Los Angeles

Really cool that the American Academy of Motion Pictures used Los Angeles Union Station as one of the "sets" for the Academy Awards ("The Oscars Roll Out the Red Carpet—at a Train Station," Wall Street Journal).  

Union Station is an art deco era station that is absolutely gorgeous, with most of its period features still intact, including fabulous art deco waiting room furniture.

The station is owned by the LA MTA, which has its headquarters nearby.  The station has subway connections, is the hub for the Metrolink commuter railroad system, Amtrak, and inter city bus services, and local transit buses too.  It has a nice bicycle station too, run by the Santa Monica Bike Center as part of the MTA Bike Hub program.

Unfortunately, the station isn't located in the center of Downtown, more on the outskirts, so it doesn't have the capacity to support retail and restaurants in the same way that major train stations on the east coast, like Penn Station and Grand Central Station in NYC, 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, Union Station in DC, North and South Stations in Boston, or European train stations, etc, even though it serves 100,000 commuters per day, the same throughput as DC's Union Station, but which is much more active, and somewhat more centrally located.

The newly restored ceiling in the historic ticket concourse at Union Station. 

Photo: Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times

Union Station has been undergoing renovation ("At 80, Union Station tries to reinvent itself for a rail future," "Art in L.A.’s Union Station has been hidden for decades. Now it prepares for an Oscar debut," Los Angeles Times) and at least the last time I was there, had an exhibit on the renovation process.

The use of the station for the Oscars is a great example of the ability to better utilize railroad stations as part of community cultural life.