Photo Essay: LA Gets Three New Subway Stations (And An Alphabet Soup of Train Lines)

Yes, Los Angeles has a subway. And it's growing.

The above-ground Expo Line—much of which was built along an old Pacific Electric right-of-way—became the "Subway to the Sea" when it fully opened between Culver City and Santa Monica in 2016. (It's now, however, called the E line.)

The Purple Line Extension will put a subway station about a mile and a half away from where I live sometime in the next three or four years. (The Purple Line has also been renamed the D Line but I haven't fully committed to calling the lines by their letters instead of their colors yet.)

Until then, if I want to ride the subway, I've got to make a special trip.

 

Last weekend, I trekked downtown just to check out three just-opened subway stations that comprise  the Metro Regional Connector project—which allows seamless transit from Long Beach to Azusa and Santa Monica to East Los Angeles along the A and E lines. 

Photo Essay: A Stone Tower Gateway to the 'Riviera of America,' Palos Verdes

Palos Verdes Estates is one of four cities that comprise the Palos Verdes Peninsula in the South Bay region of Los Angeles, California. 

And at the entrance to the city on Vía Valmonte (formerly known as Vía Mirlo), there's a tower that marks its eastern border shared with the City of Torrance: the Mirlo Gate Tower, or the "Tower House."

 

Photo Essay: A Department Store Founder's Cliffside Summer Estate, Now The Neighborhood Church

One hundred years ago—on June 17, 1923—a real estate rally helped form what became known as the development of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, which is now comprised of four cities (Palos Verdes Estates, Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills, and Rolling Hills Estates). 

To celebrate, a bunch of cultural institutions, landmarks, historic sites, and other local attractions threw open their doors to visitors this past weekend, as part of "Doors Open Peninsula." 

 

My second stop of the day turned out to be one of the best: The Neighborhood Church, located in the former Haggarty House on Paseo del Mar in PVE. 

Photo Essay: A Wellness Check on the Old Trapper's Lodge Statues, Slated for Removal from Pierce College

In 2013, I reported on a collection of statues at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, California that had been handmade by amateur sculptor John Ehn. 

A descendent of pioneers, he'd dubbed himself "The Old Trapper" (or "O.T.") and built a motel (or "lodge") in the Sun Valley neighborhood of the San Fernando Valley in 1941.

Ehn had no training besides briefly shadowing Claude Bell (of Knott's Berry Farm/Cabazon Dinosaurs fame)—but he took it upon himself to tell stories of the Old West through his art, using his family members as models to portray scenes from pioneer family life. 

"O.T." died in 1981—and his heirs sold the motel property (or, more accurately, were forced to sell it) to the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority for the expansion of the airport runways. 

The statues were relocated to Pierce College in 1988. 

 

They were always a little bit hard to find—but now they're almost entirely hidden from view. 

Photo Essay: A Spanish Castle for Catholic Priests and Classic Car Enthusiasts in Riverside, California

Images of turrets, drawbridges, and moats might evoke Europe for most people—but Southern California has its fair share of castles, too. 

   

And I'm discovering new ones all the time. 

Photo Essay: May Gray at UCR Botanic Garden, Riverside

May Gray has been the bane of my existence since I first discovered it on a business trip to LA in 2006, while I was still living in New York City and still thought that California was all sunshine and palm trees.

 

 

It was hard adjusting to the gloomy months of late spring and early summer when I first moved to LA in 2011—but now, after more than 12 years, I'm not just getting used to it. 

I'm embracing it. 

Photo Essay: Another LA River Bridge Tries to Unify Two Sides of the Same City

In early 2020, I was working on an article for KCET's SoCal Wanderer that brought me to Rio de Los Angeles State Park—one of three California state parks along the Los Angeles River, this one located in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Cypress Park. 

It’s a project first initiated nearly 30 years ago—and, having opened in 2007, it's now become part of the Los Angeles River Revitalization plan to restore 11 miles of the LA River between Griffith Park and Downtown Los Angeles.

But three years ago, there was no easy way to get from the park, formerly part of the Taylor Yard railyard, to the other side of the river (an area known as Elysian Valley/Frogtown).

That changed last year, when the Taylor Yard car-free bridge opened up in the Glendale Narrows section of the Los Angeles River. 

The Wrigleys' Timeless Gift of Timekeeping on Catalina Island: The Chimes Tower

In my last couple of visits to Catalina Island—the only developed tourist attraction in the Channel Islands archipelago off the coast of California—I've been trying to trace some of the remnants of the Wrigleys' time there.

But for all the looking I've done, there's been another clue to the Wrigley history on the island—and that can be found simply by listening. 

Every 15 minutes, you can hear the Westminster chimes of the Catalina Chimes Tower—a set of "cathedral chimes" (like those found at Westminster Abbey) ringing out from atop a hill. (They originally sounded four times an hour from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. — but now they're only between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.)

circa 2021, with some Photoshop magic

Photo Essay: Catalina Island's Miniature Hollywood Bowl, Abandoned

I first discovered that there were some ruins ripe for exploring on Catalina Island thanks to a KCET video on the former Island Mountain Railway, built by the Banning brothers who owned Catalina Island at the time. (You can watch the video at the bottom of this post.)

The funicular connected the town of Avalon to Pebbly Beach—which was necessary because Pebbly Beach Road hadn't been built yet. 

circa 1914 (Photo: California Historical Society, via USC Digital Libraries) 

I still haven't made it Buena Vista Point—where a Swiss chalet-style power house for the incline railway attracted tourists to Mount Buena Vista Park, at what was also known then as Avalon Summit.

Google Satellite view

There's apparently a concrete foundation and maybe some other rusty ruins left up there. But there's something else that can be seen, farther down the hill, right next to where one of two funicular cars used to run along the west side of the hill: the old Greek-style amphitheater. 

Photo Essay: Sleeping In NYC's Former Home For Shipwrecked Sailors

For my first trip back to NYC in five years, staying with a friend wasn't really an option—so I took the opportunity to stay in the weirdest and most historic hotel I could think of.

It's now a boutique hotel called The Jane, located in the westernmost environs of Greenwich Village, just steps from the East Bank of the Hudson River.

I remember its big reopening in 2008, with much fanfare. It then became a huge nightlife destination, though I don't recall ever drinking or dancing in its Victorian-style "ballroom." 

But my return visit would be very different—sleeping in a hotel room I vaguely knew had been built for sailors and that one of the Titanic survivors might've occupied in 1912.

Of course, it turned out I was actually going in a little blind—because there was so much I didn't know about The Jane. 

You see, it began its life at 507 West Street in 1908 as the American Seamans Friend Society Institute Building—built by the non-sectarian although decidedly religious (and even evangelical) Seamens Institute. 

circa 1909 (The Acts of the Apostles of the Sea, page 69) via Internet Archive Book Images (Public Domain)

According to the 1909 book The Acts of the Apostles of the Sea, the institute—whose president at the time was the Reverend Dr. Charles A. Stoddard—stood as "the largest distributor of the Word of God on the waters." Not only that, the book continues, the society "aided shipwrecked and destitute seamen of every race and nation, fed the hungry, clothed the naked, [and] buried the dead." 

circa July 2022 (Google Street View)