Link: Purple Line in puberty | MetroRiderLA
Purple Line in puberty
Contributed by Wad on July 13th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Solair at Wilshire/Western Station
Images are by Yours Truly, shot for the anniversary. They can be seen on the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool.
It was today — July 13, 1996 — when the subway had been extended to Wilshire/Vermont, Wilshire/Normandie and Wilshire/Western stations. Back then, it had been known as the Red Line. Today, it is the same service but known as the Purple Line.
Koreatown has now had subway service for 13 years now. The definitive subway birthday story is my MetroRiderLA piece from 2006, its 10th birthday.
As the subway grew, so has the city. The Solair complex has finished construction atop the Wilshire/Western station, and the Wilshire/Vermont complex has a bustling retail hub around the subway station. The Summit on Sixth, a converted office building, is also open. The Wilshire/Normandie station remains mostly the same, though pretty much all trace of the Ambassador Hotel is now gone.
The best news, though, was from last November, with the passage of Measure R. It would reduce the importance of Koreatown as merely a branch of the busier Red Line, and raise it to the Wilshire trunk line it was meant to be.
Mid-July is also the birthday for the Green Line, which would now be 14, and the oldest of the siblings, the Blue Line, is 19 years young.
Two-car Purple Line train
Metro only ran two-car trains to Wilshire/Western during the midday on July 13.
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