NORTH HOLLYWOOD : Historic Status Urged for Train Station

For 100 years, a station in North Hollywood served as a freight stop, then a passenger stop on the old Red Car line, and finally as a building supply firm.

Now a group of residents have taken on a formidable task: preserving the structure at 11275 Chandler Blvd. near Lankershim as a historic landmark.

“We’re going to try to get people signing a petition to save this place,” said Sally Jamieson, 59, a retired North Hollywood bank teller. “It’s a cute little place. It’s not dilapidated. It’s not falling apart. We’re trying to get a lot of attention centered on it.”

The property is owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which plans to build a Metro Red Line Subway across the street by the year 2000.

But the would-be preservationists need not fear the MTA, said David Mieger, a spokesman for the agency.

“Our role here is not to destroy it, but look for ways to rehabilitate it,” Mieger said. The MTA has identified the building as being eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, Mieger said.

“It does have historical value and should be preserved,” Mieger said. “We want to work with the community to find a use for it. Maybe a retail or other use for it.”

But the agency has no money to remodel the station, which may be in such poor condition that restoration might be impossible.

“I don’t see any way to preserve the whole thing, totally,” said Guy Weddington McCreary, a North Hollywood historian who calls it the last vintage train station left standing in the Valley. “There’s too much wear and tear.”

The station is the Valley’s oldest, according to McCreary. Efforts are also under way to restore the abandoned Canoga Park station built in 1912.

McCreary said he would like to see the place remodeled into a 1920s-style restaurant. “You may be able to keep one wall of it and put a plaque on it to serve as a symbol,” he said.