Riordan Calls Subway Station Key to Revival of Hollywood Area

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan led an entourage Tuesday from the fanciful underground subway station at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue up the elevators to the steel and concrete construction site at street level and proclaimed Hollywood’s renaissance once again.

Riordan, the most powerful member of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board, said he is still shocked at the $4.6-billion price of the city’s abbreviated subway system. But “despite it costing so much,” he said, “it’s a great asset for L.A.” The subway is fast, clean and comfortable, he added, and “it’s the future.”

The mayor predicted that the June 24 opening of the last 6.3 miles of subway rail line from Hollywood to North Hollywood will double ridership, which has so far fallen short of projections.

After riding a special Red Line train from the Hollywood and Vine station, Riordan said the subway connecting North Hollywood with downtown should draw commuters weary of the traffic-choked Cahuenga Pass.

Riordan touted Hollywood’s economic revitalization as he watched construction crews working on the $430-million Trizec Hahn retail, entertainment and hotel complex being built above the station. The new 3,300-seat Premiere Theater rising from the construction site will become the home of the Academy Awards show.

The Trizec Hahn project takes place after years of Hollywood decay, as well as more recent disruptions caused by subway construction. In contrast to past years Leron Gubler, president of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, said there is overwhelming support now for the subway. Russ Joyner, the Trizec Hahn project’s general manager, said the MTA’s acquisition of large amounts of property for subway construction provided the opportunity to assemble the land needed for the huge development.

The city is investing $90 million for construction of the Academy Awards theater and the development’s six-level, 3,000-car parking structure.

For the MTA, the opening of rail service to the Highland, Universal City and North Hollywood stations offers a chance to build on the system’s 60,000-passenger boardings each weekday. Riordan predicted that the number would double to 120,000 boardings after these last stations open this summer. (A boarding is a one-way trip. A round-trip is two boardings.)

So far, the subway has failed to live up to MTA’s ridership estimates. Officials had forecast a ridership of 80,000 on weekdays with the opening last summer of the subway from downtown to Hollywood and Vine.

In the late 1980s, planners had predicted as many as 290,000 boardings a day by 2000.

Tom Brissey, a rail transit operations supervisor for the MTA, was operating the train the mayor rode. He expressed confidence that once commuters ride the rails beneath the Santa Monica Mountains at 70 mph they will choose the subway over the freeway. “It’ll be faster and frankly a lot more fun,” he said.

The 17.4-mile ride from North Hollywood to Union Station is expected to take just under half an hour.

Along the way, passengers will encounter a variety of art and architecture at the stations. Maya Emsden, director of the MTA’s Metro Art program, said the Hollywood/Highland Station is a collaboration between architect Dworsky Associates and artist Sheila Klein. The design drew upon such notable landmarks as the nearby Mann’s Chinese Theatre and the Hollywood Bowl.

When passengers enter the station, they will see Klein’s artwork--which uses a grid of theater-style spotlights to project colorful images on the walls.

Architect Doug Dworsky said the train platform with its blue arcs, light-toned walls, terra cotta fixtures and pink column accents has the feel of a Hollywood set.

“We realized to a great extent Hollywood is about fantasy, creation of films is fantasy,” Dworsky said. “One way or another, we wanted the station to be an abstract representation of a kind of Hollywood fantasy.”

Dworsky said he thinks of the station as like the belly of the beast or the belly of a whale--although some people liken it to a space station.

However one views it, Joyner said, the Hollywood/Highland station has “a wonderful Hollywood feel.”