Long before L.A. Metro built the current subway system it operates, there was another subway that was serving the City of Night, operated by Pacific Electric. The Hollywood Subway, as it was called, had its terminus at 417 South Hill Street, at the Subway Terminal Building (now known as Metro 417). You read that right - there used to be another subway in Downtown!
Amazingly, most Angelenos today probably don't know that there used to be an impressive mass transit system in place in Los Angeles during the first half of the 20th century. Pacific Electric Railcars hurried up and down city streets, and helped connect an ever-growing urban sprawl. Public support was high for a subway - much like it was decades later, in the 1980s, before the development of the current Metro subway lines - and Pacific Electric answered the call.
The Subway Terminal Building was designed by Leonard Shultze and S. Fullerton Weaver in an Italian Renaissance Revival style, and opened along with the new subway on November 30, 1925. The building stood 12 floors, contained 600 offices, and was constructed with over 6,000 tons of steel, more than any other building in Los Angeles at that time.
The Subway Terminal Corporation, formed by some of L.A.'s most prominent citizens, worked directly with PE to fund the underground work, as well as the construction of the terminal. In all, the corporation paid over $1.1 million for the project, which was built at a rapid pace of 16 hour workdays over a single year.
The subway was officially L.A.'s first, a double-track, mile-long stretch from Beverly & Glendale Blvds (where today's Belmont Station Apartments stand) to South Hill Street. Pacific Electric had been ordered to build the subway by the California Railroad Commission under Order No. 9928, in an effort to reduce car traffic in the budding metropolis. Ultimately, of course, cars became all the rage, and the PE essentially disappeared, removing lines and effectively abandoning the Hollywood Subway. The last regular car exited the subterranean tunnel on Sunday, June 19, 1955, carrying the head-sign "To Oblivion." The subway remained untouched and unused until December 1967, when a portion from Flower to Figueroa was filled in with concrete because it was deemed "unsafe." Tours of the surviving portion of the subway were carried out for years, but were discontinued in 2012.
The Subway Terminal Building was used for many years as an office building, and was briefly considered for demolition in the early 2000s to make way for a new project dubbed Park Fifth. Fortunately, plans for the new development were rejected, and the historic building remained. Today, it's called Metro 417, and has been refurbished into luxury apartments. It sits right next to L.A.'s second subway, the Metro Red Line, and is literally across the street from the Pershing Square Station.
Map detailing the Hollywood Subway route.
Subway tunnel construction, 1925.
In the 1920s, the letter "U" apparently had not yet been invented.
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