I’ve lived in Los Angeles for over three years and never had the urge to step onto the Metro until this past Saturday.  I’m not a fan of public transportation.  Something about cramming into a tiny train car underground and being smashed up against random strangers just doesn’t sit right with me.  That was of course until I learned that under the city of Los Angeles resides not only the metro system but also an entire community of art.  The first Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday of every month, residents of Los Angeles are given the opportunity to meet at designated stations for a complimentary two-hour tour of the Metro Art Program’s featured station exhibits.   The program was founded in 1989 as a means to incorporate art into the Los Angeles transit system with the purpose of beautifying transportation stations and engaging riders with a cultural background of the city.  To date, the program has commissioned over 300 artists for various station projects.  Each station has its own unique imagery, which ties in the local neighborhood aesthetics with the theme of transportation as a whole.

Saturday I woke up early, grabbed a coffee, and headed down to the notoriously bonkers intersection of Hollywood and Highland where I met up with Metro Art volunteer tour guide Morley Helfand.  While waiting for the others to arrive, Morley and I bonded and I learned that he’s an old school Hollywood cat who grew up in the area and attended Hollywood High.  He’s filled with history of the city and has many wacky tales of his time in the city.  He once witnessed a brutal battle between Superman and Spiderman go down outside of Grauman’s Chinese Theater.  He has a love for trains and he carries a giant bag of goodies every time he boards the Metro, which include bungee cords for people who want to tether up their bicycles and cutout trains for the children he encounters.

The tour we jumped on had four stops. Morley herded us through the stations, one-by-one and whipped out his binder to explain to us the history of the underground:

First Stop: Hollywood & Highland Station
Walking into the station, the mezzanine level’s current theme from the rotating artist project is ‘You Are Here And Then You Could Be There.’  It features maps from all over the world from various places/destinations.  As you walk into the waiting area for the train, you enter ‘Underground Girl’ which was created by artist Sheila Klein and installed by Dworsky Associates Architects.  Morley explained that Sheila wanted to create a theme that resembled a very organic and raw backstage section of a theater.  The curves on both of the walls represent an audience and the center sconce around the pillars resembles female figures stacked in a chorus line.  “Backstage you don’t see the glitz and glamour – you only see the utilitarian floors,” explains Morley.

Next stop: Universal City Station
This station had a very elaborate tiled mural by artist Margaret Garcia and Siegel Diamond Architecture titled ‘Tree of Califas.’  In 1847, a treaty was signed at this station site that relinquished control of California from Mexico to the United States.  As Margaret has a Hispanic background, she wanted to tell the story of the people, events, and land of California.  She worked on the tiles at home in her kitchen and used chopsticks to write on each of them.

Morley told us that if you look closely, some of the tiles appear to be cracked and smashed, which was intentionally done with a hammer by Margaret, as she wanted to keep the theme appearing old and antique.  “She figured people needed something to read while waiting for a train and something of substance to look at.”  In addition to the murals, there were Aztec logos all over the wall with a G in the middle for Garcia.  The area of Universal City was traditionally covered in pepper trees.  The aluminum framework in station pillars was built to resemble the trunk of a pepper tree.  There are scarce blue tiles on the ground, which imitate the shadows created from the leaves of the trees.  Upstairs in the station, is a mural of Hollywood with embedded images of popcorn, megaphones, projectors, etc… Morley said the more he looks at it, the more images he is able to make out.

Continuing on to the North Hollywood Station
James Doolin was the station artist on this one with Anne Marie Karlsen as the mural artist and The Tanzmann Associates as the architectural firm.  The area where this station is located used to be filled with fruit groves.  The pillars are a pastel color as if to resemble peach trees.  Around the entire station is a collection of kaleidoscope murals themed around different aspects of North Hollywood history.  One mural highlights the building of track homes.  Another touches on a page of history from 1958’s North Hollywood High School Yearbook.  The many classic diners that used to grace the area were the theme of another mural while a map of Amelia Earhart’s last flight was featured in another.  A tribute to the transportation system and L.A.’s fast-paced lifestyle was in the corner of the station and my favorite mural, which paid homage to a man nicknamed Nudie and his rodeo tailor costume shop, was displayed on an adjacent wall.

And Saving The Best For Last: Hollywood and Vine Station
This was my favorite.  The artist that created this station was Gilbert Lujan (nicknamed Magu) and Adolfo Miralles was the architect.  The ceiling of the station contains over 20,000 actual 35mm film reels that were acquired from an old production studio.  The ground is Magu’s version of the Yellow Brick Road, as MGM has a patent on the original one.  Up the escalator, there are palm trees, a projector screen, and music notes that line the railing and circle throughout the station.  “If you read all the notes, they play Hooray For Hollywood,’” exclaims Morley.  Next to the palm trees are two 1930’s era projectors that were donated by Paramount Pictures.  Magu has also created tiles on the walls that incorporate faces of animals that lived in the area into his impressions of iconic Hollywood symbols.

After leaving the station, I stole a few more moments of Morley’s time in order to soak up a few additional Metro fun facts.  I will leave you with three of Morley’s finest:

-When we traveled from Hollywood and Highland to the Universal City station, we went right through one of the biggest earthquake fault lines in the country.  (AHHH!)  Morley claims we were safer underground than up on the street or in a neighborhood building and for the sake of my sanity during the tour, I decided not to question that.

- There are cameras located throughout the underground Metro Stations.  If you do something illegal, people at the control stations will come over the loud speakers and yell at you.  Morley distinctly remembers being on a tour and hearing a guy being asked to “Put down the hotdog and get off of the stairs!”

- If the art isn’t guarded or surrounded by a barricade in the Metro, you are invited to feel it and “get to know it.”  Morley encouraged us to run our fingers over the murals on the wall and to spend some time bonding with the station art.

For more information on the Metro Art Tour and to view a schedule of events, please visit: www.metro.net/about/art/

Words by Nicole Pajer.  Photos by Dustin Downing.