Palms station is a light rail station located on an embankment on the E Line of the Los Angeles Metro Rail system. The station is located over the intersection of National Boulevard and Palms Boulevard in the Palms neighborhood of Los Angeles, after which the station is named.
The Eastlake style Palms-Southern Pacific Railroad Depot building was situated approximately west of the present station, on the south side of the tracks, and remained in active rail service until the closure of the Santa Monica Air Line in 1953.
Used in many motion pictures, the building eventually fell into disrepair and abandonment but was declared a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1963. A grassroots organization, S.O.S. (Save Our Station), moved it in February 1976 to the Heritage Square Museum grounds in the Montecito Heights community of the Arroyo Seco. It now serves as the museum's gift shop and visitor center. George Garrigues, Los Angeles's The Palms Neighborhood, Charleston:Arcadia Press (2009), page 26
the Pacific Line Palms station was an important landmark on the west side of the city, and the community that grew around it is one of the oldest on the west side of Los Angeles. Our stakeholders feel the naming of the station is not only an important branding opportunity for Palms, but an opportunity for Los Angeles to reinstate a link to the history in one of its oldest and most diverse communities.
On April 25, 2013, the Metro board of directors voted in favor of "Palms" as the official name of the station.
Construction incorporated an existing steel bridge from the Air Line era and added a new concrete bridge, both immediately east of the station over the National/Palms intersection, as well as re-using an existing rail tunnel west of the station.
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