Watts Station

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Watts Station, May 2008

Coordinates: 33 ° 56 ′ 35 "  N , 118 ° 14 ′ 34.8"  W.

Map: California
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Watts Station​
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California

Watts Station is a railroad station built in 1904 in Watts , a neighborhood of Los Angeles , California . The structure was one of the first buildings in Watts and for many years served as the main stop for the Red Car of the Pacific Electric Railway between Los Angeles and Long Beach . It was the only structure left intact when the shops on 103rd Street burned down during the Watts riot . The unspoiled building in the middle part of the street, which was then also called Charcoal Alley , became the train station a symbol of continuity, hope and renewal for the district. It has since been declared a Historic-Cultural Monument and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 15, 1974 as a monument .

Construction and operation as a station for the Red Cars

Former ticket booths

Watts was built on the site of the old Rancho La Tajuata. In 1902, the Watts family, after which the neighborhood was later named, tried to accelerate development of the area by giving the Pacific Electric Railway a ten- acre property on which Watts Station was built in 1904. The train station was used for more than 50 years as the main stop for the operation of the "Red Cars" between Los Angeles and Long Beach. The station building is a one-story timber-framed structure with a 2200 square foot footprint divided into three rooms. The station was one of the first structures to be built in Watts and is one of the few remaining structures from the early years of the district. The structure later served as a model for train stations that were built in La Habra , Covina and Glendora .

The opening of the station attracted new residents, so the growing district was named Watts Station . The structure remained a train station of the Pacific Electric depot until the Red Cars ceased operations in the 1950s .

Lively story

From the beginning, the station had a vivid history. The incidents that occurred here included:

  • In 1904, shortly after the station opened, a woman was killed trying to save her young son, who was walking on the tracks. The woman was the first person to be killed by a train at Watts Station, and the Los Angeles Times declared her a heroine who "threw herself on the tracks," grabbed her son, and threw her out of the way of the approaching train. The newspaper pointed out that children of Mexican families who lived in the vicinity of Watts Station were particularly at risk, and many of these children, who were not yet able to assess the danger, played on the tracks of the railway line.
  • In December 1904, a 40-year-old unmarried woman deliberately stepped in front of the approaching express train to Long Beach. The Los Angeles Times reported that the woman's body was barely recognizable as the remains of a human being when it was pulled out from under the train.
  • In July 1905, an employee of the railway company was killed practically on the spot when he was hit by a railcar after getting off a train while crossing the south-facing track. Six months later, another rail worker at Watts Station was killed by a train, and in December 1906 a train driver was trapped between two cars and was fatally injured.
  • A shooting broke out in January 1906 when a woman divorced from her husband drew a revolver and shot her husband while he was waiting for a red car. The man took up the gun. His wife got another gun, returned to the train station, fired two more shots at the man, which missed their target, but went through a standing Red Car and frightened its passengers.

Symbol of hope on Charcoal Alley

View of Watts Station, platform side

When the Watts riot in August 1965 led to the destruction of the buildings on both sides of 103rd Street - the main thoroughfare in Watts - Watts Station was in the center of the section of the street between Compton and Wilmington Avenue, which was known as “ Charcoal Alley "(German roughly:" Street of Charcoal ") became known. An eyewitness reported: “Both sides of 103rd Street have now burned down. The thoroughfare was a sea of ​​flames that radiated such unbearable heat that I thought my skin would be scorched. ”According to another account of the unrest along“ Charcoal Alley ”, the buildings along the street were burned to the ground. Amid the rubble and widespread destruction along the road, the Los Angeles Times reported that the train station was the only structure left intact while the shops along the road went up in flames. The fact that the old wooden train station survived the unrest, either as a result of deliberate sparing or by accident, meant that the building became a “symbol of continuity, hope and renewal” for the residents of the district.

Designation as a monument and reconstruction

Four months after the riots, the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission declared the building a Historic-Cultural Monument (HCM # 36). In 1974 Watts Station was added to the National Register of Historic Places . In the 1980s, after the station had been vacant for many years, the Community Redevelopment Agency donated $ 700,000 to restore the structure to its original appearance. The station was reused from 1989 as the customer service office of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and as a small museum of the history of the neighborhood.

In 1990, the Blue Line resumed rail services between Los Angeles and Long Beach along the old Pacific Electric route. The old station is not used to handle Blue Line passengers, but the trains stop at a new station right next to it, 103rd Street / Watts Towers . With the resumption of rail traffic through the Blue Line, however, the evils that were the order of the day during the operation of the Red Cars have returned. From 1990 to June 2007, 87 motorists and pedestrians were killed at the Blue Line level crossings; it is one of the most accident-prone railroad lines in the United States.

See also

Web links

Commons : Watts Station  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry in the National Register Information System . National Park Service , accessed June 2, 2016
  2. ↑ a b c Watts Station Declared: 'Of Historic Significance' (English) (PDF), Los Angeles Sentinel. December 9, 1965. Retrieved May 1, 2012. 
  3. ↑ a b c Historic Train Depot in Watts Set For $ 310,000 Restoration (English) , Los Angeles Times. November 9, 1986. 
  4. ↑ a b c Dies Awful Death To Save Her Child , Los Angeles Times. May 19, 1904. 
  5. ↑ Ground To Death: Miss Mary Ryan Steps Before Pacific Electric Flyer to Shocking Fate (English) , Los Angeles Times. December 28, 1904. 
  6. ↑ Stepped to His Death: Laborer Employed by Pacific Electric Killed by Long Beach Car at Watts Station (English) , Los Angeles Times. July 30, 1905. 
  7. ↑ Cannot Recover: Mexican Struck by Car Near Watts Station Sustains Injuries Which Will Prove Fatal (English) , Los Angeles Times. February 19, 1906. 
  8. ↑ Motorman May Die: He Is Pinched Between Two Cars of Work Train at Watts Station; Taken to Hospital (English) , Los Angeles Times. December 9, 1906. 
  9. ↑ Shoots Into Car Window: Woman's Bad Aim Endangers Many Passengers; Mrs. Welsh Fires on Mate at Watts Station; Climax to Numerous Stormy Domestic Quarrels (English) , Los Angeles Times. January 27, 1906. 
  10. ^ Ray Hebert: Hope Brightens for Riot Areas: Action Promises Revitalization of Forgotten Slum (English) , Los Angeles Times. February 27, 1966. " In Watts, for example, a mall is being discussed for a stretch of 103rd Street - the riot's infamous 'charcoal' alley between Compton and Wilmington Ave. " 
  11. ↑ Mitchell Landsberg and Valerie Reitman: Watts Riots, 40 Years Later (English) , Los Angeles Times. August 11, 2005. “ They had just secured one of the hardest hit areas of Watts, a stretch of 103rd Street that had been dubbed 'Charcoal Alley. " 
  12. ^ Art Berman: Watts Scars Heal Slowly: Businessman's New Store Looted (English) , Los Angeles Times. December 6, 1965. " Along a mile of 103rd Street in Watts - dubbed 'Charcoal Alley' after 41 commercial buildings were destroyed by fire during the riot - block after block is dotted with bare or rubble-filled lots or blackened shells. " 
  13. ^ Betty Pleasant: Eyewitness Account of the Watts Riots (English) , The Wave Newspapers. August 3, 2005. “ Both sides of 103rd Street were ablaze now. The thoroughfare was a sea of ​​flames that emitted heat so unbearable that I believed my skin was being seared off. " 
  14. ^ Charcoal Alley ( English ) Community Walk. Retrieved June 3, 2012: “ On the third day of the Watts Riots, 103rd St. was burned to the ground. "
  15. ↑ a b c d Paul Feldman: Watts New? Reopening of Historic Red Car Station as Museum and DWP Office Seen as Symbol of Hope, Renewal (English) , Los Angeles Times. March 17, 1989. " [T] he train station was the only structure that remained intact when stores along 103rd Street burned during the Watts riots. (...) a symbol of continuity, hope and renewal " 
  16. ↑ Los Angeles Department of City Planning: Historic - Cultural Monuments (HCM) Listing: City Declared Monuments ( English , PDF; 134 kB) City of Los Angeles. September 7, 2007. Retrieved May 20, 2012.
  17. ↑ Blue Line Train Kills Pedestrian at Watts Station (English) , Los Angeles Times. June 25, 1999. 
  18. ^ Summary of Blue Line Train / Vehicle and Train / Pedestrian Accidents (English) , Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority . June 2007. 
  19. ↑ Light rail fatalities, 1990-2002 (English) , American Public Transportation Association .