Hidden Public Places

[€uroMeinke]

I've been taking public transportation to work lately, and one of the pluses of this experience is that I get to walk through LA's Union Station twice a day. It's Spanish Deco styling continues to delight me, the architecture, the tile work, the floors. It is truely a work of art.

The other day I took a bus from Irwindale (future work location) to UNion Station via the El Monte Busway (who knew such a thing existed). And the bus dropped me of at the side of the station not the front (where I am usually picked up in the morning) or the modernist back (where I am dropped off in the afternoon). To get into the station, I found myself walking through a rather well maintained rose garden. It featured a variety of roses, seperated by hedge lined planters surrounding a rather pleasent spanish tile fountain - I wish I had taken pictures.

I'm amazed that such a hiden treasure continues to exist in our city, experienced only fleatingly by commuters hurrying to catch their trains, or indulgently by a few homeless that have stopped here to nap. It makes me wonder what other places I pass everyday that really I ought to stop and linger through.