When the city of Los Angeles decided it was time to bring all three major railway lines (Santa Fe, Southern Pacific, and Union Pacific) under one roof, they agreed that best location for the new station was where Chinatown stood and that Chinatown would be relocated to the northern end of downtown. I always assumed that Chinatown was razed before work began on the new railway station, but this photo, dated 1937 shows the shape of the now-iconic clock tower taking form while the Chinatown’s buildings were still standing.
**UPDATE** – Tony V. says: “The buildings seen in the photo survived Union Station construction because they were on the west side of Alameda Street. There were several Chinese businesses located between Alameda and Los Angeles Street. The were all demolished in the early 1950s during freeway construction.”
This is how that view looked in December 2020:
Wow. This looks so strange. It reminds me of the photos of the Statue of Liberty standing in the streets of Paris, before it was shipped to New York.
Yes! It undoes the timeline in my mind for this whole project.
We can see the “Old Los Angeles” buildings which survived on this W&P page: https://waterandpower.org/museum/Early_City_Views%20(1925%20+)_Page_4.html
Just to the right, over at the Aliso Street intersection, we seem to see tracks turn off of this street, running to pass alongside LAUPT. In this second link, there is a photo in on-line archives of a Pacific Electric car rounding a turn outbound to also pass by the terminal….they indicate San Pedro heading onto Aliso: https://web.archive.org/web/20041015085409/http://www.davesrailpix.com/pe/pev1.htm
The street between the Chinatown buildings might be one named on another site with an older image, but that will take some checking.
Marchessault Street.