

The territory was acquired by the city of Los Angeles in a shoestring annexation, specifically to connect San Pedro, Wilmington, Harbor City and the Port of Los Angeles with the rest of the city.ĭespite being part of the city of Los Angeles, some parts of Harbor Gateway have a "Torrance, CA", "Gardena, CA" or "Carson, CA" address because they are serviced by those cities' post offices. Harbor Gateway is a narrow north-south corridor situated approximately between Vermont Avenue and Figueroa Street north of Interstate 405, and Western and Normandie avenues south of I-405. A large transportation center serves the south Los Angeles County area. The neighborhood is bisected by Artesia Boulevard and has two neighborhood councils, one north of the boulevard and the other south of it. With a relatively youthful population of over 42,000, it is the home of Gardena High School and seven other schools. Harbor Gateway was originally known as the Shoestring Strip and was attached to Los Angeles in 1906 to serve as a link to the Pacific Ocean port cities of Wilmington and San Pedro. It is highly diverse ethnically, and has experienced a measure of hostilities between blacks and Latinos, and a gang injunction has been enforced against Latino gangs. The Harbor Gateway is a 5.14-square-mile, shoelace-shaped north-south residential and industrial neighborhood in the Los Angeles, California, Harbor Region, in the southern part of the city. The Harbor Gateway is a two-mile wide north-south corridor that connects the Port of Los Angeles to the south with the rest of the city in the north (note the vertical red line). Today, Harbor Gateway Transit Center is the branding and wayfinding flagship for current and future stations throughout the Metro Silver Line.Los Angeles County with the City of Los Angeles in red. But Choi’s application, including the color scheme, is much larger and much bolder. To some extent, she expanded on the transit center’s original graphic branding (the white “M” logo, for example).


She met the challenge with a graphical language of simple, familiar symbols: arrows and dash lines. To do that, travelers must be able to see, quickly comprehend, and follow the system’s graphics and signage from a distance and in the midst of a teeming crowd. When experiential graphics designer Youn Choi (now partner and principal at pod a+d) began the process of rebranding the then-new Metro station in Harbor Gateway via an enhanced wayfinding system, she knew the huge challenge she faced: The system had to help move very large crowds of people through the Gateway quickly and efficiently and in an organized manner. Metro Silver Line station, Gardena, California Harbor Freeway Metro Station / Harbor Gateway Transit CenterĮxperiential and Wayfinding Graphic Design | Urban Planning
