Vermont/Santa Monica opened on June 12, 1999 has a single island platform with a double-height ceiling and separate mezzanines taking up the space of the extra height of the ceiling at each end of the platform. Large, central silver columns here hold up the ceiling along with decorative silver bars in the ceiling above designed to make the light less direct from above. The guest architect for the station was Robert Millar.
The northern mezzanine has the primary entrance and it has two combined escalators/staircases up it and an elevator. A short passageway leads to the main combined two escalators with a staircase in the middle that lead directly up to a plaza at the surface. There is also an elevator. Along the walls of the passageway and escalators various questions and quotations are extremely subtlety written in the concrete (I didn't notice until I got home and began reviewing the photos on my computer). Above the escalator/stairs are florescent tubes (plus some on the walls) some with different colors in a bit of a haphazard format providing an interesting visual. The escalators arrive at the surface with a silver diagonal canopy (in the shape of a narrow leaf) almost covering them. The elevator is in this same entrance plaza at the SW corner of Santa Monica Blvd and Vermont Avenue. It has a glass enclosure around the street landing.
The secondary entrance is at the southern end of the station, here just one combined staircase/up escalator and an elevator lead up to a small mezzanine area. There is one opening along the west side with space for just three turnstiles plus the wheelchair one between the two required emergency exit gates. From here a small corridor curves around to an elevator followed by a combined up escalator and staircase up to the SW corner of Willow Brook Avenue and Vermont Avenue right near a sign for Los Angeles City College. The angled concrete wall of the staircase entrance has Kinetic Flow, 2006 by George Legrady "The algorithmically generated abstract rendition uses statistical transit ridership data to create visual patterns." (Metro Art). The elevator has a simple black enclosure.
Photos 1-8 taken on 17 March, 2008, 9-45: 19 January, 2013
Vermont/Sunset
Vermont/Santa Monica