Visitors and commuters passing through downtown’s Union Station may not know Ken Pratt’s name or title, but a lot of them want to take his picture.
Pratt, Union Station’s deputy executive officer of real estate since 2012, said cell phone cameras routinely come out when — dressed in crisp suit, tie and Panama hat — he sits down for a shoe shine inside the historic station.
His style fits right in with the look of Union Station, built in 1939 and containing elements of Mission Revival, Art Deco and Streamline Moderne architectural styles. Only his welcoming grin separates the hardboiled demeanor of this former volunteer Orange County deputy sheriff from a film noir detective prowling the mean streets of L.A.
“It’s like moths to a flame,” Pratt said with a laugh during a recent conversation at his office on the station’s campus. “I get my picture taken down there 20 times because I’m a guy in a hat getting my shoes shined.”
“I’m a suit guy, every day,” added Pratt, called “the mayor of Union Station” by the staff. “This place is an honor to be in charge of — to be responsible for. And it also comes from an era where people had a pretty good sense of style, you might say, and purpose within that style. This is kind of a way of my honoring that history as well.”
The shoe shine stand operating in the terminal is a re-creation of the type of seats that might have served the station’s clientele in the 1930s, built as part of an ongoing restoration project that began in 2011, the year Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority acquired the property and development rights, and launched a long-needed renovation. The station celebrates its 80th birthday this year.
Union Station covers 52 acres and serves 75,000 commuters daily. One of those is Pratt who takes the train from his home in Irvine every workday.
Pratt grew up in Los Angeles in the 1950s and 1960s, only a few miles from the train station. His father was a Central L.A. cop. The family regularly came to Union Station to take the train to Orange County to visit relatives.
“Coming to this station from the early 1950s, remembering getting on the train behind the (Santa Fe) 3751, a huge black steam locomotive with 84-inch drive wheels, you can imagine the impression that made on a kid,” he said. “All of that is embodied in me.”
Pratt jettisoned a long career in real estate investment and a successful practice in Orange County to take the Union Station job. “My partners thought I was a little nuts,” he admitted. “(But) I said, ‘How many times in your life do you get the opportunity to go to your home town, put your fingerprints on a national icon and bring it back from the brink?’”
Pratt is also a newlywed who met his bride, Rubi Pratt, at Union Station. The couple married last year. Pratt had spied Rubi, an administrative assistant in the scheduling department, around the station, but they had never had a chance to talk.
“One day I was standing on the platform, waiting for my train, and lo and behold, she came up the stairs,” he said. “I boldly stepped forward and introduced myself. Love blossomed at Union Station.”
