Downtown Los Angeles

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Skyline of downtown Los Angeles
Skyline of downtown Los Angeles

Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, United States, located close to the geographic center of the metropolitan area. The area features many of the city's major arts institutions and sports facilities, a variety of skyscrapers and associated large multinational corporations and an array of public art, unique shopping opportunities and the hub of the city's freeway and public transportation networks.

Downtown Los Angeles is generally thought to be bounded by the Los Angeles River on the east, the U.S. Route 101 to the north, the 10 Santa Monica Freeway on the south and the 110 Harbor Freeway on the west; however, some sources including the Los Angeles Downtown News and Los Angeles Times[1], extend the area past the traditional boundary to include the University Park (encompassing the University of Southern California (USC) and Exposition Park, just south of the 10 Freeway) and Central City West (just west of the 110 Freeway) neighborhoods as a part of the downtown map.

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Downtown Los Angeles is currently undergoing a transformation, with many historic buildings being converted into lofts, several retail businesses and restaurants opening, many new high-rise residential buildings being built and slated to be built, and with two star projects being built: L.A. Live and the Grand Avenue Project.

Bunker Hill as seen from Los Angeles City Hall
Bunker Hill as seen from Los Angeles City Hall

Contents

[edit] History

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U.S. Bank Tower in Downtown Los Angeles is the tallest building in the United States west of the Mississippi River. (1,018 ft/310 m)
U.S. Bank Tower in Downtown Los Angeles is the tallest building in the United States west of the Mississippi River. (1,018 ft/310 m)

Downtown Los Angeles was a premier attraction of the county and city. In terms of glamour particular during the middle 20th century, it was second only to Hollywood. The streets were home to the prime movers and shakers of Southern California with ornate and decorative banks, corporate headquarters, intermingled with major high department stores, restaurants, and boutiques all interspaced with family neighborhoods and diners.

Despite the common misconception that the city's sprawl is a product of the automobile and an immense freeway system, Los Angeles' famous "76 cities in search of a downtown" is due primarily to trains and iron rails, not cars and concrete. Long before the middle class could afford the luxury of private car ownership; long before the first shovel of dirt was turned for its first freeway, Los Angeles was a sprawling city.[citation needed]

By 1920, the city's private - and later - municipal rail lines were among the most far-flung and most comprehensive in the world. By that year, helped along by building height limits, relatively flat terrain, a steady influx of residents, and some very aggressive land developers, the city's metropolitan area was immense. Rail lines connected 4 counties with well over 1000 miles of track.[citation needed]

So, it was during the booming 1920s, when private automobiles moved from the play things of the rich to the work horses of the middle classes, the already sprawling Los Angeles was ripe for even further expansion. Prior to that time, most commuters, shoppers and theater-goers used streetcars and interurbans for transportation. With the automobile, those same (already far-flung) commuters, shoppers and theater-goers could hop in their cars and drive the growing network of streets and boulevards to their destinations. Witness the growth of department stores and specialty shops along the famous Wilshire Boulevard. By 1924, rail transit use had hit its peak. In the already-sprawling Los Angeles, the car was now king. The death of the city's rail system was not caused by some sinister collusion of car makers, tire makers and oil companies. The system was already dying - though there's probably some truth to the accusation that the movers and shakers in auto, tire and oil industries may have, in the late 1940s, added the final nails to rail's coffin.[citation needed]

Downtown's corporate headquarters also slowly dispersed to outer areas or dissolved in the de-industrialization of the age. Banks and some financial institutions remained but as the population left the central core toward cheaper, newer housing in the suburbs, demographics also changed. Desegregation of the school districts proved the final end for the remaining white middle classes who soon fled to the suburbs.

With crime, vagrancy, and gang activity increasing,[citation needed] the remaining major upscale department stores shuttered in the 1970s and 1980s, while a few moved into newer more modern office, hotel and shopping complexes in the Financial District. Macy's Plaza and Robinsons-May (now closed and operating as a second Macy's store) are just two examples.

With the movement of the city's commercial center westward, downtown Los Angeles was devoid of much nightlife from the 1950s until the residential population increase of recent years. What little nightlife existed was concentrated in Little Tokyo.

However, some corporations retained their headquarters in the downtown area while new service-oriented institutions replaced the industrial- and agricultural-oriented ones which preceded them, thereby keeping downtown Los Angeles from sinking into obscurity. In 1999, the Los Angeles City Council passed an adaptive reuse ordinance, making it easier for developers to convert vacant office and commercial buildings (many of which were the lavish headquarters buildings of banks and other financial institutions in the early part of the Twentieth Century) into renovated lofts and well-secured luxury apartment complexes. Ironically, among those moving into these buildings were workers fed up with the city's notorious traffic commuting to and from the suburbs which was the result of the planning of the '50s that precipitated urban flight in the first place. Another sign of the fledgling Downtown renaissance is that the Ralphs supermarket chain opened a new store in Downtown in late July 2007. Ralphs had its first store in Downtown in the late 1800s and closed its doors in Downtown in the 1950s as the suburbs grew.

The residential population of Downtown LA has boomed since 2005, with a 20% jump in two years (2005-07) to 28,878 residents.[2] This number surpassed previous estimates and, with units under construction, pushes the estimated Downtown population to more than 40,000 by the end of 2008 instead of 2015, the previous target milestone.

However, reflective of the growing outsourcing of service jobs and the continued dearth of retail shopping customers with disposable income sufficient to maintain merchants, at the same time, the number of jobs in the downtown area has dropped to 418,000 in 2005, down from a high of 605,000 in 1995. [2]

On August 7, 2007, the Los Angeles City Council approved sweeping changes in zoning rules for the downtown area and including a corridor extending from Downtown south along Figueroa Street to Exposition Park and USC.[1] Strongly advocated by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the changes allow larger and more dense developments downtown; developers who reserve 15% of their units for low-income residents are now exempt from some open-space requirements and can make their buildings 35% larger than current zoning codes allow.[1]

[edit] Subdistricts

Union Station.
Union Station.

[edit] Attractions

Walt Disney Concert Hall, Bunker Hill
Walt Disney Concert Hall, Bunker Hill

Some of the buildings of the Downtown core date from the early 1900s, with the topmost floors of most of the office buildings at mostly 13 stories. Between 1917[citation needed] and 1957, a city ordinance capped building heights at 150 feet, leading to an unusually homogenous skyline. This has been mistakenly said to be due to earthquakes, but it was done to keep a uniform height in the area and to prevent Manhattan style congestion. However, starting in the 1950s developers started either ignoring the ordinances, challenging them in court, or receiving exemptions of dubious legality from the city commissioners. Thus, while the Los Angeles City Hall was the tallest building for decades at 454 ft., that ended with the development of the 18 Story California Bank Building at 600 S. Spring. That building is now being converted into condos. The unique Bradbury building, built in 1893, has a courtyard with spectacular wrought iron staircases and railings, and a glass and iron ceiling over the spacious courtyard. The Grand Central Market captures an early 1900s feel, with customs in distinct contrast to the current supermarkets of the U.S.

  • On the northeast edge of Downtown, the bustling Union Station is an example of the massive buildings, on a heroic scale, that served a vanished rail passenger market until the 1990s when a subway line (operated by the MTA) and six commuter rail lines (operated by Metrolink) began taking passengers there. The recent opening of Gold Line light rail at Union Station serves Chinatown, the northeast districts of Los Angeles, the city of South Pasadena, and Pasadena. Currently under construction, the eastern extension of the Gold Line will continue through Union Station serving Little Tokyo, the east side districts of Los Angeles, and terminate in East Los Angeles (an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County.) Plans are moving forward to extend the Gold Line east of Pasadena in the San Gabriel Valley, but have yet to secure funding. Adjacent to Union Station is the historic center of the city, enshrined for local or tourist consumption as Olvera Street. Just one block away is the edge of Chinatown.
  • Up the hill from Union Station are the Civic Center buildings devoted to federal, state and city administration, including the Parker Center (LAPD headquarters) and City Hall. The main office of the Los Angeles Times is also in this corner of the downtown. When it first opened in 1935, it was the tallest building West of the Mississippi to house a newspaper press. This area of downtown is also home to the Music Center, a complex of music and theatrical halls which imitates the architecture of New York's Lincoln Center. In 2003 the Walt Disney Concert Hall opened to increase the number of major theaters at the Music Center to four. Also in the building is the smaller REDCAT theater and art studio. Near the Music Center are the Museum of Contemporary Art, or MOCA, and the Colburn school of performing arts.
  • Down the hill, Little Tokyo still contains businesses with Japanese roots. Some of the buildings and sidewalks date back to the 1800s and still include hitching posts for horses. Little Tokyo also contains the Japanese American National Museum and another Museum of Contemporary Art campus.
  • South of Bunker Hill is the Library Tower, now known as the U.S. Bank Tower. At 310 m (1018 ft), it is the seventh tallest building in the United States, and the tallest building between Chicago and Auckland. Built in 1989, it was initially called Library Tower because the purchase of the air rights from the Los Angeles Central Library, located across the street, were used to allow a building of such height to be built. The money went towards expanding and renovating the library, which had suffered two arson fires in 1986. The library itself was built in 1926.
  • The Old Bank District is the center of the loft movement downtown. A number of developers have purchased old buildings and are converting them into residential lofts.
  • Gallery Row is a creative district in the Downtown Historic Core. Starting with 3 art galleries in 2004, Gallery Row now claims 17 art galleries in 2005.
  • City West is a portion West of the Harbor Freeway (110) that is growing with new towering condos and luxury apartment complexes.

[edit] Skyline

Main article: Skyscrapers in Los Angeles
As the civic center and county seat, downtown Los Angeles is home to many courthouses and law offices.
As the civic center and county seat, downtown Los Angeles is home to many courthouses and law offices.
John Ferraro Building, Bunker Hill
John Ferraro Building, Bunker Hill

Despite its relative decentralization, Los Angeles has one of the largest skylines in the United States, and its development has continued in recent times. The skyline has seen rapid growth due to improvements in building standards, which has made some buildings highly earthquake-resistant. Many of the new skyscrapers are housing, especially in Downtown--what the office tower rush in the 1970s and 1980s added to the skyline is now occurring again in the form of residential construction. Some current and upcoming examples of skyscraper construction include:

  • Grand Avenue Project
  • LA Live
  • South, a tri-tower complex (13-, 19-, and 23-story towers) called Elleven, Luma, and Evo at the north-west block from 11th and Grand to 12th and Grand.
  • Metropolis, a mixed-use tri-tower (38, 47, and 52 stories, respectively) at Francisco and 9th Street.
  • Park Fifth Residential Towers.

This is a brief list, and there are many more. The recent "rise" of South Park, the low-rise district of downtown south of Bunker Hill (roughly south of 8th Street and north of the Santa Monica Freeway), is bringing skyscrapers that will be high enough in quantity and height to create an extended downtown skyline within a few years from 2005. Due to numerous films, television, and music videos that are shot in Los Angeles and uses downtown Los Angeles as the backdrop, the Los Angeles skyline is probably one of the most recognizable skylines in the world.

The skyline of Los Angeles consists of several different clusters of high-rise buildings; most of these clusters are not directly connected to each other. Century City and the parts of Wilshire Boulevard through Westwood together form a rather busy skyline that is often confused with the downtown skyline.

[edit] Building height limits: 1904-1957

The first height limit ordnance in Los Angeles was enacted following the completion of the 13 story Continental Building, located at the southeast corner of 4th and Spring Streets (presently converted to use as lofts by developer Tom Gilmore). The purpose of the height limit was to limit the density of the city. There was great hostility to skyscrapers in many cities in these years, mainly due to the congestion they could bring to the streets, and height limit ordinances were a common way of dealing with the problem. In 1911, the city passed an updated height limit ordinance, establishing a specific limit of 150 feet. Exceptions were granted for decorative towers such as those later built on the now-demolished Richfield building and the still-extant Eastern-Columbia Building.

Though there is a common belief that the limits were imposed due to the risk of earthquakes, it is notable that the first limit was imposed in 1904,[citation needed] two years before the San Francisco earthquake, and that even after that seismic event it was long believed in Los Angeles that Southern California (despite historic evidence to the contrary) was not subject to such violent temblors. The motivation behind height limits was primarily to limit congestion in the city.

It is also notable that building height limits were first imposed long before the 1928 City Hall was built, so the story that they were enacted in order to keep the City Hall the tallest building in town are also mere legends. The 1911 ordinance was repealed in 1957. The first private building to exceed the old limit was the 18 story California Bank Building, located at the southeast corner of 6th and Spring Streets in Downtown Los Angeles.

[edit] Emergency services

[edit] Fire services

The Los Angeles Fire Department operates Station 9 (Central City) and Station 3 (Civic Center/Bunker Hill), serving Downtown Los Angeles.

[edit] Police services

The Los Angeles Police Department Central Community Police Station serves the neighborhood [1].

[edit] Education

Downtown is served by the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Belmont High School and Miguel Contreras Learning Complex jointly serve a portion of Downtown.

Santee Education Complex serves another portion of Downtown.

Downtown Magnets High School is serves the entire county, as students are bussed in from many different places. It is the closest to the center of Downtown LA, with students being able to walk to the Richard Riordan Los Angeles Central Library, the third largest public library in the country, and the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels among many other landmarks.

Loyola High School

[edit] Pop culture

Downtown Los Angeles is one of the most popular film locations in the world because of its proximity to the motion picture and television production industry. Because it looks like a typical North American city, for audiences across the globe it is both instantly recognizable and somewhat generic. Movie makers have been able to make downtown L.A. look like just about any other city in any historical era. For example, on streets with older buildings developed in the early part of the 20th Century, downtown is often a stand-in for old New York. On other streets with modern developments, downtown has been the backdrop for stories taking place in the future. It is also a very popular location for filming television commercials, especially for cars.

  • The 1971 film, The Omega Man is set in Downtown Los Angeles after a biological war leaves a sole human survivor. Figueroa Blvd., Wilshire Blvd., Third Street, Broadway and Eighth Street are prominently shown, along with several prominent towers under construction, notably the ARCO Towers, AON Tower, and the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Courts building.
  • In the film Collateral downtown is the main setting for the film with a climactic car crash that happens on Figueroa street.
  • In the film The Day After Tomorrow downtown is destroyed by an EF-6 tornado while other tornadoes destroyed the rest of the city. Also one of Downtown's buildings, the 611 Place, is seen in the New York Skyline later in the movie.
  • In the film Independence Day the US Bank Tower is destroyed, along with the rest of downtown Los Angeles by an Alien invasion.
  • In Power Rangers: Wild Force, Animarium is setting by downtown Los Angeles.
  • In the film Transformers a climactic battle is waged between the Autobots and the Decepticons in a fictional city mostly portrayed by recognizable Los Angeles streets and buildings, with some scenes shot in Detroit.
  • In the film Dragon Wars, Dragons destroy downtown Los Angeles, and one dragon hangs onto US Bank Tower.
  • In the video game Grand Theft Auto San Andreas an area of the city Los Santos is based on Downtown Los Angeles.
  • In the music video A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton, she is seen performing on her piano through the streets of Downtown Los Angeles in the latter part of the video.
  • The film Blade Runner is set entirely in and around Downtown Los Angeles, although its futuristic vision bares almost no resmbllence to the modern Los Angeles.
  • The video game Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines uses Downtown Los Angeles as a setting.
  • The Terminator movies take place in Los Angeles.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Sharon Bernstein and David Pierson, L.A. moves toward more N.Y-style downtown, Los Angeles Times, August 8, 2007.
  2. ^ a b Cara Mia DiMassa, Downtown L.A. has gained people but lost jobs, report says, Los Angeles Times, February 21, 2007.

[edit] External links

Downtown Los Angeles as seen at street level.
Downtown Los Angeles as seen at street level.
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