The Historic Core is a district within Downtown Los Angeles that includes the world's largest concentration of movie palaces, former large department stores, and office towers, all built chiefly between 1907 and 1931. Within it lie the Broadway Theater District and the Spring Street historic financial district, and in its west it overlaps with the Jewelry District and in its east with Skid Row.
Broadway, until 1890 Fort Street, is a thoroughfare in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The portion of Broadway from 3rd to 9th streets, in the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles, was the city's main commercial street from the 1910s until World War II, and is the location of the Broadway Theater and Commercial District, the first and largest historic theater district listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). With twelve movie palaces located along a six-block stretch of Broadway, it is the only large concentration of movie palaces left in the United States.
The Financial District is the central business district of Los Angeles It is bounded by the Harbor Freeway to the west, First Street to the north, Main and Hill Streets to the east, and Olympic Boulevard and 9th Street to the south. It is south of the Bunker Hill district, west of the Historic Core, north of South Park and east of the Harbor Freeway and Central City West. Like Bunker Hill, the Financial District is home to corporate office skyscrapers, hotels and related services as well as banks, law firms, and real estate companies. However, unlike Bunker Hill which was razed and now consists of buildings constructed since the 1960s, it also contains large buildings from the early 20th century, particularly along Seventh Street, once the city's upscale shopping street; the area also includes the 7th and Flower area at the center of the regional Metro rail system, restaurants, bars, and two urban malls.
John and Donald Parkinson were a father-and-son architectural firm operating in the Los Angeles area in the early 20th century. They designed and built many of the city's iconic buildings, including Grand Central Market, the Memorial Coliseum, and City Hall.
J. W. Robinson Co., Robinson's, was a chain of department stores operating in the Southern California and Arizona area, previously with headquarters in Los Angeles, California.
The Broadway was a mid-level department store chain headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1896 by English-born Arthur Letts Sr., and named after what was once the city's main shopping street, the Broadway became a dominant retailer in Southern California and the Southwest. Its fortunes eventually declined, and Federated Department Stores bought the chain in 1995. In 1996, Broadway stores were either closed or converted into Macy's and Bloomingdales, some of which were sold and converted to Sears, including the Stonewood Center and Whittwood Town Center locations.
Los Angeles Street, originally known as Calle de los Negros is a major thoroughfare in Downtown Los Angeles, California, dating back to the origins of the city as the Pueblo de Los Ángeles.
Spring Street in Los Angeles is one of the oldest streets in the city. Along Spring Street in Downtown Los Angeles, from just north of Fourth Street to just south of Seventh Street is the NRHP-listed Spring Street Financial District, nicknamed Wall Street of the West, lined with Beaux Arts buildings and currently experiencing gentrification. This section forms part of the Historic Core district of Downtown, together with portions of Hill, Broadway, Main and Los Angeles streets.
Main Street is a major north–south thoroughfare in Los Angeles, California. It serves as the east–west postal divider for the city and the county as well.
Samuel Tilden Norton, or S. Tilden Norton as he was known professionally, was a Los Angeles–based architect active in the first decades of the 20th century. During his professional career he was associated with the firm of Norton & Wallis, responsible for the design of many Los Angeles landmarks.
Bell Block was a building in Los Angeles in the U.S. state of California. Situated on the corner of Aliso and Los Angeles streets, it was built in 1845 by Captain Alexander Bell. It was one of the few two-story adobe buildings in the then one-story adobe town of Los Angeles.
Ezra Frank Kysor (1835–1907) was an American architect from Los Angeles, California. He is believed to be the first professional architect to practice in Southern California.
The Hellman Building is a historic building in Downtown Los Angeles.
Desmond's was a Los Angeles–based department store, during its existence second only to Harris & Frank as the oldest Los Angeles retail chain, founded in 1862 as a hat shop by Daniel Desmond near the Los Angeles Plaza. The chain as a whole went out of business in 1981 but Desmond's, Inc. continued as a company that went in to other chains to liquidate them. Desmond's stores in Northridge and West Covina were liquidated only in 1986 and survived in Palm Springs into the first years of the 21st century.
Coulter's was a department store that originated in Downtown Los Angeles and later moved to the Miracle Mile shopping district in that same city.
The late-Victorian-era Downtown of Los Angeles in 1880 was centered at the southern end of the Los Angeles Plaza area, and over the next two decades, it extended south and west along Main Street, Spring Street, and Broadway towards Third Street. Most of the 19th-century buildings no longer exist, surviving only in the Plaza area or south of Second Street. The rest were demolished to make way for the Civic Center district with City Hall, numerous courthouses, and other municipal, county, state and federal buildings, and Times Mirror Square. This article covers that area, between the Plaza, 3rd St., Los Angeles St., and Broadway, during the period 1880 through the period of demolition (1920s–1950s).
7th Street is a street in Los Angeles, California running from S. Norton Ave in Mid-Wilshire through Downtown Los Angeles. It goes all the way to the eastern city limits at Indiana Ave., and the border between Boyle Heights, Los Angeles and East Los Angeles.
Retail in Southern California dates back to its first dry goods store that Jonathan Temple opened in 1827 on Calle Principal, when Los Angeles was still a Mexican village. After the American conquest, as the pueblo grew into a small town surpassing 4,000 population in 1860, dry goods stores continued to open, including the forerunners of what would be local chains. Larger retailers moved progressively further south to the 1880s-1890s Central Business District, which was later razed to become the Civic Center. Starting in the mid-1890s, major stores moved ever southward, first onto Broadway around 3rd, then starting in 1905 to Broadway between 4th and 9th, then starting in 1915 westward onto West Seventh Street up to Figueroa. For half a century Broadway and Seventh streets together formed one of America's largest and busiest downtown shopping districts.
The Potomac Block was a commercial building with a historical role in the retail history of Los Angeles, at 213–223 S. Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles, on the west side of Broadway between 2nd and 3rd streets. It was developed by lumberyard and mill owner J. M. Griffith, designed in 1888 by Block, Curlett and Eisen in Romanesque architectural style and opened on July 17, 1890. Tenants included Ville de Paris, and City of London Dry Goods Co. It was the first time major retail stores opened on South Broadway, in what would be a shift of the shopping district from 1890 to 1905, from the 1880s-1890s central business district around Spring, Main, First and Temple streets to S. Broadway, and ever further south along Broadway.
The Los Angeles Times building refers to five buildings that have housed the Los Angeles Times newspaper offices since 1881. The fourth site, Times Mirror Square, is currently composed of four structures but in the absence of other specifics "Los Angeles Times building" usually refers to the 1935 building there.
- Mirror Building, home of Mirror Printing Office and Book Bindery (1881–1887), located near Spring and Temple
- Los Angeles Times building (1887–1910), located on the northwest corner of 1st and Broadway; this is the building that was destroyed in the Los Angeles Times bombing of 1910, killing 21 people
- Los Angeles Times building (1912–1934), new construction on the same site as previous, rebuilt as a four-story building with "castle-like" clock tower
- Los Angeles Times building (1935–2018), street address 202 W. First Street, original structure on the southwest corner of 1st and Spring designed by Gordon Kaufmann. Construction began 1931. Eventually the Times expanded to fill the whole block as Times Mirror Square, bounded by 1st, 2nd, Spring and Broadway. Later Times Mirror Square additions included the 1948 Rowland H. Crawford expansion, the 1973 William Pereira addition, and a parking structure.
- Los Angeles Times building, a mid-century eight-story building on Imperial Highway in El Segundo, located near the Los Angeles International Airport
