Financial District | |
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Coordinates: 34°03′03″N118°15′18″W / 34.05083°N 118.25500°W | |
Country | United States |
State | California |
County | County of Los Angeles |
City | Los Angeles |
Area code | 213 |
The Financial District (Financial Core) is the central business district of Los Angeles along Olive, Grand, Hope, Flower and Figueroa streets from 4th Street to 8th Street. 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. [1] 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 contains large buildings from the early 20th century, particularly along Seventh Street, once the city's upscale shopping street; the area also attracts visitors as the 7th and Flower area is at the center of the regional Metro rail system and is replete with restaurants, bars, and shopping at two urban malls.
What is now the Financial District was originally agricultural land, then a residential area of single family homes, then around 1900 started attracting businesses as Victorian-era Downtown L.A. expanded south along Broadway past 3rd Street and "around the corner", west along Seventh Street. Around 1915, 7th Street between Broadway (on which corner stood Bullock's) and Figueroa Street, became downtown's upscale shopping district. This began with J. W. Robinson's deciding to build their flagship store in 1915 on Seventh far to the west of the existing Broadway shopping district, between Hope and Grand streets. The Ville de Paris and Coulter's as well as numerous specialty shops came and rounded out the district. The area lost its exclusivity when the upscale downtown stores opened branches in Hollywood, Mid-Wilshire, Westwood and Pasadena in the late 1920s through the 1940s, notably the establishment of Bullock's upscale landmark branch Bullocks Wilshire in Mid-Wilshire in 1929. [2]
Thirteen large office buildings opened between 1920 and 1928. By 1929, every plot on 7th between Figueroa and Los Angeles Streets had been developed. [2]
The area remained an important, if not the most exclusive, center of retail and office space throughout the 1950s, but started a slow decline throughout the 1980s due to suburbanization. It was also the concentration of Downtown financial activity on Bunker Hill, a few blocks north. The flagship department stores like Bullock's (1983), Barker Brothers (1984) and Robinson's (1993) had closed and only the Broadway/Macy's at The Bloc, previously named Broadway Plaza remained. However, in 1986, the Seventh Market Place mall, now FIGat7th, opened, bringing a smaller retail cluster back to Seventh such as the 7th Street/Metro Center station opening in 1991.
The Financial District was created by the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency to provide an alternative to the old Spring Street Financial District, which fell into decline in the second half of the 20th century.
Demand for apartments in downtown Los Angeles surged in 2010 and the years following. In 2015, thousands of apartments were under construction or proposed for the area around 8th Street. [3]
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro Rail & Metro Busway), and LADOT (DASH & Commuter Express) provide heavy rail (subway), light rail, and local bus services throughout the Financial Core and to the Greater Los Angeles Area.
7th St/Metro Center station provides primary access to Metro B Line, D Line, A Line, and E Line.
Landmarks in the district include, from west to east and north to south:
Fifth Street:
Sixth Street:
Eighth Street:
Other:
Landmarks are shown on the following street grid of the Financial District of Downtown Los Angeles.
F I G U E R O A | Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites | F L O W E R | FourFortyFour South Flower | U.S. Bank Tower OUE Skyspace | CalEdison DTLA (a.k.a. One Bunker Hill, 1931) | G R A N D | Gas Company Tower | O L I V E | Park Fifth Towers (2019, res.) Site of Hazard's Pavilion, Temple/Clune's/Philharmonic Auditorium | |||||
FIFTH STREET | ||||||||||||||
City National Plaza (ex-ARCO Center) | Central Library | Millennium Biltmore Hotel | Pershing Square | |||||||||||
Superior Oil Company Building | H O P E | AT&T Center (Site of Savoy Hotel NW 6th/Grand) | PacMutual | |||||||||||
SIXTH STREET | ||||||||||||||
Figueroa at Wilshire | Aon Center | Lincoln Savings Bldg. (1955) now Library Court (res) | Milano Lofts (1925) | Douglas Oil Bldg. #3 | Heron Bldg. (1921, Dodd) | |||||||||
WILSHIRE BL. | ||||||||||||||
Wilshire Grand Center a.k.a. Korean Air Tower | Figueroa (Home Savingss) Tower | Fine Arts Building | Roosevelt Building, 7th Street/Metro Center subway | Union Oil Bldg. (1923) | Quinby Bldg. (1926), Bronson Bldg. (The Collection) (1913) | Bank of Italy (1922), Brock and Co. Bldg. (1922) | Los Angeles Athletic Club (1912) | |||||||
SEVENTH STREET | ||||||||||||||
Ernst & Young Plaza, FIGat7th | Barker Bros. DS Bldg. | MCI Center (orig. Broadway Plaza), 7th Street/Metro Center subway | J.W. Robinson's DS Bldg. | Brockman Building (1912, once home to Haggarty's DS) | Coulter's DS (later Myer Siegel, Dohrmann's, now The Mandel) | Ville de Paris DS, now L.A. Jewelry Mart (1917) | ||||||||
777 Tower | ||||||||||||||
EIGHTH STREET | ||||||||||||||
Southern California Gas Company Complex | 8th+Hope |
Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) is the central business district of Los Angeles. It is part of the Central Los Angeles region and covers a 5.84 sq mi (15.1 km2) area. As of 2020, it contains over 500,000 jobs and has a population of roughly 85,000 residents, with an estimated daytime population of over 200,000 people.
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.
Wilshire Boulevard (['wɪɫ.ʃɚ]) is a prominent 15.83 mi (25.48 km) boulevard in the Los Angeles area of Southern California, extending from Ocean Avenue in the city of Santa Monica east to Grand Avenue in the Financial District of downtown Los Angeles. One of the principal east–west arterial roads of Los Angeles, it is also one of the major city streets through the city of Beverly Hills. Wilshire Boulevard runs roughly parallel to Santa Monica Boulevard from Santa Monica to the west boundary of Beverly Hills. From the east boundary, it runs a block south of Sixth Street to its terminus.
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Wilshire Center is a neighborhood in the Wilshire region of Los Angeles, California.
Claud W. Beelman, sometimes known as Claude Beelman, was an American architect who designed many examples of Beaux-Arts, Art Deco, and Streamline Moderne style buildings. Many of his buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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.
Famima!! was a chain of small upscale convenience stores owned by FamilyMart stores of Japan. Founded on September 17, 2004, the stores brought the Japanese model of premium convenience stores targeting the middle- and upper-level income group of 21 – 41 years of age to the United States. Famima stores feature upscale design and premium foods, packaging deli-style "lunch boxes", international and American goods popular in the United States.
The Bloc, formerly Macy's Plaza and Broadway Plaza, is an open-air shopping center in downtown Los Angeles at 700 South Flower Street, in the Financial District. Its tenants include the downtown Los Angeles Macy's store, LA Fitness, Nordstrom Local, UNIQLO, and the Sheraton Grand Los Angeles hotel. The shopping center has its own entrance to the 7th Street/Metro Center station of the Los Angeles Metro Rail system. The Bloc tends to connect the financial, fashion, jewelry, and theater districts and the 7th Street Metro Center Station, meaning where four Downtown Los Angeles lines converge more.
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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).
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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.
Swelldom was a large women's clothing store variously described as a "cloak and suit house" and a "department store", operating from 1906 until the 1970s in California. It had locations on Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles' shopping district, later on Wilshire Blvd. at Camden in Beverly Hills, and near Union Square in San Francisco.