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 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. 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.
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 the City Hall.
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.
The California Club is an invitation-only private club established in 1888, based in Los Angeles, California.
May Company California was an American chain of department stores operating in Southern California and Nevada, with headquarters in North Hollywood, California. It was a subsidiary of May Department Stores and merged with May's other Southern California subsidiary, J. W. Robinson's, in 1993 to form Robinsons-May.
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.
Alfred Faist Rosenheim, F.A.I.A. was an architect born in St. Louis, Missouri and a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. He was one of the leading architects in Los Angeles, California in the early part of the 20th century. His major works include the Hellman Building, the Hamburger Department Store, Second Church of Christ Scientist and the Eugene W. Britt House.
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.
Times Mirror Square is a complex of buildings on the block bounded by Spring, Broadway, First and Second streets in the Civic Center district of Downtown Los Angeles. It was headquarters of the Los Angeles Times until 2018. It is currently vacant, with plans being proposed regarding how to best utilize the existing buildings and the total ground area of the site.
Walker & Eisen (1919−1941) was an architectural partnership of architects Albert R. Walker and Percy A. Eisen in Los Angeles, California.
Broadway Plaza is an outdoor shopping mall located in downtown Walnut Creek. The shopping center opened on October 11, 1951 and is owned and operated by Macerich. The mall is anchored by Nordstrom and Macy's, and features nearly 80 stores including Crate & Barrel, flagship H&M and ZARA stores, a standalone Apple store with an adjoining outdoor plaza, an Industrious co-working space, a planned Pinstripes entertainment center and restaurant, and a planned Life Time Fitness sports club.
Harris & Frank was a clothing retailer and major chain in the history of retail in Southern California, which at its peak had around 40 stores across Southern California and in neighboring states and regions. Its history dates back to a clothing store founded by Leopold Harris in Los Angeles in 1856 near the city's central plaza, only eight years after the city had passed from Mexican to American control. Herman W. Frank joined Harris in partnership 32 years later in 1888.
Myer Siegel was a Los Angeles–based department store, founded by Myer Siegel (1866–1934), specializing in women's clothing.
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 first Los Angeles federal building, more formally the Los Angeles Federal Courthouse and Post Office or U.S. Post Office and Custom House was a Richardsonian Romanesque red brick, brownstone and terra cotta structure designed by Will A. Freret. The building, located at the corner of Main Street and Winston Street, between Fourth and Fifth Streets, was used for about nine years, from 1892 to 1901, to house the Southern District of California, a U.S. post office, and the customs office. The building was partially demolished in 1901; Court moved to the Tajo Building in the meantime. The post office was housed at a series of locations until the second Los Angeles federal building opened in 1910.
The Tajo Building was a six-story office building on the northwest corner of First and Broadway in downtown Los Angeles, California, in the United States. The building was developed by Simona Martinez Bradbury and named for the Bradbury family's Tajo silver mine in Mexico. The Tajo Building was occupied at various times by the USC Law School, the Los Angeles Stock Exchange and, for the first decade of the 1900s, the United States District Court for the Southern District of California.
The 1886 Times building, northeast corner 1st/Broadway
Times 1886 building after bombing on October 1, 1910
1912 Times building, demolished in 1938
Los Angeles Times Building, corner of 1st and Spring
1948 Crawford Addition (or Mirror Building), NW corner 2nd/Spring, 2020
1973 Pereira Addition, southeast corner 1st and Broadway
Newspaper banner in 1923 featured the clock-tower building
Fifth Los Angeles Times building, adjacent to LAX in El Segundo, California
