Wilshire Center, Los Angeles, California
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Wilshire Center is a district part of Mid-Wilshire in the region of the City of Los Angeles, California.
The Wilshire Center is a Regional Commercial Center of approximately 100 acres in size. It includes a dense collection of high rise office buildings,large hotels, regional shopping complexes, churches, entertainment centers, and both high-rise and low-rise apartment buildings. Wilshire Center includes three MTA Metro Red Line subway (at Vermont, Normandie, and Western) stations along Wilshire Boulevard.
Wilshire Center is one of the oldest communities in L.A. founded in 1895 by Gaylord Wilshire. It is home to some of the best examples of the historical buildings such as the Southwestern University School of Law (converted Bullocks Wilshire) and the Wiltern Theater.
Wilshire Center has a large concentration of Korea businesses as does the historical Koreatown which is just south of the Center between Eight Street and Twelfth Street. As defined by the Los Angeles Department of City Planning, Wilshire Community Plan, adopted September 19, 2001, Wilshire Center “is generally bounded by 3rd Street on the north, 8th Street on the south, Hoover Street on the east, and Wilton Place on the west”, and Koreatown “is generally bounded by Eighth Street on the north, Twelfth Street on the south, Western Avenue on the west, and continues east towards Vermont Avenue.”
Demographics within a mile radius of Wilshire and Normandie consist of residential population of about 130,000 and a workforce of about 50,000.
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[edit] Geography
Wilshire Center boundaries are Wilton Place on the west, Third Street on the north, Hoover Street on the east, and Eight Street on the south.
Hollywood lies to the north, Westlake and Pico-Union lie to the east, Harvard Heights lies to the south, and Country Club Park and Hancock Park lie to the west.
While the main thoroughfare is Wilshire Boulevard, other major thoroughfares include Western Avenue, Normandie, and Vermont Avenues, and 3rd, 6th, and 8th Streets.
[edit] History
Wilshire Boulevard got its name from millionaire socialist Henry Gaylord Wilshire, who in 1895 began developing 35 acres stretching westward from Westlake Park for an elite residential subdivision. Wilshire donated to the city a strip of land 120 feet wide by 1,200 feet long for a boulevard, on the conditions that it would be named for him and that railroad lines and commercial or industrial trucking would be banned. As the city developed westward, so did Wilshire. It wasn’t until 1934 that the eastern and western ends of the boulevard met, when the final stretch of Wilshire was laid right through Westlake (MacArthur) Park, forever cutting it in two.
In the early 1900s steam-driven motorcars started sharing Wilshire Boulevard with horse-drawn carriages. At the turn of the century Germain Pellissier paid $25 per acre to the Southern Pacific Railway for 160 acres between what are now Normandie and Western avenues to raise sheep and barley.
Reuben Schmidt purchased land east of Normandie for his dairy farm. Further north the movie industry was developing, and in 1910 Hollywood officially became part of the city of Los Angeles. Some of its luminaries, like Mary Pickford and Harold Lloyd, were purchasing homes in the elegant suburbs of Windsor Square and Fremont Place.
Wilshire Christian Church was the first church on Wilshire Boulevard in 1911. The church received a donation of property at Wilshire and Normandie from the Chapman Brothers, owners of Chapman Market.
The first of the area's distinguished high-rise apartment buildings and hotels were erected along Wilshire Boulevard. The l0-story Bryson Apartment Hotel (at Wilshire and Rampart) dominated the landscape in 1913. Film actor Fred MacMurray later owned it. The lavish Ambassador Hotel opened its doors on 23 acres in 1921 on the former site of Reuben Schmidt's dairy farm.
Gaylord Wilshire built the 14-story Gaylord Apartment Hotel the same year. The entire area near the Ambassador Hotel became the site of New York-style apartment buildings, and many film stars lived in these elegant high rises such as the Asbury, the Langham, the Fox Normandie, the Picadilly and the Windsor.
Joseph Schenck, president of United Artists, purchased an apartment building at Berendo Ave. with his film actress wife Norma Talmadge in 1922. He named the building The Talmadge, and the couple lived on the 10th floor. The Doheny family opened the Town House at Wilshire and Commonwealth across from Lafayette Park (later purchased by Hilton and then by Sheraton) as an apartment hotel in 1924. That was the same year the first neon sign in the country was turned on at the new Packard car dealership that Earl C. Anthony had opened at Wilshire and La Brea.
Charlie Chaplin was using the Westlake Park lake for many of his movie scenes. Gloria Swanson lived in an apartment building she owned near the Ambassador Hotel. Her husband Herbert Somborn opened the Brown Derby Restaurant, a hat-shaped building at Wilshire and Alexandria in 1926, in an era when restaurants were shaped like igloos, hot dogs and teepees. In 1927 Ebell of Los Angeles, a women's organization, began construction of its Italian Renaissance clubhouse at Wilshire and Lucerne.
In 1929 Bullocks Wilshire, dubbed the "cathedral of commerce," was built at Wilshire and Westmoreland as the city's first branch department store in the suburbs. Its Art Deco architectural style was modeled after the designs which premiered at the Paris Exposition des Arts Decoratifs et Moderne. That same year the Academy Awards ceremony was moved from the Hollywood Roosevelt to the Ambassador Hotel.
A section of Germain Pellessier's sheep farm became the site of the Pellessier Building and Wiltern Theatre, which began construction at the corner of Wilshire and Western in 1929. The theater, operated by Warners Bros., opened in 1931 with the premiere of the movie "Alexander Hamilton."
The world's first drive-in market opened in 1929 when Chapman Market drew motorcars to its drive-through grocery store at Sixth St. and Alexandria.
When I. Magnin's opened in 1939 at Wilshire and New Hampshire it was the first retail store in the country to be operated entirely by electricity and completely air-conditioned. The store marked the consolidation of three stores, formerly located in the Ambassador Hotel, the Biltmore Hotel and in Hollywood. Department stores were opening suburban branches as the Miracle Mile area developed between La Brea and Fairfax avenues. Wilshire Boulevard was the place to see and be seen–movie stars motored down the avenue in their Packards, Lincolns and Cords.
When the 13-story height limit on buildings was lifted in 1951, golfers had to look elsewhere for driving range. The property on the south side of Wilshire between Mariposa and Normandie was converted to the site of the first three 12-story Tishman Plaza buildings in 1952 (now known as Central Plaza). Designed by Claude Beelman, they were the first office buildings to be erected by the prestigious Tishman firm in Los Angeles.
Insurance companies began locating their west coast headquarters in Wilshire Center because of tax incentives provided by the State. The drawing boards at the architectural firm of Langdon and Wilson were responsible for such projects as the U. S. Borax Building at Westmoreland, the CNA Building (now the Superior Court building) and Wilshire Plaza at Wilshire and Serrano.
Some 22 high rise office buildings were erected on Wilshire Boulevard from 1966 to 1976, to provide office space for such companies as Getty Oil Co., Ahmanson Financial Co., Beneficial Standard Life Insurance, Wausau and Equitable Life Insurance. Dedication of the Liberty Bell, an exact replica of the original bell in Philadelphia, was held at Beneficial Standard Life Insurance Co.'s lobby at the firm's Wilshire and Oxford headquarters in 1968.
The Chapman Park Hotel, built in 1936, was torn down to make way for the 34-story Equitable Plaza office building erected in 1969. Cardinal James Mclnryre spoke at the dedication of St. Basil's Church, Kingsley and Wilshire, in 1969. By 1970 firms such as CNA, Pacific Indemnity and Pierce National Life were starting construction of their own high-rise buildings. Southwestern University School of Law moved from its downtown location of 50 years to a four-story campus just south of Wilshire Boulevard on Westmoreland in 1973.
If Sunset Boulevard was, in its heyday, the center of the world's dream making, it was to that stretch of Wilshire Boulevard between Hoover and Wilton (called Wilshire Center since the mid-fifties) that generations of Angelenos went to find their own dreams.
There they shopped in glittering Moderne palaces like I. Magnin and Bullock's Wilshire (in its famous Tearoom, they also rubbed elbows with the city's socialites, many of whom lived in nearby Hancock Park). There they took power lunches (long before the term was invented) in such delightfully kitsch restaurants as the Brown Derby or the aristocratic Perino's not far away.
They danced the night away in the Ambassador Hotel's world-famous Cocoanut Grove or, in the 1950s, may even have discovered the talent of the young Nat Cole in one of the local jazz clubs. There they may have worshiped in the gothic grandeur of the 2000-seat Immanuel Presbyterian Church (where ushers in tailcoats escorted members to their seats) or in the equally imposing Wilshire Boulevard Temple.
For entertainment, one needed to go no further than the Art-Deco Wiltern Theater (now a national landmark and showcase for the performing arts). They may have lived in The Talmadge, built for silent film star Norma Talmadge by her husband, United Artists president Joseph Schenck, or in the nearby Los Altos, where publishing czar William Randolph Hearst ensconced his vivacious mistress Marion Davies in a huge apartment neighboring that of the "it" girl of the era, Clara Bow, and, later, Judy Garland, Bette Davis and Loretta Young. Wilshire Center was, as many called it, L.A.'s "Golden Hub."
Then it all ended. It took a while though; as commerce moved to the City's less congested Westside (as well as the San Fernando Valley), businesses and the population- at least the affluent population-eventually followed. I. Magnin closed, Bullocks Wilshire held out until 1993. Rental rates in office buildings plummeted from an average of $1.65/sq. ft. to a dollar between 1991 and 1996; property values dropped from a high of $120/sq. ft. to $30 or $40 per foot in 1998. In 1987, the Ambassador Hotel, social linchpin of the entire city (where, once, Errol Flynn cavorted with his girlfriends and where, of course, Robert Kennedy was assassinated after celebrating his win in 1968's California presidential primary) closed. Left behind was a huge, highly visible, abandoned memorial to what the area once was.
The L.A. riots of April, 1992, the seemingly endless traffic upheavals caused by the construction of the new Los Angeles Metro Rail subway, and 1994's massive earthquake were almost mortal blows. Wilshire Center was becoming "a ghost town" said Mike Davis, author of the novel "City of Quartz."
He was wrong. Back in 1992, a group of business people and residents of Wilshire Center, the area surrounding the most historic two miles of Los Angeles’ famous boulevard - Wilshire Boulevard, sat down together amid the devastation of the L.A. riots, business flight, and the physical upheaval of the Metro Rail subway construction, and pledged $3000 to begin the effort to take control of their community.
Eventually, some $6,000,000 in federal, state, local and private funds would be raised to fund the effort - called Wilshire Center Streetscape Project - one of the most ambitious and significant urban rehabilitation projects found anywhere in America. This Streetscape was awarded in 1999 the Lady Bird Johnson Award from The National Arbor Day Foundation.
Designed to enhance the environment and lifestyle of residents, visitors and workers in the area, Wilshire Center Streetscape has been an unqualified success. Said past Los Angeles Mayor Richard J. Riordan in saluting the project: "The community has led the drive to return Wilshire Boulevard to a place of prominence and splendor, and even more energy, beauty and vitality than ever before."
Exerted from an article by Jane Gilman, publisher of Larchmont Chronicle, “Wilshire Boulevard Milestones”, and with exerts from the Curating the City Tour Book by LA Conservancy and exerts from an article “Streetscape: the Plan that Saved a Community” by David Wallace. For a self-guided tour of Wilshire Boulevard log on to www.curatingthecity.org
Today a number of organizations exist which provide services and leadership for our community. They are the Wilshire Center Business Improvement Corp.(WCBIC), CRA Wilshire Center/Koreatown Citizen Advisory Committee (WCKCAC), and the Wilshire Center/Koreatown Neighborhood Council (WCKNC), along with our local City Council offices. The WCBIC manages an assessment district created by the Los Angeles City Council in 1995 which funds private security, maintenance, and marketing. The WCKCAC provides an inclusive open forum for public discussion of issues concerning City governance, the needs of this neighborhood, the delivery of City services to this neighborhood, and on matters of a citywide nature. The WCKCAC program activities focus on business attraction, job creation and rehabilitation of residential and commercial properties.
[edit] Education
Wilshire Center is zoned to the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Some areas of Wilshire Center are zoned to Los Angeles Elementary School. Some areas are zoned to Wilton Place Elementary School [1].
Some areas of Wilshire Center are zoned to Berendo Middle School, while some are zoned to Borroughs Middle School.
All areas are zoned to Los Angeles High School.
