Before Pershing Square became Pershing Square (named after the WWI US Army general), it was called Central Park. It’s a generic name but more appropriate seeing as how it was in the center of downtown Los Angeles and it was an actual park, with trees and shrubbery and lawns and a central fountain—in other words, the park Angelenos wished we still had. Or, at least, this Angeleno wishes we did. (circa 1917)