This photo is almost painful for me to look at. In 1951, Pershing Square, which had long been considered the center of Los Angeles with its shade trees and lawns and fountain, was ripped up so that a five-level parking structure could be built underneath it. And because of that, when it came time to recreate the square, the amount of earth needed to support large, shady trees was no longer there, so instead LA got…concrete. I know that downtown needed more parking, and to dig down was a practical solution, but it seems an awful price to pay.
This satellite photo from January 2020 shows us what the square looks like now. On the plus side, at least the marvelous Biltmore Hotel is still there. (That’s the terracotta building on the right.)
On the bright side , it says there is a Artsy park now there. Woo-hoo.
Yeah…woo-freakin-hoo.
Exactly.
Any time they’ve tried to redesign it since then it comes up short. They had a design contest in 2016 to remodel it. A French firm won the honors and, yes, it’s better than what it is now, but the design should’ve been “the design it was when it was torn up.” Also: That design was chosen 6 years ago. Where is it? What’s up?
ETA: I just tried to find out anything. There was a May, 2022 article headline: First phase of Pershing Square revamp is now permit-ready. (Six years to get ready? And this will be the “first phase”?)
So in other words, we shouldn’t hold our collective breaths.
WOW, what a memory tickle this photo is for me. My dear grandmother took me down to ‘ downtown ‘ L.A. at Christmas time to go through the toy departments in the various big stores like the May Company and others. We went down from the San Fernando Valley on the Pacific Electric ” Red Car “, coming into the underground terminal on Hill Street north of 5th. On exit from the station, we walked past the ice-skating rink which must have been over on the Olive side near the Biltmore while ” Winter Wonderland ” was playing over the loudspeakers. I also recall a ‘ Tin ‘ Boeing Stratocruiser airliner model in one of the toy departments that when rolled along a tabletop surface had the four propellers turn and sparks coming out.
For lunch, we walked down to Clifton’s Cafeteria and had our meal up on the balcony level looking out through the three arched windows facing the street ( I show 848 S. Broadway ). After lunch we went back by Pershing Square to the Red Car and a return home. I recall that besides the ice rink, the square was quite park like but with grass and shrubberies rather than trees.
Wonderful memories from what I remember as December of 1954.
Hi Richard, it seems like the whole “grandma takes grandchild to downtown LA for Christmas shopping and lunch afterwards at Cliftons” thing was a very common ritual in LA. Lucky you!
I checked and the address for the former Clifton’s was 648 S. Broadway. Makes sense as the ‘ streetside ‘ view shows the building face still there.
As a note, my Dad was a senior engineer with Pacific Telephone & Telegraph downtown at 740 S. Olive, so I have a lot of connection to today’s theme photo and area.
Cheers all.
Painful indeed.
Does anyone know about the Round-Up Bar from the 50-60’s? It was owned by William Black. Thanks
The only ones I know are the Rand’s Round-Up Restaurants which was a mini-chain of around half a dozen locations around LA in what I’m guessing was the 1950s.