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Los Angeles, today one of the world’s greatest metropolises, took root in the early 19th Century as an inauspicious Spanish pueblo spread out over several dozen square miles.
It would take half a century and two wars – California formally became a state, and Los Angeles a city in 1850 – before the city downtown began to take shape. The town plaza, now known as Pershing Square, was established in 1866.
Later, the conclusion of the Civil War and a train fare war that saw the price of a cross-country ticket drop to $1 would send thousands of people streaming west into Southern California.
The population boom meant a flurry of new development, including the construction of dozens of hotels on Main Street to house the influx of workers. Some of those hotels remain intact today, their signs stretching eastward toward what was once the city’s train depot.
By 1910, the population swelled to 319,198, making Los Angeles the 17th biggest city in the country. Agriculture remained a critical industry, but others, including film, would follow shortly. The historic core of downtown Los Angeles would eventually brag 17 movie palaces. The Los Angeles Stock Exchange opened on Spring Street in 1931.
World War II would attract a new wave of people to the area, but by the 1960s a shift was underway. The city’s white elite began to abandon the historic core, instead shifting development several blocks west to Bunker Hill and leaving Main Street to communities of color.
The new downtown grew upward and outward. The Los Angeles Convention Center opened in 1971, and the U.S. Bank Tower in 1987. The historic core, meanwhile, remained largely untouched. By the end of the century, it had become home to the highest concentration of homeless people in the United States, an area synonymous with urban blight.
In the late 1990s, developers began to again focus on the historic downtown. In 1999, the Los Angeles City Council passed the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance which allowed developers to convert downtown commercial buildings into residential units. It set in motion a flurry of activity, led by developer Tom Gilmore.
Also in 1999, the Staples Center opened its doors in south downtown Los Angeles, bookending the revitalization that was taking shape in the historic core to the north.
The following decade would prove a restorative one for the neighborhood. In 2003, the first Downtown Art Walk took place. The monthly event would help give birth to new cafes, bars and nightclubs popular with young professionals.
In 2010, Los Angeles debuted its first CicLAvia, turning 7.5 miles of city streets into a parkway for bicyclists. It is an instant hit. Three subsequent events attract tens of thousands of participants, sending them through the historic core.
The growth has not been without its challenges. Existing communities, including the homeless and people of color, now find themselves existing on the same streets as relatively privileged newcomers.
Nevertheless, what was once a blighted area avoided by most Angelenos is now one of its most celebrated up-and-coming neighborhoods.
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