Wilshire Center is a neighborhood in the
Wilshire region of
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
.
Geography
The name "Wilshire Center" is a relatively modern moniker that refers to much of the eastern portion of the Wilshire Community Plan area (CPA), generally from Virgil Avenue and Hoover Street on the east to Wilton Place and Crenshaw Boulevard on the west. It borders
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood, ...
to the north at
Melrose Avenue
Melrose Avenue is a shopping, dining and entertainment destination in Los Angeles that starts at Santa Monica Boulevard, at the border between Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. It ends at Lucile Avenue in Silver Lake. Melrose runs north of Beve ...
, and
Koreatown
A Koreatown (Korean: 코리아타운), also known as a Little Korea or Little Seoul, is a Korean-dominated ethnic enclave within a city or metropolitan area outside the Korean Peninsula.
History
Koreatowns as an East Asian ethnic enclave have ...
and part of
Harvard Heights
Harvard Heights is a densely populated, mixed-income neighborhood of 20,000+ people in Central Los Angeles, California. Within it lies a municipally designated historic overlay zone designed to protect its architecturally significant single-fa ...
to the south. The area was historically known as part of the Wilshire District. As the Wilshire area expanded westward, neighborhood names emerged to distinguish parts of the district from each other.
Wilshire Center includes some of the Wilshire CPA's oldest streetcar suburbs dating to the early 20th century. Historic Preservation Overlay Zones within Wilshire Center include Wilshire Park and Country Club Park.
[
Within the neighborhood, the Wilshire Center Regional Commercial Center, as defined in the city's general plan, 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. Google Maps uses the general boundaries of the Regional Commercial Center for the neighborhood. Services provided by the business improvement district are limited to the commercial area between Wilton Place, Hoover Street, Third Street and Eighth Street.]
Wilshire Center Business Improvement District
Transportation
Wilshire Center is served by city buses, including several Metro Rapid
Metro Rapid is a local express bus service with bus rapid transit (BRT) characteristics in Los Angeles County, California.
At its peak, Metro had dozens of Rapid routes, but , the system has been largely discontinued. Just three Metro operated Rap ...
lines, and three subway stations along Wilshire Boulevard
Wilshire Boulevard is a prominent boulevard in the Los Angeles area of Southern California, extending from Ocean Avenue in the city of Santa Monica east to Grand Avenue in the Financial District of downtown Los Angeles. One of the principal ...
. The Metro D Line
The Metro D Line is a bus rapid transit line in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota. The route primarily operates on Fremont and Chicago Avenues from Brooklyn Center through Minneapolis to the Mall of America in Bloomington. As part of BRT ser ...
, which begins at Union Station
A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...
in Downtown Los Angeles
Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) contains the central business district of Los Angeles. In addition, it contains a diverse residential area of some 85,000 people, and covers . A 2013 study found that the district is home to over 500,000 jobs. It is ...
, has stations at Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
Ave., Normandie Ave., and Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
Ave., at which it currently terminates. An extension of the D Line subway under Wilshire Boulevard to Westwood is scheduled for completion in 2028. The Vermont station is also served by the Metro B Line, which continues north through Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood, ...
to North Hollywood
North Hollywood is a neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, located in the San Fernando Valley. The neighborhood contains the NoHo Arts District, the El Portal Theatre, several art galleries, and the Academy of TV Arts and Sciences. The North ...
.
History
Wilshire Boulevard is named for Henry Gaylord Wilshire
Henry Gaylord Wilshire (June 7, 1861 – September 7, 1927), known to his contemporaries by his middle name of "Gaylord", was an American land developer, publisher, and outspoken socialist. He is the namesake of Los Angeles' Wilshire Boulevard.
...
—a millionaire who in 1895 began developing a parcel stretching westward from Westlake Park Westlake Park can mean:
*Westlake Park (Seattle), a park in Seattle, Washington
* MacArthur Park, formerly Westlake Park, in Los Angeles, California
*Westlake Park (Houston)
Westlake Park is a office complex located in the Energy Corridor, Housto ...
(MacArthur Park) for an elite residential subdivision. A socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
, Wilshire donated to the city a strip of land for a boulevard on the conditions that it would be named for him and ban public transit, railroad lines, and commercial or industrial trucking and freight trains.
A ''Los Angeles Times'' overview of the area referred to "the corridor's former glory as a haven for blue-chip corporations and fine shopping."
In the early 1900s, steam-driven motorcars started sharing Wilshire Boulevard with horse-drawn carriage
A carriage is a private four-wheeled vehicle for people and is most commonly horse-drawn. Second-hand private carriages were common public transport, the equivalent of modern cars used as taxis. Carriage suspensions are by leather strapping an ...
s. At the turn of the century, Germain Pellissier raised sheep and barley between Normandie and Western Avenues. Reuben Schmidt purchased land east of Normandie for his dairy farm.
In the mid-1990s, it had a reputation for "crime and grime," and many businesses had left the area, but by 2001 it had recovered.[ The ''Los Angeles Times'' noted that:
"Another sign of the district's popularity emerged this summer with the opening of a plush, $35-million spa, mall and golf complex called Aroma Wilshire Center just east of Western Avenue that caters to the city's affluent Korean population, many of them entrepreneurs who own businesses in the area."
]
Apartment buildings
Distinguished high-rise apartment buildings and hotels were erected along Wilshire Boulevard. The lavish Ambassador Hotel was built in 1921 on of the former site of Reuben Schmidt's dairy farm. In approximately 1929, the Academy Awards ceremony was moved from the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel is a historic hotel located at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California. It opened on May 15, 1927, and is the oldest continually operating hotel in Los Angeles.
History
The hote ...
to the Ambassador Hotel. It closed in 1989 and, despite efforts of historic preservationists, has been demolished. The site is owned by the Los Angeles Unified School District
Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is a public school district in Los Angeles, California, United States. It is the largest public school system in California in terms of number of students and the 2nd largest public school district in ...
, which in 2010 opened the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools
The Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools, called the RFK Community Schools, is a complex of public schools in Los Angeles, California. This was formerly the site of the Ambassador Hotel, the site of the June 1968 assassination of presidential ca ...
and a small park on the site. It is the most expensive public school in the United States.
The area nearby became the site of elegant New York-style apartment buildings such as the Asbury, the Langham, the Fox Normandie, the Picadilly, the Talmadge (after Norma Talmadge
Norma Marie Talmadge (May 2, 1894 – December 24, 1957) was an American actress and film producer of the silent film, silent era. A major box-office draw for more than a decade, her career reached a peak in the early 1920s, when she ranked among ...
), the Gaylord, and the Windsor. Many film stars lived in these buildings.
As of 2021, a building boom fueled by density bonuses and the City of Los Angeles's Transit-Oriented Community incentives has increased the supply of apartments and condominiums in the area, and older office buildings have been converted into apartments and condos. Large apartment buildings have been constructed at the Metro stops at Wilshire/Western and Wilshire/Vermont.
Commercial
Gloria Swanson
Gloria May Josephine Swanson (March 27, 1899April 4, 1983) was an American actress and producer. She first achieved fame acting in dozens of silent films in the 1920s and was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, most f ...
's husband, Herbert Somborn, opened the Brown Derby
Brown Derby was a chain of restaurants in Los Angeles, California. The first and best known was shaped like a derby hat, an iconic image that became synonymous with the Golden Age of Hollywood. It was opened by Wilson Mizner in 1926. The chain ...
Restaurant, a hat-shaped building at Wilshire and Alexandria, in 1926. The hat now sits on top of a restaurant in a mini-mall.
In 1929, the elegant Art-Deco Bullocks Wilshire
Bullocks Wilshire, located at 3050 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, is a Art Deco building. The building opened in September 1929 as a luxury department store for owner John G. Bullock (owner of the more mainstream Bullock's in Down ...
was built at Wilshire and Westmoreland as the city's first branch department store in the suburbs. It closed in 1993 and now houses the library of Southwestern Law School
Southwestern Law School is a private law school in Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles. It is accredited by the American Bar Association and enrolls nearly 1,000 students. Its campus includes the Bullocks Wilshire building, an art deco National Register ...
.
A section of Germain Pellessier's sheep farm became the site of the Pellessier Building and Wiltern Theatre
The Pellissier Building and adjoining Wiltern Theatre is a 12-story, Art Deco landmark at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue in Los Angeles, California. The entire complex is commonly referred to as the Wiltern Center. Clad in a ...
, which began construction at the corner of Wilshire and Western in 1929. The theater, operated by Warner Brothers
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American Film studio, film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, Califo ...
, opened in 1931.
In 1929, the Chapman Market drew motorcars to the world's first drive-through grocery store at Sixth St and Alexandria.
The San Francisco-based I. Magnin
I. Magnin & Company was a San Francisco, California-based high fashion and specialty goods luxury department store. Over the course of its existence, it expanded across the West into Southern California and the adjoining states of Arizona, Oregon, ...
opened a store in 1939 at Wilshire and New Hampshire.
In 2001, David Y. Lee was the largest landlord in the district, owning 20 buildings comprising about 7 million square feet of space in Mid-Wilshire
Mid-Wilshire is a neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. It is known for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Petersen Automotive Museum, and the Miracle Mile shopping district.
Geography
City of Los Angeles bounda ...
and three buildings in nearby Park Mile.[
]
Office buildings
In 1952, on the driving range on the south side of Wilshire between Mariposa and Normandie, the first three 12-story Tishman Plaza buildings were built in 1952 (they're now known as Central Plaza), designed by Claude Beelman
Claud W. Beelman (1883 – January 30, 1963), sometimes known as ''Claude Beelman'', was an American architect who designed many examples of Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts, Art Deco, and Streamline Moderne style buildings. Many of his build ...
.
Insurance companies began locating their West Coast headquarters in Wilshire Center because of tax incentives provided by the State. 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. The Chapman Park Hotel, built in 1936, was torn down to make way for the 34-story Equitable Plaza office building erected 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.
In the 1970s and 1980s, commerce moved to the city's less congested Westside as well as the San Fernando Valley, and businesses and affluent residents eventually followed. I. Magnin closed, while 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.
Wilshire Center lost most of its remaining original glitter following the 1992 Los Angeles riots
The 1992 Los Angeles riots, sometimes called the 1992 Los Angeles uprising and the Los Angeles Race Riots, were a series of riots and civil disturbances that occurred in Los Angeles County, California, in April and May 1992. Unrest began in S ...
and the 1994 Northridge earthquake
The 1994 Northridge earthquake was a moment 6.7 (), blind thrust earthquake that occurred on January 17, 1994, at 4:30:55 a.m. PST in the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles.
The quake had a duration of approximately ...
.
Subsequently, the Wilshire Center Streetscape Projec
used federal funds to rejuvenate Wilshire Boulevard. It was one of the most ambitious and significant urban rehabilitation projects found anywhere in America and in 1999 was awarded the Lady Bird Johnson
Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Johnson (''née'' Taylor; December 22, 1912 – July 11, 2007) was First Lady of the United States from 1963 to 1969 as the wife of President Lyndon B. Johnson. She previously served as Second Lady from 1961 to 1963 when ...
Award from The National Arbor Day Foundation
The Arbor Day Foundation is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership organization dedicated to planting trees. The Arbor Day Foundation has more than one million members and has planted more than 350 million trees in neighborhoods, communities ...
.
Religious buildings
Wilshire Christian Church Wilshire may refer to:
People
* Wilshire (surname)
Places
* Beaumont-Wilshire, Portland, Oregon, a neighborhood in that city
*Stonybrook-Wilshire, Pennsylvania, a community in that state
*Mid-Wilshire, a neighborhood in Central Los Angeles
*Wilsh ...
was the first church on Wilshire Boulevard in 1911. The church property at Wilshire and Normandie was donated by the Chapman Brothers, owners of Chapman Market, whose historic building remains nearby on Sixth Street.
Some of the buildings are:
*Korean Philadelphia Presbyterian Church
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
** Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju languag ...
, on New Hampshire Avenue, formerly the Sinai Congregation
*The Los Angeles Korean Methodist Church
LOS, or Los, or LoS may refer to:
Science and technology
* Length of stay, the duration of a single episode of hospitalisation
* Level of service (transportation), Level of service, a measure used by traffic engineers
* Level of significance, a ...
, at 4th and Normandie, formerly a Christian Science congregation
* Immanuel Presbyterian Church (Wilshire & Berendo)
*First Congregational Church of Los Angeles
First Congregational Church of Los Angeles is located at 540 South Commonwealth Avenue, Los Angeles, California, United States. It is a member of the United Church of Christ. Founded in 1867, the church is the city's oldest continuous Protestant ...
(6th & Commonwealth)
* St. James Episcopal Church (Wilshire & St Andrews)
*First Baptist Church of Los Angeles
First Baptist Church of Los Angeles is a Baptist church located at 760 South Westmoreland Avenue in Los Angeles, California. It was designated Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument 237 in 1981.
History
On September 4, 1874, believers came toget ...
(8th & Westmoreland)
* St Basil's Catholic Church, a modern building, on Wilshire
*Founder's Church of Religious Science
The Religious Science movement, or Science of Mind, was established in 1927 by Ernest Holmes (1887–1960) and is a spiritual, philosophical and metaphysical religious movement within the New Thought movement. In general, the term "Scie ...
, on 6th Street
*Wilshire Boulevard Temple
Wilshire Boulevard Temple, known from 1862 to 1933 as Congregation B'nai B'rith, is the oldest Jewish congregation in Los Angeles, California. Wilshire Boulevard Temple's main building, with a sanctuary topped by a large Byzantine revival dome an ...
(Reform Jewish)
*The Islamic Center of Southern California
The Islamic Center of Southern California is a mosque and Islamic cultural center located in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Vermont Avenue adjacent to the Chinese Consulate General in the Wilshire Center neighborhood of Los Angeles. It ...
, a modern building, on Vermont
Community organizations
*Th
Wilshire Center/Koreatown Neighborhood Council
(WCKNC)
Education and services
Wilshire Center is zoned to the Los Angeles Unified School District
Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is a public school district in Los Angeles, California, United States. It is the largest public school system in California in terms of number of students and the 2nd largest public school district in ...
. All areas are zoned to Los Angeles High School
Los Angeles High School is the oldest Public education#United States, public high school in the Southern California, Southern California Region and in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Its colors are royal blue and white and the teams are ...
.
Schools include:
*Los Angeles Elementary School
*Wilton Place Elementary Schoo
*Berendo Middle School
*Burroughs Middle School
Parks and recreation
The Pio Pico–Koreatown branch of the Los Angeles Public Library
The Los Angeles Public Library system (LAPL) is a public library system in Los Angeles, California. The system holds more than six million volumes, and with around 19 million residents in the Los Angeles Metropolitan area, it serves the large ...
is located at 7th and Oxford Streets.
The Anderson-Munger branch of th
YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles
is at 3rd and Oxford Streets.
There are no city parks or community gardens in Wilshire Center, and only small parks in the surrounding communities. This is one of the most 'park-poor' areas of the city.
See also
* Harold A. Henry
Harold A. Henry (October 20, 1895 – May 1, 1966) was a community newspaper publisher who was elected to the Los Angeles City Council in 1945 and was its president for four terms from 1947 to 1962.
Biography
Henry was born October 20, 1895, in ...
, Los Angeles City Council president active in improving Wilshire Center
*
Further reading
*“Wilshire Boulevard Milestones," by Jane Gilman, publisher of ''Larchmont Chronicle.''
*The ''Curating the City Tour Book'' by the Los Angeles Conservancy
The Los Angeles Conservancy is a historic preservation organization in Los Angeles, California. It works to document, rescue and revitalize historic buildings, places and neighborhoods in the city. The Conservancy is the largest membership based ...
*“Streetscape: the Plan that Saved a Community” by David Wallace.
Notes
References
External links
Tour of Wilshire Boulevard
Exploring Wilshire Boulevard's history and historical buildings.
A walking tour of Wilshire Center's history and historical buildings by way of guidebook and map (''download link'').
The Wilshire Center's history, b
Larchmont Chronicle
publisher by Jane Gilman.
{{Los Angeles
Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles
Neighborhoods in Los Angeles
Central Los Angeles
Business improvement districts in the United States
1895 establishments in California
Populated places established in 1895