Wilshire Center, Los Angeles, California

Wilshire Center is a district that is part of the larger Mid-Wilshire

Mid-Wilshire

Mid-Wilshire is a district in the City of Los Angeles, California. It is part of the Wilshire region.It mostly encompasses the area bounded by La Cienega Boulevard to the west, Melrose Avenue to the north, Hoover Street to the east and the Santa Monica Freeway to the south, although some...

district in the city of Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

. It was founded in 1895 by Gaylord Wilshire and is one of the oldest communities in Los Angeles. It is 3–4 miles west of downtown Los Angeles.

Geography

Wilshire Center is bounded by Melrose Hill on the north, Westlake

Westlake, Los Angeles, California

Westlake is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California. It should not be confused with Westlake Village, an independent municipality in Los Angeles County near Thousand Oaks and close to the Ventura County line....

on the east, Koreatown on the south, and Hancock Park

Hancock Park, Los Angeles, California

Hancock Park is a historic and affluent urban neighborhood in Los Angeles, California roughly bounded by Van Ness Avenue to the East, Melrose Avenue to the North, La Brea Avenue to the West, and Wilshire Boulevard to the South.-History:...

on the west.

The Wilshire Center is a 'Regional Commercial Center' of approximately 100 acre (0.404686 km²) in size and consisting of about 37000000 square feet (3,437,412.5 m²) of building area. It includes a dense collection of high-rise office buildings, large hotels, mini-malls, malls, churches, night clubs, and both high-rise and low-rise apartment and condominium buildings, as well as private houses. Wilshire Center includes three Metro subway stations along Wilshire Boulevard.

Names

Wilshire Center is sometimes referred to as Koreatown, K-Town, Mid-Wilshire

Mid-Wilshire

and the Wilshire District. However, historically and officially, Wilshire Center is distinct. City signs designate the area as Wilshire Center. 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.”

Wilshire Center has a large concentration of Korean-owned businesses and an ethnically and economically diverse residential population. Within a one-mile (1.6 km) radius of Wilshire and Normandie (the approximate geographic center), there is a residential population of about 130,000 and a workforce of about 50,000.

The Wilshire Center Business Improvement District - WCBID was formed in 1995 as one of the first business improvement districts in Los Angeles. The Wilshire Center Business Improvement District (WCBID) offers materials on the rich Wilshire Center history. The WCBID has been providing community services for the Wilshire Center since 1995.

Transportation

Wilshire Center is served by city buses, including several Rapid lines, and three subway stations along Wilshire Boulevard. The Metro Purple Line, which begins at Union Station

Union Station (Los Angeles)

Los Angeles Union Station is the main railway station in Los Angeles, California. The station has rail services by Amtrak and Amtrak California and Metrolink; light rail/subways are the Metro Rail Red Line, Purple Line, Gold Line. Bus rapid transport runs on the Silver Line...

in Downtown Los Angeles

Downtown Los Angeles

Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, United States, located close to the geographic center of the metropolitan area...

, has stations at Vermont, Normandie and Western Avenues, where it terminates (an extension of the Purple Line subway along Wilshire blvd to Westwood/UCLA has been approved and is scheduled to be completed in stages thru 2020) The Vermont station is also a stop on the Metro Red Line, which continues north through Hollywood to North Hollywood.

The main east-west thoroughfare of Mid-Wilshire is Wilshire Boulevard

Wilshire Boulevard

Wilshire Boulevard is one of the principal east-west arterial roads in Los Angeles, California, United States. It was named for Henry Gaylord Wilshire , an Ohio native who made and lost fortunes in real estate, farming, and gold mining. Henry Wilshire initiated what was to become Wilshire...

which is served by numerous Metro Local

Metro Local

Metro Local is a bus system in Los Angeles County operated by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority . This retronym designation was placed to differentiate it from the Metro Rapid service...

, and Metro Rapid

Metro Rapid

Metro Rapid is a bus rapid transit service in Los Angeles County, California that operates in mixed traffic environments and has fewer stops than the Metro Local service. The system is mainly operated by LACMTA. Two routes are operated by Santa Monica Transit and one by Culver City Transit...

bus lines, as well as Foothill Transit

Foothill Transit

Foothill Transit is a joint powers authority of 21 member cities in the San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys. It operates a fixed-route bus public transit service in the San Gabriel Valley of Greater Los Angeles, California.-Overview:...

Line 481. The main north-south thoroughfares are Western Avenue and Vermont Avenue

Vermont Avenue

Vermont Avenue is one of the longest running north/south streets in Los Angeles, California with a length of about . Located just west of the Harbor Freeway for the major portion south of Downtown Los Angeles, it starts in Griffith Park at the Greek Theatre in the Los Feliz neighborhood as a...

(also heavily served by Metro Local/Metro Rapid service). Normandie, midway between them, is a secondary north-south thoroughfare with a Metro Local bus line. 3rd Street (Los Angeles) and 6th street are major east-west thoroughfares with Metro Local, Metro Local-Limited and Dash bus lines, and 8th Street & James M. Wood blvd (9th st.) are minor thoroughfares that function as alternatives to Wilshire Boulevard for local driving.

The Hollywood Freeway

Hollywood Freeway

The Hollywood Freeway is one of the principal freeways of Los Angeles, California and one of the busiest in the United States. It is the principal route over the Cahuenga Pass, the primary shortcut between the Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley...

(U.S. Route 101) runs just to the north and east of Wilshire Center. Access to the Santa Monica Freeway

Interstate 10 in California

Interstate 10 , the major east–west Interstate Highway in the Southern United States, runs in the U.S. state of California east from Santa Monica, on the Pacific Ocean, through Los Angeles and San Bernardino to the border with Arizona...

(Interstate 10) is about three miles (5 km) to the south.

Wilshire Center has several bicycle lanes, including a 3.7 miles (6 km)-long designated bike route along residential 4th street between Hoover Street and Cochran Street (just west of La Brea Avenue) in the Hancock Park

Hancock Park

Hancock Park is a park in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, area, which is the location of the La Brea Tar Pits, the George C. Page Museum of La Brea Discoveries, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art . The park does not, however, lie within the Hancock Park neighborhood which is...

neighborhood, another 4.2 mile long route on 7th street from Spring street downtown to Catalina street, and a new route along New Hampshire street from the 101 freeway to 7th street. Another bicycle route is currently proposed for Oxford Avenue (just east of Western Avenue) between Melrose Avenue and Pico Boulevard.

Parking within the Mid-Wilshire neighborhood is often difficult. The area is the densest neighborhood in Los Angeles, and many older multi-unit buildings lack off-street parking. Side streets have weekly street sweeping schedules on alternate sides. Several side-streets also have preferential parking restrictions for those with permits only, while others have two-hour daytime parking limits. Main thoroughfares often have metered street parking. In addition, most main thoroughfares within Mid-Wilshire also have strict rush-hour parking restrictions in place in order to provide an additional lane of through traffic to help alleviate the severe traffic congestion common in this area during commuting hours. Weekday peak-hour (anti-gridlock zone) restrictions are strictly enforced with ticketing and towing by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation.

History

Wilshire Boulevard is named for Henry Gaylord Wilshire

Henry Gaylord Wilshire

Henry Gaylord Wilshire , known to his contemporaries by his middle name of "Gaylord," was a land developer, publisher and outspoken socialist who gave Los Angeles' famous Wilshire Boulevard its name.-Early years:...

, a millionaire who in 1895 began developing a 35 acres (141,640.1 m²) parcel stretching westward from Westlake Park

MacArthur Park

MacArthur Park is a park in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, named after General Douglas MacArthur and designated city of Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument #100.- Geography :...

(MacArthur Park) for an elite residential subdivision. A socialist, Wilshire donated to the city a strip of land for a boulevard, on the conditions that it would be named for him and that banned public transit railroad lines and commercial or industrial trucking and freight trains.

In the early 1900s, steam-driven motorcar

Steam car

A steam car is a light car powered by a steam engine.Steam locomotives, steam engines capable of propelling themselves along either road or rails, developed around one hundred years earlier than internal combustion engine cars although their weight restricted them to agricultural and heavy haulage...

s started sharing Wilshire Boulevard with horse-drawn carriage

Carriage

A carriage is a wheeled vehicle for people, usually horse-drawn; litters and sedan chairs are excluded, since they are wheelless vehicles. The carriage is especially designed for private passenger use and for comfort or elegance, though some are also used to transport goods. It may be light,...

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.

Information

Tour of Wilshire Boulevard: Exploring Wilshire Boulevard's history and historical buildings.
Wilshire Angels Walk LA: A walking tour of Wilshire Center's history and historical buildings by way of guidebook and map (download link).
Wilshire Boulevard Milestones: The Wilshire Center's history, by Larchmont Chronicle publisher by Jane Gilman.

Apartment buildings

Distinguished high-rise apartment buildings and hotels were erected along Wilshire Boulevard. The lavish Ambassador Hotel was built in 1921 on 23 acres (93,077.8 m²) of the former site of Reuben Schmidt's dairy farm. In approximately 1929, the Academy Awards ceremony was moved from the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel 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

Los Angeles Unified School District is the largest public school system in California. It is the 2nd largest public school district in the United States. Only the New York City Department of Education has a larger student population...

, which in 2010 opened the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools

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. The schools cost $578 million to build, making it the most expensive public school in the United States...

and a small park on the site. It is the most expensive public school in the United States.

In 1921, Gaylord Wilshire built the 14-story Apartment Hotel (now the Gaylord Apartments) facing the Ambassador. 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 Talmadge

Norma Talmadge was an American actress and film producer of the 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 most popular idols of the American screen.Her most famous film was Smilin’ Through , but she also...

), and the Windsor. Many film stars lived in these buildings.

The Chapman Park Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard in Wilshire Center was where the female athletes were housed for the 1932 Los Angeles Summer Olympic Games

1932 Summer Olympics

The 1932 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the X Olympiad, was a major world wide multi-athletic event which was celebrated in 1932 in Los Angeles, California, United States. No other cities made a bid to host these Olympics. Held during the worldwide Great Depression, many nations...

. (The male athletes were housed at the very first Olympic Village

Olympic Village

An Olympic Village is an accommodation centre built for an Olympic Games, usually within an Olympic Park or elsewhere in a host city. Olympic Villages are built to house all participating athletes, as well as officials, athletic trainers, and other staff. Since the Munich Massacre at the 1972...

built, up in the nearby Baldwin Hills range

Baldwin Hills (mountain range)

The Baldwin Hills are a low mountain range surrounded by and rising above the Los Angeles Basin plain in central Los Angeles County, California...

, in the Baldwin Hills district.)

A recent building boom 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 Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...

's husband, Herbert Somborn, opened the Brown Derby

Brown Derby

The Brown Derby was the name of a chain of restaurants in Los Angeles, California. The first and most famous of these was shaped like a men's derby hat, an iconic image that became synonymous with the Golden Age of Hollywood....

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

Bullocks Wilshire, located at 3050 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, is a 230,000-square foot Art Deco building.-Design:...

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.

A section of Germain Pellessier's sheep farm became the site of the Pellessier Building and Wiltern Theatre

Wiltern Theatre

The Wiltern Theatre and adjacent 12-story Pellissier Building are Art Deco architectural landmarks located on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue in Los Angeles, California. The entire complex is commonly referred to as the Wiltern Center...

, which began construction at the corner of Wilshire and Western in 1929. The theater, operated by Warner Brothers, 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

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, and Washington...

opened a store in 1939 at Wilshire and New Hampshire.

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.

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

1992 Los Angeles riots

The 1992 Los Angeles Riots or South Central Riots, also known as the 1992 Los Angeles Civil Unrest were sparked on April 29, 1992, when a jury acquitted three white and one hispanic Los Angeles Police Department officers accused in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King following a...

and the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Subsequently, the Wilshire Center Streetscape Project http://www.wilshirecenter.com/live/History2.htm 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

Lady Bird Johnson

Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Taylor Johnson was First Lady of the United States from 1963 to 1969 during the presidency of her husband Lyndon B. Johnson. Throughout her life, she was an advocate for beautification of the nation's cities and highways and conservation of natural resources and made that...

Award from The National Arbor Day Foundation

National Arbor Day Foundation

The Arbor Day Foundation is the world's oldest and largest tree-planting organization. The foundation began September 3, 1971 with a mission "to inspire people to plant, nurture, and celebrate trees". The Foundation is supported by donations, selling trees and merchandise, and by corporate sponsors...

. New buildings include the Aroma Center on Wilshire, which is topped by a large digital billboard, and a modern retail building facing 6th Street on the former parking lot of the Equitable Building.

Billboard district

As of 2009, the city of Los Angeles is considering a sign ordinance that would increase the number of billboards and allow more digital billboards in Wilshire Center in the area that includes Wilshire Boulevard, with the following boundaries:

East: Park View St.

West: Wilton Place

North: W. 6th St.

South: W. 7th St.

Religious buildings

Wilshire Christian Church 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.

The area is rich in grand religious buildings, as well as many Korean Buddhist temples and smaller churches in the area as well.

Korean Philadelphia Presbyterian Church, on New Hampshire Avenue, formerly the Sinai Congregation
The Los Angeles Korean Methodist Church, at 4th and Normandie, formerly a Christian Science congregation
Immanuel Presbyterian Church (Wilshire & Berendo)
First Congregational Church of Los Angeles (6th & Commonwealth)
St James Episcopal Church (Wilshire & St Andrews)
First Baptist Church of Los Angeles (8th & Westmoreland)
St Basil's Catholic Church, a modern building, on Wilshire
Founder's Church of Religious Science
Religious Science
Religious Science, also known as Science of Mind, was established in 1927 by Ernest Holmes and is a spiritual, philosophical and metaphysical religious movement within the New Thought movement. In general, the term "Science of Mind" applies to the teachings, while the term "Religious Science"...

, on 6th Street
Wilshire Boulevard Temple
Wilshire Boulevard Temple
Wilshire Boulevard Temple, founded in 1862 as Congregation B'nai B'rith, is the oldest Jewish congregation in Los Angeles, California. One of the country’s most respected Reform congregations, Wilshire Boulevard Temple's magnificent sanctuary, with its iconic dome and Warner Murals, is a City of...

(Reform Jewish)
The Islamic Center of Southern California, a modern building, on Vermont

Community organizations

The Wilshire Center Business Improvement Corp.(WCBIC)
CRA Wilshire Center/Koreatown Citizen Advisory Committee http://www.crala.net/internet-site/Projects/Wilshire_Center/index.cfm
The Wilshire Center/Koreatown Neighborhood Council (WCKNC)] http://done.lacity.org/ncdatabase/nc_database_public/NCDetail.aspx?NCID=55

Economy

The law firm Moxon & Kobrin

Moxon & Kobrin

Moxon & Kobrin is a law firm with its headquarters located in the Wilshire Center Building in Wilshire Center, Los Angeles, California, consisting of Kendrick Moxon, Helena Kobrin, and Ava Paquette....

has its headquarters in the Wilshire Center Building in Wilshire Center.

The airline Aviacsa

Aviacsa

Consorcio Aviaxsa, S.A. de C.V., doing business as Aviacsa, is a low-cost airline of Mexico with its headquarters in Hangar 1 of Zone C on the property of Mexico City International Airport in Venustiano Carranza, Mexico City, Mexico...

had an office in Wilshire Center.

Education and services

Wilshire Center is zoned to the Los Angeles Unified School District

Los Angeles Unified School District

. All areas are zoned to Los Angeles High School

Los Angeles High School

Los Angeles High School is the oldest public high school in the Southern California Region and in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Its colors are blue and white and the teams are called the Romans....

.

Schools include:

Los Angeles Elementary School
Wilton Place Elementary School http://www.wilshirecenter.com/live/schools.htm
Berendo Middle School
Burroughs Middle School

Private schools include Wilshire Private School Wilshire Private School (a K-6 academy sponsored by the Korean Institute of Southern California) about 2 miles (3.2 km) west on the western border of Hancock Park

Hancock Park

.

The Pio Pico-Koreatown branch of the Los Angeles Public Library

Los Angeles Public Library

The Los Angeles Public Library system serves the residents of Los Angeles, California, United States. With over 6 million volumes, LAPL is one of the largest publicly funded library systems in the world. The system is overseen by a Board of Library Commissioners with five members appointed by the...

is located at 7th and Oxford Streets.

The YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles owns property at Third and Oxford Streets for a new facility, but construction has been stalled since about 2008.

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.

Geography

Names

Transportation

History

Information

Apartment buildings

Commercial

Office buildings

Billboard district

Religious buildings

Community organizations

Economy

Education and services

See also