THIS WEBSITE WAS DESIGNED AS A RESOURCE FOR STUDENTS IN A DESIGN THEORY SEMINAR
TAUGHT BY ARCHITECT GESA BUTTNER-DIAS AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY, FALL 2019
It was intended to take them on a virtual walk around the block, and give them a taste of the history of the place, largely through the people — most of them unknown — who lived and worked on or adjacent to the site in the past two hundred years.
TAUGHT BY ARCHITECT GESA BUTTNER-DIAS AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY, FALL 2019
It was intended to take them on a virtual walk around the block, and give them a taste of the history of the place, largely through the people — most of them unknown — who lived and worked on or adjacent to the site in the past two hundred years.
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The view from our fifth-floor window.
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Welcome to the largest contiguous parcel of undeveloped land in Downtown Los Angeles. It's located a block south of City Hall, at the heart of the City. Except for the 1910 Higgins Building at Second and Main which has historic landmark protection, almost the entire square block between Second and Third, Main and Spring has been acquired by a single entity, and is up for grabs.
Our research on the area's history has uncovered a cultural vortex of people who lived and worked on and adjacent to that land over the course of the past two hundred years. Many of them did work that was generous and generative: they played important roles in the development of the culture and identity of Los Angeles, our City of Angels. |
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Three more videos: Let's take a walk around the block.
"Mind Map" of the area.
1 BRIDGET "BIDDY" MASON - Third and Spring
Former slave, midwife, and landowner Biddy Mason’s homestead was at Third and Spring. She owned land throughout what is now the Civic Center, Historic Core, and Little Tokyo. She bought groceries for families in need; paid church taxes for organizations who could not sustain themselves; and founded the AME Church in her living room.
She told her granddaughter Gladys, "If you hold your hand closed, nothing good can come in. The open hand is blessed, for it gives, even as it receives."
Two Los Angeles foundations continue to do work in Biddy's name. One serves children in foster care, the other provides rich after-school programming in areas where it is not otherwise available. There's lots of information about Biddy online. Here's a post that tells her story.
2 THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BUILDING - 202 West First Street
The Times Mirror Square Complex no longer houses the newspaper. The Art Deco and Moderne buildings will be re-developed for multi-use: office and retail. The contemporary structure and adjacent garage will be demolished and replaced with a 40-story residential rental tower. Here is a description of the site from the LA Conservancy website.
3 CITY HALL - 200 North Spring Street
City Hall occupies the block between First and Temple, Main and Spring. Completed in 1928, it measures thirty-two stories, 454 feet. It's the tallest base-isolated structure in the world. Here is the description of the building from the LA Conservancy website.
4 LOS ANGELES POLICE HEADQUARTERS AND THE "DOG PARK" - 101 West First Street
The site of the LAPD headquarters, which occupies the square block between First and Second, Main and Spring was zoned to be a city park, ringed by City Hall to the north, the LA Times Building to the west, the Higgins to the east, and the extraordinary Cal Trans Building to the east, which was designed specifically to be viewed from that park. LAPD leadership was intended to be housed in a new structure on First Street in Little Tokyo, that would comprise both headquarters and a jail. The Little Tokyo community objected to the jail, so the LAPD headquarters (sans jail) was built across the street from City Hall, on the site that was intended to be a park. It opened in October 2009, replacing the infamous Parker Center, of Dragnet fame.
A one-acre lawn on the Second Street side of the LAPD, opposite the Higgins, was offered as a concession to the local community who fought long and hard for the park they'd been promised. The original lawn was lush and inviting, but within a few weeks of the building's opening then-Police Chief Bratton retired and the LAPD Foundation erected a tent over the entire lawn, which killed the grass and destroyed the irrigation system.
It was dirt for three years while the City and the Foundation battled over who was responsible to repair and reseed. During that time, the area became an unofficial dog park (police don't enforce leash law), but there's no fence, so every month or so a neighborhood dog runs into street after a ball or another dog and gets hit by a car. When dog owners approached the City Councilperson for the district and requested that the area — or a portion of it — be fenced in for safety, he responded, "We can't fence it in. It's not really a park, not even a lawn; it's a staging area for Homeland Security."
5 NEW JALISCO BAR - 245 South Main Street
For thirty years New Jalisco was a gay Latino hangout and drag bar on the down-low. In 2010, it was discovered by denizens of Occupy LA, in residence on the City Hall lawn. That's when they hung the sign pronouncing themselves the "oldest gay bar in Downtown LA." The LA Conservancy has a new initiative to protect LGBTQ landmarks, which might protect New Jalisco in the event of future development.
6 THE HIGGINS BUILDING - 108 West Second Street
Completed in 1910, the Higgins Building was built by copper magnate Thomas J. Higgins, who brought his fortune to Los Angeles with the intent of making his mark on the burgeoning metropolis. His first project was the Bisby Hotel on Third Street. Renamed the St. George, it is a model residence for people who have struggled to find permanent housing, with onsite counseling and services.
An immigrant, Thomas J. Higgins was a noted philanthropist, extending support to organizations in the US and his native Ireland. He endowed college educations for hundreds of first-generation Irish immigrants, supported Boyle Heights Orphanage, St. Thomas's Church in Pico Heights, and St. Vincent's College. When the Higgins Building opened, it housed offices for the Catholic Archdiocese and the IRA, as well as the Women's Progressive League, who held teas on the rooftop.
Hugely innovative, the Higgins Building was the first engineering project of AC Martin whose firm and descendants continue to make their mark on LA architecture. It was designed with natural air conditioning, using a ventilation shaft that allowed sunshine and fresh air to filter into offices. The Los Angeles Times reported in 2006: "The building's grand size, marble-lined hallways, zinc-lined doors and window frames, black-and-white mosaic tile lobby and 'wholesome and healthful' water -- purified through filters in the sub-basement -- attracted prominent businesses.”
The Higgins Building basement contained the city's first privately owned power plant. General Petroleum occupied six floors of the building for 15 years beginning in 1934. The building also housed the Los Angeles County Engineer Department for 25 years from 1952 until 1977. In addition to its engineer AC Martin, Sr., previous tenants included Clarence Darrow as well as the chancery office of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
7 THE SMELL - 247 South Main (enter from Harlem Place)
The Smell is an all-ages punk rock/noise/experimental venue in Downtown Los Angeles, California. The Smell, notable for its DIY ethic, is home to many of the area's avant-garde performers and artists. You can read about the Smell in a 2007 article in the New Yorker.
8 SAINT VIBIANA CATHEDRAL - 214 South Main Street
Little is known about the third-century virgin and martyr Saint Vibiana, whose remains were discovered in Roman catacombs in 1853, just in time for Pope Pius IX to use them as the anchor for building the Church in the newly stated California.
Vibiana was an early Christian Martyr. She died about 250 AD. We know that she was a virgin because a "V" was written after the name on her tomb, and a palm branch was also engraved thereon, signifying that she died a martyr to the Christian faith. Her remains were discovered in the ancient catacombs of Rome in 1850. Soon after that, the Bishop of the Diocese of Monterey, which included Los Angeles, asked the Pope for a holy relic to take back to the growing Catholic region of California. The Pope agreed to give them the remains of SAINT VIBIANA under the condition that the Bishop would make her the Patron Saint of the area, which he did. Her remains were secured in the downtown Cathedral which bears her name until they were carefully removed for safekeeping until the new Cathedral was finished in 2002. Though the new Cathedral would be named Our Lady Queen of the Angels for Mary, a special chapel would be built in SAINT VIBIANA's name.
Here's a link to a short video clip from my performance of Saint Vibiana Pray4US.
9 LINDA LEA THEATRE - 251 South Main Street
Originally a vaudeville house called the Arrow Theatre. By 1942 it had been renamed Aztec Theatre. In 1945 it was renamed the Linda Lea Theatre, and was re-purposed as a cinema for Japanese-language films, which closed in the mid-1980’s. In 2006 to 2007, the theatre underwent drastic renovation by ImaginAsian Entertainment. The renovation opened on December 1, 2007 as a showcase for Asian and Asian-American features as well as film festivals and live events. Since 2008, it has been known as the Downtown Independent Theatre.
No one seems know who Linda Lea, was, or if there was ever a Linda Lea. Some say she was a Japanese-American bandleader in the 1920s. A more credible story is that the theatre was purchased by a Chinese American, who reopened it in 1945, and named it after his wife. Linda Lea is more likely a Chinese name than Japanese. Still looking.
10 MAIN STREET GYM - 218 South
The Main Street Gym, on the edge of skid row, was the rattiest workout venue in the city (some said the world), but it also was the most famous. "World Rated Boxers Train Here Daily" read a sign at the entrance.
There were other gyms in the city, but none had Main Street's reputation. At various times, fabled champions Rocky Marciano, Floyd Patterson, Jack Dempsey, Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay), Joe Frazier, Jim Jeffries and Sugar Ray Robinson trained there.
Here's a link to a short video clip of my performance of Don't Flinch!! filmed on the former site off the Main Street Gym, now a parking lot, ringed by a tent city. And here's a great article from the LA Times.
11 BRONZEVILLE
From the Little Tokyo Service Center website: Bronzeville in downtown Los Angeles existed for about three short years in the 1940s. The area known as Little Tokyo transformed into the African American enclave of Bronzeville during World War II after Japanese Americans were evicted from their West Coast homes and placed into United States confinement camps.
12 LITTLE TOKYO
Los Angeles's Japantown. The Wikipedia article, written by the community, is good.
13 TONGVA LAND
The Gabrieliño-Tongva people were here long before European settlers. They were the stewards of all this land. Here's a Brief History of LA's Indigenous Tongva People.
14 SISTER SYLVIA'S SOUL PATROL, 1945-1958 - 118 Winston
Sister Sylvia Creswell opened a hostel for World War II vets who wound up on Skid Row. Crowned "Queen of Skid Row, little is known about her. This article is what I got.
15 INDIAN ALLEY, 1960-1977 - 118 Winston
Baba Cooper took over at 118 Winston, and started American Indian Involvement, a hostel and labor hall for Native Americans, who flocked to LA after being evicted from their lands during Relocation. Many of them would up on Skid Row. Here's a slideshow of recent murals on Indian Alley, commemorating American Indian Involvement.
The Arcane History of 118 Winston - Part 1
The Arcane History of 118 Winston - Part 2
OTHER USEFUL CITY OF LOS ANGELES RESOURCES
NAVIGATE LA, a project of the Bureau of Engineering, is a great resource for information on a site in LA. You can search by parcel address, and then you can select different map backgrounds etc.
https://navigatela.lacity.org/navigatela/
For building footprints and heights:
http://geohub.lacity.org/datasets/813fcefde1f64b209103107b26a8909f_0?geometry=-118.254%2C34.049%2C-118.238%2C34.052
For age of buildings (unfortunately, map is not complete, so not really useful.)
http://cityhubla.github.io/LA_Building_Age/#12.9/34.0521/-118.2545
For parcel outlines, as recorded with the assessor:
http://maps.assessor.lacounty.gov/Geocortex/Essentials/REST/sites/PAIS/VirtualDirectory/AssessorMaps/ViewMap.html?val=5149-007
http://maps.assessor.lacounty.gov/Geocortex/Essentials/REST/sites/PAIS/VirtualDirectory/AssessorMaps/ViewMap.html?val=5149-006
On Zimas, we can use different background maps, see screen shot below.
Gesa assembled a set of plans at different scales in this PDF.
Former slave, midwife, and landowner Biddy Mason’s homestead was at Third and Spring. She owned land throughout what is now the Civic Center, Historic Core, and Little Tokyo. She bought groceries for families in need; paid church taxes for organizations who could not sustain themselves; and founded the AME Church in her living room.
She told her granddaughter Gladys, "If you hold your hand closed, nothing good can come in. The open hand is blessed, for it gives, even as it receives."
Two Los Angeles foundations continue to do work in Biddy's name. One serves children in foster care, the other provides rich after-school programming in areas where it is not otherwise available. There's lots of information about Biddy online. Here's a post that tells her story.
2 THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BUILDING - 202 West First Street
The Times Mirror Square Complex no longer houses the newspaper. The Art Deco and Moderne buildings will be re-developed for multi-use: office and retail. The contemporary structure and adjacent garage will be demolished and replaced with a 40-story residential rental tower. Here is a description of the site from the LA Conservancy website.
3 CITY HALL - 200 North Spring Street
City Hall occupies the block between First and Temple, Main and Spring. Completed in 1928, it measures thirty-two stories, 454 feet. It's the tallest base-isolated structure in the world. Here is the description of the building from the LA Conservancy website.
4 LOS ANGELES POLICE HEADQUARTERS AND THE "DOG PARK" - 101 West First Street
The site of the LAPD headquarters, which occupies the square block between First and Second, Main and Spring was zoned to be a city park, ringed by City Hall to the north, the LA Times Building to the west, the Higgins to the east, and the extraordinary Cal Trans Building to the east, which was designed specifically to be viewed from that park. LAPD leadership was intended to be housed in a new structure on First Street in Little Tokyo, that would comprise both headquarters and a jail. The Little Tokyo community objected to the jail, so the LAPD headquarters (sans jail) was built across the street from City Hall, on the site that was intended to be a park. It opened in October 2009, replacing the infamous Parker Center, of Dragnet fame.
A one-acre lawn on the Second Street side of the LAPD, opposite the Higgins, was offered as a concession to the local community who fought long and hard for the park they'd been promised. The original lawn was lush and inviting, but within a few weeks of the building's opening then-Police Chief Bratton retired and the LAPD Foundation erected a tent over the entire lawn, which killed the grass and destroyed the irrigation system.
It was dirt for three years while the City and the Foundation battled over who was responsible to repair and reseed. During that time, the area became an unofficial dog park (police don't enforce leash law), but there's no fence, so every month or so a neighborhood dog runs into street after a ball or another dog and gets hit by a car. When dog owners approached the City Councilperson for the district and requested that the area — or a portion of it — be fenced in for safety, he responded, "We can't fence it in. It's not really a park, not even a lawn; it's a staging area for Homeland Security."
5 NEW JALISCO BAR - 245 South Main Street
For thirty years New Jalisco was a gay Latino hangout and drag bar on the down-low. In 2010, it was discovered by denizens of Occupy LA, in residence on the City Hall lawn. That's when they hung the sign pronouncing themselves the "oldest gay bar in Downtown LA." The LA Conservancy has a new initiative to protect LGBTQ landmarks, which might protect New Jalisco in the event of future development.
6 THE HIGGINS BUILDING - 108 West Second Street
Completed in 1910, the Higgins Building was built by copper magnate Thomas J. Higgins, who brought his fortune to Los Angeles with the intent of making his mark on the burgeoning metropolis. His first project was the Bisby Hotel on Third Street. Renamed the St. George, it is a model residence for people who have struggled to find permanent housing, with onsite counseling and services.
An immigrant, Thomas J. Higgins was a noted philanthropist, extending support to organizations in the US and his native Ireland. He endowed college educations for hundreds of first-generation Irish immigrants, supported Boyle Heights Orphanage, St. Thomas's Church in Pico Heights, and St. Vincent's College. When the Higgins Building opened, it housed offices for the Catholic Archdiocese and the IRA, as well as the Women's Progressive League, who held teas on the rooftop.
Hugely innovative, the Higgins Building was the first engineering project of AC Martin whose firm and descendants continue to make their mark on LA architecture. It was designed with natural air conditioning, using a ventilation shaft that allowed sunshine and fresh air to filter into offices. The Los Angeles Times reported in 2006: "The building's grand size, marble-lined hallways, zinc-lined doors and window frames, black-and-white mosaic tile lobby and 'wholesome and healthful' water -- purified through filters in the sub-basement -- attracted prominent businesses.”
The Higgins Building basement contained the city's first privately owned power plant. General Petroleum occupied six floors of the building for 15 years beginning in 1934. The building also housed the Los Angeles County Engineer Department for 25 years from 1952 until 1977. In addition to its engineer AC Martin, Sr., previous tenants included Clarence Darrow as well as the chancery office of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
7 THE SMELL - 247 South Main (enter from Harlem Place)
The Smell is an all-ages punk rock/noise/experimental venue in Downtown Los Angeles, California. The Smell, notable for its DIY ethic, is home to many of the area's avant-garde performers and artists. You can read about the Smell in a 2007 article in the New Yorker.
8 SAINT VIBIANA CATHEDRAL - 214 South Main Street
Little is known about the third-century virgin and martyr Saint Vibiana, whose remains were discovered in Roman catacombs in 1853, just in time for Pope Pius IX to use them as the anchor for building the Church in the newly stated California.
Vibiana was an early Christian Martyr. She died about 250 AD. We know that she was a virgin because a "V" was written after the name on her tomb, and a palm branch was also engraved thereon, signifying that she died a martyr to the Christian faith. Her remains were discovered in the ancient catacombs of Rome in 1850. Soon after that, the Bishop of the Diocese of Monterey, which included Los Angeles, asked the Pope for a holy relic to take back to the growing Catholic region of California. The Pope agreed to give them the remains of SAINT VIBIANA under the condition that the Bishop would make her the Patron Saint of the area, which he did. Her remains were secured in the downtown Cathedral which bears her name until they were carefully removed for safekeeping until the new Cathedral was finished in 2002. Though the new Cathedral would be named Our Lady Queen of the Angels for Mary, a special chapel would be built in SAINT VIBIANA's name.
Here's a link to a short video clip from my performance of Saint Vibiana Pray4US.
9 LINDA LEA THEATRE - 251 South Main Street
Originally a vaudeville house called the Arrow Theatre. By 1942 it had been renamed Aztec Theatre. In 1945 it was renamed the Linda Lea Theatre, and was re-purposed as a cinema for Japanese-language films, which closed in the mid-1980’s. In 2006 to 2007, the theatre underwent drastic renovation by ImaginAsian Entertainment. The renovation opened on December 1, 2007 as a showcase for Asian and Asian-American features as well as film festivals and live events. Since 2008, it has been known as the Downtown Independent Theatre.
No one seems know who Linda Lea, was, or if there was ever a Linda Lea. Some say she was a Japanese-American bandleader in the 1920s. A more credible story is that the theatre was purchased by a Chinese American, who reopened it in 1945, and named it after his wife. Linda Lea is more likely a Chinese name than Japanese. Still looking.
10 MAIN STREET GYM - 218 South
The Main Street Gym, on the edge of skid row, was the rattiest workout venue in the city (some said the world), but it also was the most famous. "World Rated Boxers Train Here Daily" read a sign at the entrance.
There were other gyms in the city, but none had Main Street's reputation. At various times, fabled champions Rocky Marciano, Floyd Patterson, Jack Dempsey, Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay), Joe Frazier, Jim Jeffries and Sugar Ray Robinson trained there.
Here's a link to a short video clip of my performance of Don't Flinch!! filmed on the former site off the Main Street Gym, now a parking lot, ringed by a tent city. And here's a great article from the LA Times.
11 BRONZEVILLE
From the Little Tokyo Service Center website: Bronzeville in downtown Los Angeles existed for about three short years in the 1940s. The area known as Little Tokyo transformed into the African American enclave of Bronzeville during World War II after Japanese Americans were evicted from their West Coast homes and placed into United States confinement camps.
12 LITTLE TOKYO
Los Angeles's Japantown. The Wikipedia article, written by the community, is good.
13 TONGVA LAND
The Gabrieliño-Tongva people were here long before European settlers. They were the stewards of all this land. Here's a Brief History of LA's Indigenous Tongva People.
14 SISTER SYLVIA'S SOUL PATROL, 1945-1958 - 118 Winston
Sister Sylvia Creswell opened a hostel for World War II vets who wound up on Skid Row. Crowned "Queen of Skid Row, little is known about her. This article is what I got.
15 INDIAN ALLEY, 1960-1977 - 118 Winston
Baba Cooper took over at 118 Winston, and started American Indian Involvement, a hostel and labor hall for Native Americans, who flocked to LA after being evicted from their lands during Relocation. Many of them would up on Skid Row. Here's a slideshow of recent murals on Indian Alley, commemorating American Indian Involvement.
The Arcane History of 118 Winston - Part 1
The Arcane History of 118 Winston - Part 2
OTHER USEFUL CITY OF LOS ANGELES RESOURCES
NAVIGATE LA, a project of the Bureau of Engineering, is a great resource for information on a site in LA. You can search by parcel address, and then you can select different map backgrounds etc.
https://navigatela.lacity.org/navigatela/
For building footprints and heights:
http://geohub.lacity.org/datasets/813fcefde1f64b209103107b26a8909f_0?geometry=-118.254%2C34.049%2C-118.238%2C34.052
For age of buildings (unfortunately, map is not complete, so not really useful.)
http://cityhubla.github.io/LA_Building_Age/#12.9/34.0521/-118.2545
For parcel outlines, as recorded with the assessor:
http://maps.assessor.lacounty.gov/Geocortex/Essentials/REST/sites/PAIS/VirtualDirectory/AssessorMaps/ViewMap.html?val=5149-007
http://maps.assessor.lacounty.gov/Geocortex/Essentials/REST/sites/PAIS/VirtualDirectory/AssessorMaps/ViewMap.html?val=5149-006
On Zimas, we can use different background maps, see screen shot below.
Gesa assembled a set of plans at different scales in this PDF.
