Quote:
Originally Posted by austlar1
In the early and mid 80s, the Third Street Mall was largely a ghost town. It did have a great architectural book store, Hennessey + Ingalls, that I liked to visit. I think it became a pedestrian mall in the 1950s. but it never took off until the city put in several parking structures and a large shopping mall opened at the southern end in the late 1980s. Prior to that most of the shopping was on Colorado where a Sears store and a Buffum's (maybe it was Henshey's rather that Buffum's; my memory is vague here, but I recall a very boring mid market department store) were the major retail players. Santa Monica was a pretty sleepy place, but the beach was always crowded on weekends with folks from all over the LA Basin. The Pacific Ocean Park (POP) amusement park stood derelict just south of the Santa Monica Pier from 1967 to 1975 ( https://www.kcrw.com/culture/article...fic-ocean-park). The changes in Santa Monica took place rather quickly, and by the end of the 1980s, it was starting to be a happening place. Main Street a bit further south was still filled with empty store fronts and had a very seedy vibe until the mid 1980s. Venice was still considered kind of dicey although the area around the canals was always popular with a well established artistic/bohemian residential enclave. Residential areas north of Montana in Santa Monica have always been rather pricey and exclusive. The residential areas south of Wilshire were also pretty stable and middle to upper middle class. Downtown and the beach areas had some problems there for a while. |
I love Hennessey + Ingalls. Yes, for the longest time, they were on 3rd Street Promenade. It was nice to hang out there and look at books before waiting to see a movie. Then later on they moved to Wilshire Blvd. near the Promenade, and then some years ago they moved to the Arts District, where they still are, I believe. It's been a few years since I've been there. The space they're in is not as big as the one they used to inhabit on the Promenade.